eBay UK Managed Payments Q&A

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Since the news broke about eBay Managed Payments there have been a lot of questions which we are gathering together in this post as an Managed Payments Q&A.

We don’t know the answers to everything and, even where we’ve sourced an answer from eBay Payments information published in the US or Germany, there’s no certainty that eBay Payments will roll out in the UK in exactly the same form. However so many people are asking questions directly on Tamebay or via email and Facebook we’ve collated all the information we can:

Managed Payments Q&A

Registering

Do I have to change to eBay UK Managed Payments?

Not yet, currently the program is not live but hopefully it is an attractive enough proposition that you’ll be up for expressing interest. It’s not due to go live before the Summer and then sooner or later it is likely to be mandatory with the majority of eBay UK business sellers migrated by the end of the year.

Our advice would be to express interest in early adoption and if it’s suitable for your business move over well before Q4 which is the time of year you least want any disruption to your business.

How do I express interest in signing up?

If you are an eBay business seller and interested in being one of the first to move to the new eBay payments experience you can express your interest here.

Does expressing interest sign me up?

No. Expressing interest is just that. It means you may be invited to sign up early or if features are not quite ready that you need to run your business you won’t be forced to move to eBay payments straight away.

Getting your money

How often can I withdraw my money/can I let it mount up to spend later?

eBay UK have said “you’ll get payouts directly deposited into your bank account as well as payout scheduling options”. This means you can no longer save money in your PayPal account to spend on eBay – it’ll automatically be transferred to your bank account and you’ll have to wait for it to arrive before you spend it.

eBay have told both US and German users “your withdrawals will be transferred directly to your bank account, and you can choose between daily and weekly withdrawals of the available amounts”.

How long will it take to get my money?

eBay have told US users “We consistently initiate payouts to the bank account on file within 2 business days of an order confirmation, regardless of how the buyer paid.”

Can I buy shipping with sales proceeds?

There has been no mechanism in the US or Germany for instantly accessing your sales proceeds to buy shipping labels but it’s coming. If you use eBay shipping you will soon be able to deduct shipping label costs from pending payouts. If you buy shipping labels from a courier or shipping consolidator you’ll need funds in your bank account to do this and probably don’t want to wait for sale proceeds to clear into your account from eBay.

Accounts

I have one eBay account with two PayPal accounts, can I continue to split payments?

This is a more common situation that you might thing – a seller might have one regular PayPal account and a second micropayments account for example. Under eBay Payments there will be one settlement per eBay account.

I have multiple eBay accounts and one PayPal account, can I combine payments?

No, in the future you’ll have one settlement from each eBay account you own.

Will PayPal payments go into my own PayPal account?

No, eBay will use their own PayPal account and you won’t have visibility of the payment method (PayPal, credit/debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or other e.g. direct debit in Germany) that the buyer uses. Your money will be transferred to your bank account after the sale.

Will eBay Payments work with my accounting software?

We’re don’t know the answer to this yet but it’s a very basic finance function. Let us know in comments below which accounting package you currently use with PayPal and we’ll ask the question.

Fees

What are the fees/are their tiered rates/what about micropayments?

There is no news on fees for eBay UK Managed payments yet. As soon as we hear anything we’ll let you know. eBay have said however that the majority of sellers will save money and out of the $2 Billion processed to date sellers enrolled have saved around $10 million in fees as of the end of Q4 2019.

Is there a per item transaction fee (rather than per order)

Jordan Sweetnam promised to look into this and we’ll update as soon as fees are revealed.

Will I pay PayPal fees and eBay Payment fees?

No, eBay will pay any PayPal or other fees that they incur. You’ll pay the agreed eBay Payments fees (yet to be revealed).

How will fees be charged?

We don’t yet know as eBay haven’t as yet released any information regarding fees. However one Tamebay reader pointed out that Adyen power both Etsy Payments as well as the new eBay Payments, saying: “I love the fact that Etsy deduct the fees from the pot at the same time so I do hope they will follow suit with this, so much easier and much more straightforward instead of paying a massive fee bill”. Equally it could be monthly billing so we’ll update you as soon as news is out.

Shipping & Returns

Will Global Shipping be supported?

eBay have told US users that the Global Shipping Program will be supported from early Spring. However in the short term there’s the question of what happens with cross border selling, for instance if you sell in the UK, and France how will a French buyer pay? If you list in the UK with separate listings on eBay France the chances are you’ll have to add eBay Payments to your UK listing and PayPal to your French listing.

Will returns windows reduce from the 180 days PayPal offers to the 30 days eBay requires

One of the many benefits of eBay UK Managed Payments we are expecting is an end to conflicting policies.

How will return refunds be funded if eBay have transferred the money to my bank account?

Good question, perhaps from future sales, perhaps direct debit or card held on record? We’ll update you as soon as eBay share more news.

If we have to process a refund, will we get our fees back?

Yet to be revealed.

Finance and Loans

Will PayPal Working Capital be supported?

eBay say “If you have existing business loans, including PayPal Working Capital loans, you can still enable managed payments with eBay. We advise you to reach out to PayPal to discuss your options.”

We’ve emailed PayPal to ask for their opinion and will update when they reply.

In the meantime, eBay also say “Many additional options for working capital loans and business financing solutions are available to manage your existing business debt in a way that is compatible with eBay managed payments.”

25 Responses

  1. Apart from adding to seller’s expenses and ebay’s profits why is this change happening? There is no benefit to seller’s business efficiency and there’s a delay in receiving funds.

  2. Will I pay PayPal fees and eBay Payment fees?
    No, eBay will pay any PayPal or other fees that they incur. You’ll pay the agreed eBay Payments fees (yet to be revealed).

    I look forward to hearing what that is…not

  3. If we have to process a refund, will we get our fees back?
    Yet to be revealed.

    Roughly translated to no

  4. This surely means that anyone who keeps their Paypal account for other sales outside eBay, (e.g. their own website) may lose their volume seller discounts and therefore see an increase in fees.
    For sellers who enjoy a decent fee rate for high monthly sales, this will be another potentially significant cost of transferring to Managed Payments..

  5. Wow and there is the first eBay theft. From the system brought in especially for us lovely sellers that ebay treat so well because it was noit brought in for them to make more money was it?????????

    They will take all Paypal purchases meaning they will get the lowest rate ever available by paypal due to the volume of transactions yet make a damn big chunk off the seller as you can be really sure you will not get that rate.

  6. one Tamebay reader pointed out that Adyen power both Etsy Payments as well as the new eBay Payments, saying: “I love the fact that Etsy deduct the fees from the pot at the same time so I do hope they will follow suit with this, so much easier and much more straightforward instead of paying a massive fee bill”.’

    surely for any accounting purposes (inc accounting software required for hmrc making tax digital) this would need to be billed/shown separately to the seller so the payment fees can be claimed as a business expense?

  7. oh ok. so is that part of the billing statement then? eg the monthly billing you get shows what you have been charged to sell something on etsy and also what you have been charged fee-wise for payments you have recieved as a seller on etsy?

  8. I considered it a rip-off when eBay & PayPal were forced to “divorce” and split up. I can’t recall the name of the Board member who kept pushing this until the other Board members caved and went along with this. Europeans outsmarted this double dipping fee schedule and are skipping PayPal. They are saving Millions. I am not upset with Europe. I think we should follow suit.

  9. What will happens if a buyer uses Paypal and can they still claim not as described to ebay after the return period?

  10. Will eBay Payments work with my accounting software?

    We’re don’t know the answer to this yet but it’s a very basic finance function. Let us know in comments below which accounting package you currently use with PayPal and we’ll ask the question.’

    i use freeagent accounting software with paypal. work seemlessly together. would appreciate you asking the question for me please. thanks

  11. So no more convenient postage label printing through PayPal!
    On top of that we have to check bank accounts to see if payment has actually been received. Not to mention increased banking fees. There is simply no end to greed!
    Sellers world wide should stop trading for 1 day!

  12. I ‘m really anxious about this system. I cannot see it being a good thing.
    I am a decent sized business , I get the maximum discount from paypal 1.9% transaction fee and many of my orders (about 30%) are for multi item transactions. I am in sector where customers need a selection of items to do the task in hand so it is expected. Firstly if I have to move up to 2.6% fee that is bad. If each and every item in an order attracts 0.24p as opposed to the single order fee with paypal, that is also very bad. If the proceeds of sales have the channel fees deducted this is far less attractive for tax purposes as I will need to pay for software to feed that properly into our accounts to calculate VAT and fees (expenses) properly. Reconciling this style of financial transaction is more troublesome. I won’t appreciate my money being tied up in a 3rd party and whilst this won’t cause my business too much pain it does not surprise me that it is problematic for other sellers.
    At the moment all our fees to ebay are paid by paypal, linked to an amex card which rewards the business with enough amex points to buy a holiday each year for a staff member. (Froma bout £15k if fees annually) When forced on to managed payments it would seem this is no longer going to be possible.
    When we saw our amazon sales rise by 45% last year, this year we have seen our ebay sales stay the same (although we are a rapidly expanding business in a growing sector) which implies the ebay platform is not growing well and it does not surprise me to hear other sellers having problems which personally I attribute to the horrendous amount of sponsered junk polluting the first 3-5 positions. There is no point in joining the sponsered progam, apart from the cost, most consumers are savvy enough to know that sponsered items are likely to be junk and then ignore that seller. It does mean we miss out on less experienced customers buying less value propositions. Hardly a win for the customer though, they are more likely to go to amazon having been stung with over expensive sponsored paying junk.
    We already turned our attention to amazon because of the sponsered bumping, i am glad we did but i guess we will continue in that direction.
    I use Kashflow so I hope their decent paypal import will adapt to something ebay oriented. I certainly don’t want to mix in 30-100 transactions a day into my business bank account activity, that would be a reconciliation nightmare and whilst I could open another bank account just for ebay, that will cos a monthly bank account fee as well.
    Overall not happy at all with this news.

  13. Yes bet the PayPal rate charged to sellers will be around the same as it is now and they get a superb bulk rate, passing this onto the seller?? Have you lost your marbles? Ker-Ching! Shareholder’s happy.

    It’s the same with the mail label printing through eBay, no volume discounts passed on there either. The thought of such preposterousness!

    Why muck up something that works! Of course not enough Ker-Ching! It’ll be bust from day one with the inevitable infernal tweaking v creaking. Time to Pay and Pray.

  14. Soon Ebay will have run out of places to add fees and bleed sellers it will just be left with good old fee hikes. No stealth areas left.

    I did some digging and if a buyer starts a case out side of ebays return time but within Paypals it is ebays responsibility to refund and accept the pain.
    You deal was with eBay and nothing to do with paypal.
    Unless you sign an agreement to allow eBay to act on your behalf. Legally any cards or payment methods they add to your listing is their choice and therefore their responsibilty.
    The same with returns any item that arrives back damaged in any way is nothing to do with you as damage in transit is between courier and shipper.

    You just need to let the return escalate till ebay provide the buyer with a returns label then the contract is between eBay and the carrier.

    As every carrier in the UK and i daresay wider afield has the T&C’s that the sender (whoever buys the label) has checked the item and carefully packed it ensuring it is sufficiently protected for the journey. So when it arrives damaged any claim can only be made by eBay who agreed the parcel was packed as such (but they lied as they have never seen it.
    Ever drug runner in the UK can now send packages from north to south as an eBay return as they sorted out its transport and agreed when they purchased the label that the item was exactly what it says it is.

    They may twist sellers but they cannot twist the law.

  15. They did on a £185 item they authorised which arrived smashed it took 6 messages and a threat to show the world how a return authorised by them was their responsibilty and they immediately paid up.

    Bring on the handwash

  16. The invisible hand of the market. Supply and demand. Dirty words it seems when eBay want to be nice.

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