eBay payments have been running a Low Cost Items promotion in the UK since August 2020 which expires on the 23rd of February next week. In good news for those that are invited, their is a new promotion starting on the 24th of February and running until the end of the year on 31st December 2021.
This is good news for those that have been using the promotion, although it’s short notice and we know some sellers have already migrated their listings to selling multiple items in the expectation that the incentive would end on the 23rd of November. If that’s you, then keep your amended listings but you can also add back in single quantities and enjoy the discounted feed.
Somewhat reminiscent of PayPal Micropayments, the eBay Low Cost Items promotion offers 15% fees but crucially a 5p fixed fee for each transaction. It’s the higher fixed fee that makes economics unviable for low ASP items, even with a lower final value percentage, but the lower 5p fixed fee makes the number stack up.
To take part eBay Business sellers must have been invited to participate and actively opted in via the RSVP link in the promotional email or their own Seller Hub page no later than midnight on the 21st February 2021. Participation is linked to the seller’s account and is not transferable.
Sellers invited to participate in the Promotion and who receive the promotional email, will be selected on a random basis from the group of sellers meeting the criteria. For sellers who have not registered for managed payments, opted-in to the promotion, or do not get activated for managed payments by the start of the Promotion Period, the Standard FVF applies.
Don’t forget, the promotional 15% FVF plus 5p fixed charge will apply to ALL transactions during the promotional period on opted in accounts. If you want to run some sales of low cost goods unthe the Low Cost Items promotion and sell others with the normal fee schedule then you’ll need to run two eBay selling accounts.
Full details of the Low Cost Items promotion for those invited are available on eBay.
7 Responses
Interesting, have taken part in the 1st promotion but not been invited to the 2nd!
Does anyone have the details of the last “Low Cost Fees” offer? I seem to remember doing the maths last time and it didn’t seem worthwhile unless I was selling 99p items. This was seems a better offer for anything less than £10.
It’s exactly the same offer bar the dates
1st one https://cloud.forbusiness.ebay.com/low_cost_items
2nd one https://cloud.forbusiness.ebay.com/low_cost_items_2021
What price is a low cost item, my average price sale price is around £5-6 , will this promotion benefit me ?
Roughly, the break even point in a 10.9% category is around £6. For a 12.9% category it’s more like £11.
This is nice if you sell almost entirely goods under the £6 mark.
We sell a portfolio of products; many low priced, but a few much more expensive. I’ve just done the maths; if we just sign up for it, we would save around £1.80 on fees across a typical month. If we split the SKU’s over £6 into a new account, we’d save around £25. But of course, a new account wouldn’t have the history and traction of our current account (which we’ve had for about 15 years and has good feedback and metrics).
So on balance, it likely works out about even. We’ll probably lose sales of lower-priced items, but they are low-profit high-volume lines, and that is where all the non-delivery claims come from anyway, as buyers are usually unwilling to pay for Tracked delivery.
And bear in mind it’s still by invitation only. I wanted to activate it on my clearance account to sell lower value items, but it won’t let me because I haven’t had the invite on the 2nd ID.