eBay UK goes free to sell for Private Sellers

eBay UK have just announced it is now free to sell for private sellers across all categories, except motors (Cars, Motorcycles & Vehicles listings). This means that private sellers will no longer pay final value fees or regulatory operating fees when they sell on eBay.

Private sellers will still pay some fees – for instance if they opt to use Promoted Listings or an International Fee for overseas sales. Also, you may recall eBay recently reduced the number of free listings for Private sellers from 1,000 to 300.

Going free to sell looks very timely – there are so many alternative sites out there ranging from Facebook Marketplace (essentially free local classified ads) to Vinted and Depop and eBay has to compete. And, it’s worth pointing out that eBay has a much more complete offering with payments, shipping, and eBay Money Back Guarantee built in as standard, as well as being able to sell nationwide or even worldwide.

eBay is constantly improving the marketplace experience in order to deliver on what our customers want. Removing selling fees across categories is designed to give buyers access to greater breadth and depth of inventory, while creating a simplified and streamlined experience for sellers.

– Kirsty Keoghan, GM, eBay UK

Streamlining consumer selling

eBay UK introduced free to sell in the fashion categories earlier this year and is now evolving the experience even further to foster a more streamlined and safe selling platform. These new features include:

• Simplified Selling: Sellers can list items across categories within minutes using guidance about the best pricing and shipping options, alongside AI-generated descriptions and photo-enhancing tools.
• Simple Delivery: This service, currently being rolled out across categories, offers sellers a tracked and fully covered delivery at competitive rates, prepaid by the buyer, for a simple and secure shipping experience.
• Local: eBay Local lets shoppers find nearby items available for in-person collection, all protected by eBay’s Money Back Guarantee. Sellers’ listings will have increased visibility with local buyers, along with an easy and secure payment process.
• eBay Balance: Starting from mid-October, this new feature gives sellers the flexibility to use their earnings to shop on eBay, promote their listings, purchase delivery labels or withdraw available funds.

Fun Money to spend on eBay

The eBay Balance is for me one of the most critical parts of the news announced by eBay today. Looking back to the days of PayPal, whenever I sold something on eBay my PayPal balance didn’t feel like real money – it was fun money that I could re-spend on eBay without having to worry about budget. This is a key change which should drive buyers to spend on eBay more frequently than if they have to check their bank balance before spending.

How selling increases consumer spend on eBay

After eBay Germany removed selling fees last year, C2C volume in Germany returned to positive growth, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of incremental GMV relative to eBay’s prior trajectory and more people start selling on eBay:

• New customers started selling on eBay
• More than 250,000 sellers started buying
• They ended up buying twice as much as buyers who don’t sell, illustrating how free selling drives holistic growth.
• 80% of the time, they were buying from business sellers

eBay UK has also already seen positive results since its launch of free fashion selling and AI-powered listings in April this year. As of Q2, there has been a 20-point increase in consumer satisfaction for users of the new selling flow, a reduction in average listing time, and an increase in listings and sold items per seller.

Benefits for eBay Business Sellers

eBay are also adding new features and services to support business sellers:

• Better protection against fraudulent returns: eBay are dedicating additional customer support to
  address fraudulent returns more effectively, ensuring faster and simpler resolutions. You’ll also get
  more credits for the cost of postage if a buyer falsely claims that an item is not as described.
• Free 1:1 advice with Seller Clinics: Just book a call and you can connect with a Marketplace Advisor
  for personalised advice on any topic related to your business.

Steps to address false private sellers

At eBay, we are dedicated to ensuring a fair and equitable marketplace for all business sellers. To achieve this, we monitor trading activities, and we’ll continuously help business sellers using a private account to transition to a business account, or restrict selling activity as necessary. In addition, we’ve reduced the number of free listings available to private sellers.

Over the next few months, we’ll be ramping up our marketing initiatives to highlight the benefits of using eBay for both sellers and buyers, and showcase what makes it such a unique marketplace. Our goal is to continuously attract new customers and ensure they receive exceptional service.

– eBay

Over the next few months, expect to see eBay be ramping up marketing initiatives to highlight the benefits of using eBay for both sellers and buyers, and showcase what makes it such a unique marketplace. Their goal is to continuously attract new customers and ensure they receive exceptional service and eBay will be looking to make the most of seasonal buying (and selling!) in the run up to Black Friday and the Christmas period.