Of the older ones among us that were the pioneers of the internet, most will have memories of eBay in its early days. My earliest memory of it would’ve been around 2003 as we didn’t get internet access at home until around 2005. I remember borrowing my Grandfathers laptop and browsing listings, there were no businesses on there it was just average people selling their unwanted belongings as it was originally intended.
Fast forward today and you have to set up a search specifically just to find a private seller. The majority are “businesses” (in the loosest sense of the definition) reselling things can be purchased for a 5th of the price on Chinese market places such as Temu and Aliexpress.
eBay seem hell bent on ruining their marketplace through poor decisions over the years. Pushing buyers and sellers away in their droves. I’ll list a few that come to mind:
- Charging ever increasing selling fees.
- Forcing all payments through their platform, and charging higher payment fees.
- Siding with the buyer regardless of the situation, leaving honest sellers out of pocket.
- Promoting alternative sellers items on a product listing, drawing attention away from the item that was clicked on toward a sponsored listing.
- The entirety of the Global Shipping Programme. This abomination has left buyers and sellers all over the world frustrated and out of pocket through sheer incompetence.
- Packlink shipping. They act as a broker for different couriers but when a shipment goes wrong neither of the parties will take responsibility.
I could go on.
The latest nail in the metaphorical coffin is the abolishing of the seller fees. This was in response to a loss of traffic due to Vinted. Vinted offer zero selling fees and put the onus on the buyer to pay for a “Buyer protection fee”, which in effect is just paying the platform tax.
For a brief period of around a month eBay experienced a new golden era. Sellers sold their items with no fees, and buyers paid no fees. Sellers got paid immediately and could withdraw funds at any time. However this was not to last.
Not satisfied with ad revenue and sponsored listing income eBay tried to follow Vinted’s footsteps and implement buyer fees, buy of course in a much worse way. As of Feb 2025 if you now go onto eBay and search for anything you will see all the prices look a little strange. Where an item was £9.99, you’ll now see an item at £10.76. This is because eBay have slid their fees into the selling price of the item. The seller still listed their item for £9.99 but now it looks like they’ve priced it higher.
The honest way for eBay to implement this would have been to state the original price, and then clearly state their fees which make up the total. Interestingly this fee only applies to private sellers. Seemingly another effort to push out entire market they’re promoting themselves to. To stand any chance of competing with the droves of business sellers on eBay the private seller will realistically have to lower their asking price to incorporate eBay’s slice of the pie.
To make matters worse eBay have made a change to how sellers get paid. Payments will now be held until a confirmed delivery is made, based on the tracking number. In the case of a collection or untracked delivery they will hold payment for 14 days. This leaves sellers out of pocket when they need to pay for postage, and they will not have the money for the item that is no longer in their possession.
I think we are witnessing the end of eBay’s 30 year run, at least eBay as we know it. One of the first big websites, a household name and a hobby and a passion for many coming to an end. If the company does survive their truly dreadful decision makers latest blunder it will not be as we know it. We can expect more of the Amazon esque off brand products, a search that is fed by the highest bidder and algorithms and an ever worsening user interface.
Truly a shame.
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