New ways eBay is making life hard for occasional private sellers

[missbelz15]

Am I the only one offended by eBay's grabbing the buyers money and telling sellers "Trust us  you have been paid" go ahead and send the item now but with no sign of the money in our accounts . And then several days later they own up to having received the money and will send it on to us minus their fees of course in a day or so.

Further to this they are charging us the paypal 3.5% even though the money doesn't go to paypal at all but eventually , to our bank account perhaps 5 or 6 days after the payment was made.

Am I just being picky about this or do others think even by eBay standards this is over the top.

[sugar249]

Yes you are being picky

[twyngwyn]

just go to "search all content" ^^^ and search 'Managed Payments'......see you in a week 🙂

[janeababe]

You have two choices.

(1) …keep selling and putting up with eBay’s standards/rules/ unethical withholding of your money. 

(2) …stop selling on eBay.

I chose option (2), years ago, but I told you that on your OTHER post that’s identical to this one 😉

[bmanly3]

Before managed payments I was paying around 13.9% with ebay and PayPal fees. Now I am paying around 13.4% fees. Now I don't worry or care about how the customer pays me as ebay looks after it and it is ever so slightly cheaper now too. Before I had to check both ebay and PayPal and make manual withdrawals from PayPal, now it is automatic.

If you have sold an item and you are worried if you have been paid then check it on ebay at: Seller Hub, then payments. Then you can clearly see what has been paid for. What I notice is that on day 1 of sale it says processing, on day 2 it says processing, then on day 3 funds sent. Around day 4 it drops directly into my bank account.

Generally I think the whole process has been simplified, no more checking PayPal. You just need to get use to it, cheers.

[sugar249]

Exactly.

Plus I have found my book keeping and reconciliation are 200% easier,

[p9games]

This may blow your mind, but I don't think Ebay WANTS occasional private sellers.  The days of Ebay being the online classified ads are long gone.  Gumtree and FB fill that niche.  It's a grubby, and relatively unsophisticated market and hard to make money on when Gumtree and FB is free for sellers.

Ebay, as a platform, is open to all sorts of APIs and compatible with an impressive array of platforms.  It has evolved to being (arguably) the best 3rd party platform for operating at scale.  Ebay make money when larger sellers really invest in the platform - build integrated systems and business practices around it.  Not from people selling unwanted wedding gifts, personal items and so on.

[sugar249]

This may blow your mind, but people have being saying this for umpteen years,  if Ebay really wanted that they could turn of the ability for that overnight.

[digital*ghost]

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@missbelz15 wrote:

Am I the only one offended by eBay's grabbing the buyers money and telling sellers "Trust us  you have been paid" go ahead and send the item now but with no sign of the money in our accounts .

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This isn't really what's happening.

There is a sign of the money in your payment account, it shows as "processing" for 24 hours or so, then shows as available for transfer out. People don't think of eBay as a financial entity, so I guess it's going to take a while to get used to, but if you receive a cheque, deposit it, your balance immediately jumps up by the deposit amount, however generally takes a few days to become available to spend - would you also call that "no sign of the money"? 

I'm not saying the system is better or worse than what we had before, though I understand some people do find it worse, not many seem to find it better, and the delay to having accessible funds can be inconvenient, so in that regard, I understand why a lot of people don't like the system... But at the same time, this kind of system isn't new or different for a lot of sellers, too. eBay is actually a bit behind the times in so far as adopting this system, so if you're not overwhelmed with fellow offendees, it's probably because a large percentage of sellers are pretty apathetic to the whole thing, now. 

[4channel]

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@missbelz15 wrote:
Am I the only one offended by eBay's grabbing the buyers money and telling sellers "Trust us you have been paid" go ahead and send the item now but with no sign of the money in our accounts . And then several days later they own up to having received the money and will send it on to us minus their fees of course in a day or so.

Further to this they are charging us the paypal 3.5% even though the money doesn't go to paypal at all but eventually , to our bank account perhaps 5 or 6 days after the payment was made.

Am I just being picky about this or do others think even by eBay standards this is over the top.

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Great post missbelz15 and I easily can understand where you're coming from!  You are not being picky or over the top. What you have said is true! In the early days it was the occasional private sellers that helped get eBay up and running. These private sellers were also buyers.

When I start selling again, mainly because of the need to down size, it will probably be elsewhere.

It's good that someone such as yourself has the guts to come forth and say their piece. Good on you.