Ebay plus a joke

[lizd160904]

I know it's early days, but based on what I see, there is no way in hell I'll be paying for Ebay Plus. I buy a lot and have a large watch list and have noticed that the only sellers offering it.... are those that had free shipping already! lol and of course we know there is no such thing, it's factored in to the price.

So it's all a farce to get people to pay $29, $49 after the first year to get free shipping off sellers who offered it prior to Ebay PLus anyway. Not only single seller I use who charges postage now has the Plus. And here was the Ebay chief saying they were doing it to increase online shopping. Yeah whatever dude....

[digital*ghost]

I don't want my items qualifying for eBay Plus, but I had a look and some of them are.

I charge postage separately on all items.

[springyzone]

It's the first I have heard of Ebay plus but I am gathering 2 things about it. It seems

-to offer free postage & guaranteeed free returns, but only for sellers who have opted into the system

-many of the sellers who have opted in were offering free postage anyway on their items.

I can tell you where I think they copied this idea from. Catch.

There's a system there where you pay a yearly fee and most items (for purchases over $50) are then sent free. Plus there is a section of exclusive offers for catch subscribers, where several items have further mark downs.

I subscribe to the catch membership but would not think of it for ebay.

The difference for me is simple. That is, if you buy a reasonable amount over the year, then you will make genuine savings in postage & you see those savings every time you make a purchase as it adds the postage but then subtracts it. And it covers just about every item on sale at the site.

They can offer it because most everything comes from their own warehouse. Anything coming separately from a manufacturer incurrs a separate postage cost & i can tell you that kills some sales as far as i am concerned & I look for an alternative product, usually because the last few items where it has applied have been small ones with high postage so not worth it.

Even on catch, I look through my purchases each year to check I have got at least my subscription cost back.

[collect247]

No buyer is going to pay to join end of story,as lyndal said she buys from sellers that already offer free postage like most of us do.

[springyzone]

Most buyers won't be interested because not all sellers are covered plus-many sellers on ebay already offer free postage.

So the system won't have the same appeal as on other sites where postage is always charged if you aren't in their special postage discount group.

[collect247]

Just looking into it more and more and I'm finding out that the sellers won't be forking out for these ebayplus benefits.

For example the return postage will be paid by ebay to the buyer as in a free return postage label.

Watch this space for more details lol.

[digital*ghost]

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@springyzone wrote:

It's the first I have heard of Ebay plus but I am gathering 2 things about it. It seems

-to offer free postage & guaranteeed free returns, but only for sellers who have opted into the system

-many of the sellers who have opted in were offering free postage anyway on their items.

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Sellers can not opt in or out of "Plus", unfortunately.

eBay just decide which listings they'll offer it on, and the only way for a listing not to qualify is if the seller and item doesn't meet eBay's standards, or the seller doesn't offer change of mind returns.

If you are a top rated seller with a good history of customer satisfaction, then the only way you can 'opt out' of Plus is to switch to no returns. 

I am not happy about it at all, there are things that Plus entails that I do not want being offered to my buyers in any way whatsoever, and the fact that eBay pays for the initial postage charge (where applicable) and return postage for COM returns doesn't negate the potential abuse it leaves me open for, but I'd rather not switch to "no returns" either, as that is an option I want on my items. They have also put it on my more expensive listings. 

[springyzone]

Wow, I didn't realise ebay was imposing it on some seller items. I wouldn't be happy either.

Now let me get this straight. A buyer pays a yearly premium in order to save on postage costs. That's what this ebay plus is?

The only way that would work is if an item actually had postage costs. People (or at least this applies to me) want to see exactly what they are saving when they pay for any scheme like this.

Let's face it, if you paid over your $29 or whatever to get free postage for a year, you wouldn't be that impressed to buy an item that was already listed as free postage anyway.

Nor would you be that happy to pay the premium & then find it applied to hardly any items on ebay. You'd want it applying to a wide range of goods.

The bit about free returns might be a motivator if you bought a lot of shoes or clothes on ebay-but again, only if the ebay plus tag applied to quite a lot of items.

Up to now, ebay seems to have pushed sellers along the path of offering free postage but if ebay plus took off, wouldn't you get people more inclined to look for things with postage separate/ eg if 2 identical items were on sale, one $10 with free post, one at $6 plus $4 postage & ebay plus, you'd go for the $6 one.

Call me cynical but if it takes off (& I'm not at all sure it will), I can't see ebay paying for free return postage willy nilly, not for long & not if some buyers over used the option.

[springyzone]

Just had a look through my watch list-which admittedly is only 2 pages long these days, but did not see ebay plus applying to anything there. Quite a few charged postage separate & the items are very different, from cheap to more expensive.

But no ebay plus candidates in my list at least so i would not bother opting in.

It will be interesting to see how it goes as had I not read this htread, i would not even know it existed.

[lyndal1838]

If I was going to join the scheme I would want free postage on the items I want to buy, not the items ebay thinks I should buy.

If there are going to be extra inducements such as discount vouchers offered to members then I can foresee these offers drying up for non members.  At $49 a year you would need to be a fairly prolific buyer to get your money's worth....it is not for the one or two items a month buyers.

[digital*ghost]

To be honest, if it were just eBay covering postage costs, I'd have no problem with eBay Plus. It's other stuff that concerns me and makes me want to adjust my listings to opt out. (I'm being intentionally coy about this because my concerns come from the information provided to sellers, and I feel it's best left out of the public forums - I will PM any of the regulars who are interested to know my reservations, though - you can leave a comment here or contact me, and I'll respond when I can 🙂 ). 

You're right, though. The major advantages for the average buyer are free post and free change of mind returns on items where they would otherwise be responsible for paying the cost, so they have (intentionally or not) introduced an incentive for sellers to switch to separate postage costs.

I suspect, though, that plus is primarily being introduced on items where the sellers have a very low rate of returns.