eBay has effectively placed a buyer’s premium on sales from private vendors with the introduction of its Buyer Protection scheme.
The online platform, which recently made selling free for private vendors, will charge buyers a sliding scale of fees from February 4.
Called Buyer Protection, the charge is calculated as a flat fee of £0.75 per item plus 4% of the item price up to £300, and 2% of any portion of the item price from £300 up to £4000. An item ‘sold’ at £500 would thus incur fees of £16.75 and a bill at checkout of £516.75.
When listing an item at a fixed price, the Buyer Protection fee amount will be added to the listing price. For UK-based private sellers, the fee will immediately be added to all existing Buy-It-Now listings early next month.
eBay brings in buyer’s fees scheme