Selling on Ebay is now significantly cheaper for private individuals. The online platform abolished previously applicable fees in March 2023.
Until now, private sellers on Ebay had to pay a fee for creating their ads and give part of the sales price to the sales platform as a commission. But as of March 1, Ebay abolished these fees. Private individuals can therefore buy and sell goods free of charge.
Ebay promises better business from the elimination of fees
The fee has been a hurdle for many people so far. Not only did they have to pay the listing fee of 35 cents per advertisement, they also had to cede around 11 percent of the sales price achieved as commission. Private sellers in particular therefore often use alternative platforms such as classified ads, where posting and selling are generally free of charge. As part of the pilot project that has now started, Ebay would like to try out how the elimination of fees and commissions will affect the use of the online platform. The project is only running in Germany and only for private sellers. Commercial users must continue to pay the usual listing fees.
Overall, Ebay Germany expects better business from the changeover in the medium term, although the company will initially forego sales. According to the managing director of Ebay Germany, Oliver Klinck, the elimination of fees for private sales is an investment in the future. “We see that private sellers are also much more active as buyers. Those who sell on Ebay also shop twice as much as buyers who only shop.” They spend more than twice as much as other customers. If the calculation works out, Ebay would like to introduce the model in other countries as well.
Also read: The 5 most common scams on Ebay – and how to protect yourself
Ebay Classifieds remains unaffected by the adjustment
However, the decision has no impact on Ebay classifieds, which has around 40 million visitors a month. On the one hand, since private users do not have to pay any fees here anyway. On the other hand, since Ebay already sold the portal to the Norwegian operator Adevinta in 2021 for 9.2 billion dollars. One would like to make the separation from Ebay clearer by separating the names. Accordingly, Ebay classifieds should then only be called classifieds. This step was originally supposed to take place in the summer of 2022, but the website is still listed on Ebay today.