25% off FVF with free P&P for media sellers
30/10/2008 at 11:24
eBay are reducing the final value fees for items sold in media categories by 25% for the whole of November and December when free postage is offered.
Sellers will need to offer free domestic P&P to qualify for the discounts. Free P&P will become compulsory from 27th January for DVD’s with maximum rates set for other media items.
In order to qualify the first domestic postage needs to be set with a cost of £0.00, although other premium services (such as recorded or special delivery) can be charged as can International post.
It’s important to realise that increasing prices to include postage in the buy it now price is likely to affect placement in Best Match and will lose any Recent Sales boost in search results. In this case “Free” postage really does need to be “Free”. However if you’re launching new listings or using the auction format you can take full advantage by rationalising your prices to build postage costs in.
There seems little doubt that eBay will move towards capped or free postage for many categories on the site. For sellers who will have to offer free P&P or reduce their shipping rates at the end of January a 25% discount on FVF is the perfect incentive to make the changes now rather than wait until they’re forced to in the New Year.
Richard says
2:00 pm on 30/10/2008
Let me see, £5 CD is 45p in FVF’s. minimum 1st class is 78p (that doesn’t even take packaging into consideration) and ebay will give me 25% off the Final Value Fee that’s 12p.
Put your price up and get disadvantaged in search, yeah great idea, it’s also being dishonest to your buyers too. Free P&P should be just that, if I want to take the hit on margin to clear old stock fine. But I will not have eBay tell buyers that it’s free when it’s not. I do wish eBay would stop pretending to be a retailer, it’s not, it’s a service provider and should act like one.
FenLex says
3:15 pm on 30/10/2008
Yet more micromanaging!
faculty-x says
4:16 pm on 30/10/2008
eh…
so if ebay give you a 25% discount to include the say £1.50 P+P on the listing you going to be better of and so is ebay as a whole.
£5.00 fees & 9% 0.45
£6.50 fees @ 9% 0.59 / 25% = 0.43
your slightly better off and searching ebay for dvd is lots better off, may even look there instead of amazon now i dont have to wade through lots of differnt price structures for a single product.
cant wait for the whole site to be P+P
no more combining postgae issues etc and everything is easy to search for by price and the Chinese etc sellers are put on an even footing with us.
Richard says
6:09 pm on 30/10/2008
#3, That’s not free P&P, that inclusive P&P, there’s a difference and that’s the point I keep hammering home.
eBay are trying to tell the public it’s free and that’s how they’ll promote it.It’s “inclusive” promoting any other way is dishonest and that’s the bottom line. Sorry, but that’s not how I do business.They really have no clue if they think eBay sellers can swallow free P&P over their entire range.
Find me a single DVD seller that’s going to offer genuine free P&P and not put the prices up on eBay and I’ll show you an idiot who’ll be out of business in weeks, can’t be done. If eBay was a retailer it would know this as Amazon already do.
Jimbo says
6:44 pm on 30/10/2008
#5 Technically you may be right but in my opinion to market inclusive postage as free postage is not a great sin. That’s how marketing works.
Amazon have “Free Postage” as a perk of subscription.
FenLex says
8:10 pm on 30/10/2008
Calling inclusive postage “free” may not be a sin (great or otherwise) but it might involve a breach of the recently introduced Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regs – it’s another untested issue but the risk exists and has to be borne in mind.
For those of a theological or moral philosophical bent, it’s not a mala in se but it might possibly be a mala prohibita!
Jimbo says
8:43 pm on 30/10/2008
#6 Can we have that in English please?
FenLex says
9:00 pm on 30/10/2008
OK: it might be against the law, but – even if it is – it’s only illegal not immoral.
Jimbo: I was agreeing with you about it not being a sin!
Jimbo says
9:09 pm on 30/10/2008
Great
I thought you had called me a plonker 
Ed (BuildaSkill) says
3:40 am on 31/10/2008
I might be wrong here (or at least slightly confused) but under combined UK legislations, surely there is a requirement to either -
A – Offer a product for 28/30 days with a displayed P&P before removing the P&P and displaying only the original price before advertising the item as “free” P&P – i.e. no increase over the item price when P&P was quoted.
or
B – Offer a product available for collection or delivery at the same price, WITH a delivery price for extraordinary delivery requirements, as opposed to a “free delivery” price with discount for collection by buyer.
As I said – not sure, it’s a bit of a minefield area right now. Particularly as this year’s new laws settle in and Trading Standards press test cases through the courts.
Ed
faculty-x says
10:29 am on 31/10/2008
i can swallow free p+p because the margins are good, if you increase you margins on DVD’s then you can take the free p+p hit.
can not see how that is illegal, would be an interesting test case.
makes me laugh, but i am sad innit…
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/pringles-ruling-means-theyre-vatfree-860326.html
Craig says
5:40 pm on 08/11/2008
I think P&p should be scrapped on ebay. It makes sense to have prices inclusive of p&p, there is less confusion for the buyer.
I do agree though, this measure will lead to the above not free p&p. Ebay is not doing this to entice buyers, rather ,to stop sellers working around fvf.
Craig says
5:42 pm on 08/11/2008
Sorry double post.