Status: 02/28/2023 07:27 a.m
Until now, anyone who wanted to sell something on Ebay had to pay a listing fee and give commission to the platform. That should change from March 1st: Ebay wants to remove the fees for private sellers.
The online trading platform Ebay will no longer charge any listing fees or sales commissions for private sales in Germany. With the elimination of costs, the biggest hurdle that consumers have seen when selling via EBay.de is eliminated, the company in Kleinmachnow near Berlin explained.
The regulation applies indefinitely, but only in Germany. After the USA and Great Britain, Germany is the company’s third largest sales region worldwide. The new regulation will apply from next Wednesday (March 1st).
35 cents and eleven percent
So far, sellers have had to cede around eleven percent of their proceeds to Ebay as a commission. In addition, there is a setting fee of 35 euro cents. Nothing changes in the costs for commercial providers. According to Ebay, commercial sales make up the majority of trade on the platform at around 80 percent.
The managing director of Ebay Germany, Oliver Klinck, said that the elimination of fees for private sales is an investment by Ebay Germany in the entire marketplace business: the incentive of private sales is driving the business of private sales, expanding the variety of offers on Ebay Germany and thus increase the attractiveness of the marketplace.
Benefits for sellers and Ebay itself
The cancellation of fees should also pay off for the platform itself. “We see that the private sellers are also much more active as buyers. Those who sell on eBay also shop twice as much as the buyers who only buy.”
Klinck said the initiative also fits in with the current economic environment: “We live in a time when many families don’t have money in their wallets.” Due to the energy crisis and inflation, for example, there is a “great need in Germany to generate additional income through private sales”.