Martin Lewis’ MSE urges eBay sellers to act fast ahead of major fee change

15 March 2024 , 11:24

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eBay is to hike is sellers fees from April 8 (Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)

Martin Lewis' MSE has issued a warning to anyone who uses eBay - as sellers are set to face even higher fees.

A post on the MoneySavingExpert.com Twitter/X account shared that the second hand selling website will be hiking its sales fees from April 8 from the current 12.8% to 13.22% - with 30p on top. eBay says the fees are due to "rising regulatory operating costs".

According to the MSE team, if you flog an item for £20 with £5 postage, you will need to pay £3.60 in fees up from the £3.50 you pay now. To try and beat the hike, the MSE team urged sellers to sell up what they can before the changes are introduced. However, even the new fees are introduced from April 8 and this will be on sales - so even if the item was listed before this date if it doesn't sell until after the change, you will pay the new fees.

The warning post read: "More fee hikes - this time it's eBay. From Monday 8 April, selling charges go up, so sell what you can sooner to beat it. After the hike, if you flog an item for £20 with £5 postage, you'll pay £3.60 in fees instead of £3.50 now."

The post linked to an article on the MSE website which further details the changes and how they would impact you. If you want to sell on eBay, you can put up to 1,000 items up for sale each month for free however after this you have to pay a 35p listing charge for each item. From April the final value fee will be 13.22% plus postage from April and the final seller fee is reduced to 3% if the sale for a single item is over £5,000.

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The fees are usually deducted automatically from your sales by eBay before you receive your payments. This is usually directly into your bank account within four working days. This means in most cases you dispatch items and pay for postage before you have the cash in your account. MSE warns that you will also be charged fees for cash-in-hand items by debiting the fee from the "preferred" account you've listed on its records.

Ruby Flanagan