eBay Fee Hike Going into Effect for International Selling

An eBay fee hike is going into effect for UK members selling to other European countries. Business sellers in the UK will see an increase in international fees for Eurozone and Northern Europe, which will go from 0.5% to 1.05%, exclusive of VAT.

Non-business sellers in the UK (“private” sellers) will see an increase in those fees, which will go from 0.6% to 1.26%, inclusive of VAT at 20%.

The fees apply to orders for sellers with a registered address in the UK going to a delivery address (as entered by the buyer at checkout) in Eurozone and Northern Europe countries.

UK sellers also currently pay fees to shipments going to other countries – 1.8% to US and Canada, and 2% to all other countries. Those fees do not appear to be changing.

The higher eBay international fees will take effect on January 1, 2022, regardless of when the item was listed, relisted, or renewed. Sellers do not need to make any changes to their preferences to continue selling to Eurozone and Northern Europe countries if they are already selling to those locations.

So can UK sellers prevent receiving orders from buyers who specify a delivery address in those locations? Not entirely, according to the advice offered in the announcement: “You can also update your preferences to reduce the chances of international buyers purchasing from you.”

eBay defined Eurozone countries as follows: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.

And it defined Northern European countries as follows: Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden.

The fees apply regardless of whether sellers handle international postage themselves or through the eBay Global Shipping Program (GSP).

eBay provided instructions to UK sellers on how to manage postage settings to edit countries they don’t ship to, as well as instructions on how to exclude Eurozone and Northern European countries for those sellers who use its Global Shipping Program.

eBay announced the fee hike on the UK Seller Announcement board on Thursday.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.