On the 4-year anniversary of breaking up with PayPal, eBay sent an email to additional sellers inviting them into its own managed payments service that will become mandatory for all sellers by 2021. Included in the July 15 email was bad news regarding payment-processing fees - eBay will start charging a per-listing transaction fee beginning October 1, 2019.
We wrote about the new fee in mid-May, but some sellers were taken by surprise when they received Monday's missive from eBay. "As a seller who typically sells multiple different items on an order, this is going to be a huge increase in cost once eBay forces everyone onto managed payments," a seller wrote on the
eBay discussion boards.
The seller explained, "On a communication I received today from eBay, I learned they are going to charge a transaction fee of $0.25 for each different item on a customer order - where PayPal only charges me one $0.25 fee for the entire order. For example I had a $31.45 order yesterday, with 7 line items. My PayPal fees were $1.16 - with managed payments my fees would have been $2.60. I'm just sick about this."
Prior to May 21, there was no mention of a per-listing fee, and as recently as April eBay said that most sellers could expect lower costs using managed payments.
Sellers who opted in to managed payments prior to June 4th will be grandfathered into the old rates. But that was a source of contention for some sellers:
"...User agreement aside, how is it reasonable to charge sellers .25 per listing more than early MP enrollies if you would not allow ALL sellers access to MP? Then if they turned it down too bad for them,"
one seller wrote. (eBay's terms still state, "Eligibility to have your payments managed by eBay Commerce is by invitation only.")
Some sellers have difficulty with the concept of a "per listing" transaction fee, and indeed, it's unique to eBay. PayPal, for example, charges a "per transaction" fee. An eBay moderator on social media explained how the per-listing fee would work:
"If two items are purchased from you for a single listing, one payment listing fee is charged of $0.25. If two items are purchased from you from different listings, two payment listing fees are charged of $0.25."
Also as of today, eBay can begin rolling out managed payments to a second market according to the terms of its operating agreements entered into with PayPal in 2015, and in April, eBay revealed it had chosen Germany.
eBay Germany set up a page announcing managed payments in April and began allowing sellers to register their interest in joining the program.
For those not yet familiar with managed payments, eBay explains in a FAQ: "With eBay managing payments, you'll use your eBay account to sell, and you'll need to provide a bank account into which your funds will be deposited. As an eBay seller, you'll need to have a relationship only with eBay, rather than with both eBay and a payment provider. Your buyers will be able to choose how they'd like to pay, as they can at any other online retailer, and the payment processor will not be visible to them."
eBay managed payments can be seen as a legacy of former eBay CEO John Donahoe who was unable to fend off activist investor Carl Icahn, the architect of the eBay-PayPal split.
eBay to Institute New Managed Payment Fee on October 1
by: toolguy 
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by: Map