In at least some markets, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, eBay appears to be introducing a bold new strategy to encourage people to list their used products on eBay, including luxury timepieces. While there are plenty of ways to buy watches online, there aren’t as many clear ways to sell watches if you want to minimize selling fees. As part of my ongoing study of timepiece consumption and consumer behavior habits, I have noticed that there is increasing demand for tools (marketplaces, essentially) that allow consumers to directly sell their pre-owned watches to other consumers, as opposed to first selling those watches to retailers and other resellers. That means people have unwanted watches that could easily go to other homes if only the owners of those watches had a relatively efficient way of selling those watches to other consumers. eBay has always been one of the best tools for this, and now the company appears to be introducing a new fee structure to make peer-to-peer sales on the platform more attractive and compelling.

Note that, as of this writing, none of this news applies to eBay’s largest market, the United States. News of eBay’s updated policy regarding the removal of many seller fees was announced on the eBay UK website. The news focuses on the fact that, for private sellers, listing and selling many items on eBay will not incur any seller fees — which, for watches (and I think this is different by market), is around 13% of the final sale price. eBay UK joins eBay Germany in offering direct incentives for consumers to list their watches (and other items) on the large platform. Note that the United Kingdom and Germany are eBay’s largest markets in Europe, so it makes sense that eBay would not only pay special attention to these markets but also try new things there.

A savings of around 13% should entice a lot more people in these two markets to list their watches on eBay, even in just a few markets like England and Germany. Note that, depending on the category, eBay’s seller fees are different, and I don’t think this new policy applies to eBay Automotive. In any event, eBay provides a fair bit of value with those fees, including eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee program (where applicable), as well as a lot of back-end protections for buyers and sellers. That said, eBay has seen competition from a number of niche markets that focus more narrowly on specialized goods like fashion, watches, or other higher-end items that have a resale market. These marketplaces have attempted to nip at eBay in areas where it feels like the giant doesn’t serve communities as well. eBay, with its better technology, more listings, and larger reach, is not one to sit idly and has intelligently fought back to ensure that it has the most competitive online resale platform. Doing this correctly is a complicated dance that involves different policies, not only per category but often per country. eBay does an enormous amount of hidden work to make its system and process work smoothly and efficiently, but also so that it can be agile enough to respond to market forces.

Part of eBay’s initiative of removing private seller fees also corresponds with its returned focus on getting regular people to list their unwanted goods on eBay. In the early 2000s, eBay originally focused on encouraging people to use eBay to sell items to other folks like them. This is distinct from people buying from dealers or stores on eBay, for example. Now again, eBay is refocusing on local initiatives that encourage people to use its platform to sell items that don’t necessarily need to be shipped long distances or even out of town. More so, they want to remove barriers to people listing their items on eBay, since the health of any active marketplace is the number and variety of the items listed on that marketplace at any given time. eBay believes that to encourage more peer-to-peer buying behavior on the platform, the first step is to make sure they remove as many barriers as possible to people initially listing their items on the platform. This is a boom for watch enthusiasts (especially those living in the UK or Germany) because it offers private sellers a new and efficient way of promoting their pre-owned timepieces to other buyers like them, on the world’s largest such platform.

As a publicly traded company with many moving parts, eBay only has a limited ability to communicate around the context of such important decisions. At this time, there are no current plans to roll out seller fee-free transactions to other markets outside of the UK and Germany. More important is what will happen in 2025, which is the second part of eBay’s reduction of seller fees plan.

At first, the benefit of removing many seller fees will mean that more private sellers will list their items on eBay. eBay probably hopes there will be an overall lift to platform performance from the increased engagement and attention. More listing means more eyeballs and more eyeballs probably means more completed transactions. But there is no corresponding mechanism that allows eBay to recoup lost fees on the other end, as buyers have traditionally not had to pay a fee for using the eBay platform to make transactions.

In 2025, eBay will roll out a new buyer fee program that shifts the cost of private seller transactions to the buyer and away from the seller. Details of such fees have not yet been announced; these fees will not apply to the United States market. According to eBay, in early 2025, it will introduce a buyer-facing fee in the United Kingdom. That fee is supposed to come with a set of “buyer enhancements that provide additional value.” eBay probably reasons that the fair price of used goods posted on eBay without seller fees (in the UK and Germany, that is) will lead to more attractive pricing that will prompt more consumer purchases. Even if those consumers purchasing the used goods need to pay a fee, eBay probably has determined that the consumer is still paying less than if buying new or if trying to purchase from a different item reselling platform. We will have to wait until that time in 2025 to see exactly what eBay’s plans are for a buyer-facing fee, what features come with it, and how it will affect the overall competitiveness of the platform.

For now, eBay wristwatch buyers and private sellers in the UK and Germany have a unique opportunity to take advantage of being able to sell watches and keep more of the sale price. Up to around 13% more, which is meaningful. It is also interesting to see how small adjustments to a major platform like eBay can have a big impact on the wristwatch hobby. Lucky you if you live in Germany or the United Kingdom and want to sell your watch on eBay at the end of 2024 and into 2025. Learn more at eBay UK here and eBay Germany.