eBay has long had something called “eBay Bucks” which give you a small percentage of the amount of your purchase for a future purchase. They have made some changes to it over time but today they have announced the biggest change so far.
eBay Bonus Bucks Changing
The earning used to be 2% of the purchase price back as eBay Bucks for future purchases. Once they hit your account, you had one month to use the credit. Occasionally, they came out with bonus offers, even up to 10%.
After a while, they cut the daily earning to 1% but still ran some bonus offers, typically around 5% back. This was still nice when you had a major purchase as you could earn an extra 4% if you bought on eBay during the bonus promo.
With even major retailers starting to sell on eBay at Buy-It-Now prices, it has been easy to just head over to eBay to buy things that you may otherwise buy in stores. Having even just the 1% was a nice way to get a little extra on the purchase.
But, as of April 1, eBay is doing away with the 1% earnings on everyday purchases. Instead, they will still run bonus opportunities as well as extending the life of bonus points credit to 12 months instead of one month.
eBay’s Statement
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After careful consideration, we’ve decided to retire the 1% earnings reward on everyday purchases starting April 1st, 2021. The good news is, you will continue to receive bonus Bucks offers, so you can keep earning. |
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And, beginning April 1st, the Bucks you earn will have a 12-month redemption window, so there’s even more time to score those big savings. |
While not a blow to most, it is just one more reason for many to steer away from eBay. Money products (like gold and gift cards) have not counted for eBay Bucks in a while, sales tax is charged for most on eBay now, and, if you are a buyer, you need to be constantly on alert for scammers like this.
Just be aware going forward that you won’t get that 1% earning on regular purchases as of April 1, 2021.
Idk what the appeal is of eBay. They’ve really mismanaged the company over the last decade.
As a seller, it’s so expensive (10% fee + payment fee + other fees) it costs similarly to Amazon. But on every mark of actual value, It’s subpar.
As a buyer, there’s no particularly compelling reason to shop on eBay. They don’t even have a rewards program anymore. The site is complicated.
Amazon can treat sellers poorly because they own the delivery infrastructure that makes them indispensable. They treat buyers so well there is a rationale to the way the system works.
eBay just doesn’t do any of that very well. One short term blunder after another.
There’s a reason offer up and Mercari and all these other sites exist. It’s because eBay is so incredibly bad at what it’s supposed to do. They just became a front for aliexpress but do it worse than Amazon.
Definitely agree with you. When I do have to sell things, I activate an eBay store for like $24 which cuts the final value fee in half. That helps but they have definitely been treating buyers far worse than years before.
What is an example of these “bonus Bucks offers” the company is touting instead of eBay Bucks?
They run promos every so often of 5% eBay Bucks and things like that. They will continue that but there will no longer be regular earning rates of 1%.
Ebay is good for buying used items. You can get some good deals on occasion. On new items, it is unusual to get a better deal than Amazon, but once in a while it can occur. For every Ebay item I buy, I probably buy 5 Amazons.
I truly love eBay. But, without question eBay is one of the poorest managed / ran online marketplaces out there. It won’t be long tell Etsy takes over eBay.. This is all to sad as it used to be the golden child for all online shopping. Amazon is much simpler to use, they give you 3 day shipping, and without question a buyer can return a purchase for whatever reason. It’s easier to use as well.
I’am 100% confident that Matt could run eBay better than their current CEO and help change the game for them. His comments were spot on and clearly has a better sense of what the problem is and how they are lagging behind the competitors than the entire management team.
It is funny to me that ebay would make this decision. Thought i don’t necessarily disagree but only if they have a lot more bonus buck times (I seriously Doubt this is the case). For me if I’m not getting at least 5% bonus bucks, then I’m spending my money on amazon. where I get better service support and the products are typically cheaper, as a lot of sellers use amazon as there warehouse and have to pay ebay and amazon fees. I typically spend a couple of thousand dollars on ebay each month and get 150.00 to 200 back in ebay bucks which makes up for dealing withe the ebay thieves guild. With out that incentive my money will inevitably and unfortunately end up in Jeff Bezos wallet.
unless the are planning on doing more bonus buck promo (I seriously Doubt that is the case)