Facebook will start charging Marketplace sellers that choose to send items directly to other consumers instead of hand them over.
The option to offer delivery rather than just collection, which was first introduced last month, is currently free but will carry a 2 per cent charge on the selling price as of next year.
Sellers must still pay delivery costs themselves but will see a fee levied. Unlike some rivals, Marketplace has always been entirely free for sellers but this is soon to change.
Facebook says the move will give buyers more choice, and enable sellers to reach more people, while the fee – deducted from sales – will help cover the cost of customer support and purchase protection.
Facebook Marketplace will start charging customers who want to deliver items to a buyer
Sellers will still be able to avoid this charge come January via Facebook’s collection-only option, which will continue to have no added fees.
However, it is perhaps unsurprising it is to start charging as its competitors have long been asking for money from sellers.
It may also be due to the increase of people buying and selling items online since the pandemic.
This is Money takes a look at how much other similar services charge their customers.
Marketplace’s biggest rival, Ebay, currently charges customers to list and sell items.
Private sellers can list for free on eBay but after they’ve used their monthly allocation of 1,000 free listings, they will be charged 35p for each new listing created.
Customers then pay one final value fee for items they sell on eBay without having to worry about third party payment processing fees.
The final value fee is calculated as 12.8 per cent of the total amount of the sale.
This includes the item price, postage, taxes and any other applicable fees plus a fixed charge of 30p per order.
If the total amount of the sale is over £2,500 for a single item, customers will pay three per cent for the portion of the sale price above £2,500.
Ebay & Amazon have long been charging customers who list and sell items on their sites
Amazon Marketplace has both an individual and a professional set of prices.
The individual account is for customers that sell fewer than 35 items a month and don’t plan to advertise or use advanced selling tools.
This costs £0.75, excluding VAT, per item sold plus additional selling fees.
Meanwhile, for the professional accounts, this costs £25, excluding VAT, per month plus additional selling fees.
This is for those people who sell more than 35 items a month, want to advertise their products and want to qualify for top placement on product detail pages.
Professional accounts are also for those who want to use advanced selling tools and want to sell products in restricted categories.
For every item sold, selling partners also pay Amazon a percentage of the total price.
This includes item price, shipping cost, and any gift-wrapping charges or a minimum amount, whichever is greater.
There are also referral fees which are in addition to the above selling plan fees.
For each category, the price is different. For example, for books, music, VHS and DVD sales, customers will pay a 15.3 per cent referral fee.
Meanwhile, for jewellery, the fee is 20.4 per cent for the portion of the total sales price up to £225 and 5.1 per cent for any portion of the total sales price greater than £225.
Shopping: Buying and selling items online has become even more popular since the pandemic
Gumtree is free to use and sell on, however, there is the option to promote items.
Prices differ depending on whether you’re posting as a private individual or a business, the category you’re posting in and where you are.
There are also different categories including urgent, featured and spotlight, which gives users various amounts of coverage.
Meanwhile, businesses are charged a small fee to post ads and use features.
Unfortunately, there is no set pricing model available so it will be up to individual users to find out how much it could cost.
Meanwhile, anyone looking to sell clothes on Depop will be subject to a 10 per cent fee.
The fee will be deducted through your PayPal or Depop Payments account with customers possibly seeing some variations on when the fee is deducted if sold via PayPal, however this will always be deducted up to 21 days after sale.
There will also be a standard transaction fee of around 2.9 per cent plus £0.30 across Paypal and Depop Payments.
There may be variations based on your location and PayPal account set up.
If you’re using a Ship With Depop label, the cost of the shipping label will also be taken with the Depop fee.