Why is ebay so hard to sell on now

[jmt1981]

I remember when i first started on my first account back in 2005, it was so easy to sell things, it didn't really matter what it was, you could post it on auction and it would sell within a week or two maximum and you'd get quite a few bidders and a reasonable price, i remember when the fraud started in about 2008/09, i had a lot a lot of people buying things and saying they had never had them and you'd have to file a claim with the post office, especially people from mexico and UK buyers, i remember as i sold internationally then, i closed that down when we left the EU because i knew nobody would bid on anything due to the added customs fees, i stopped buying internationally for the same reasons, i remeber you had to start charging more for postage for things to get it tracked and signed for to reduce fraud and genunine lost parcels, everyone seemed to hate that, though i dispute most of them because everything gets a deliever confirmation these days and almost everything gets delivered, touch wood, idk when it started but it must have been in the 2010's 99p auctions became impossible as you'd be lucky to get that for a high value item, you're literally lucky to get 1 bid on an auction these days so i just ask for the price i think its worth now, what ensues is lots of waiting and dead air, then suddenly sometimes out of nowhere you get a bid, everyone says do buy it now only you do that pay fees and nobody ever buys it invariably, so i add nearest offer to my listings, it gives me a chance to check feedback of buyers and avoid the cranks, an example of this recently was some bloke offered me a pound for a £2 jigsaw, then when i checked his feedback he was buying them doing them and trying to return them constantly then opening a case saying they were incomplete and getting to keep them and selling them himself, i get so many clowns like this and i block them, then you get genuine people who offer for things then simply want them for literally nothing at that point it's like why am i even here at all, i had to end one auction for this reason and ebay charged me for it and not like 20p but like £3, when i called up about it the woman basically said it was my fault for cancelling his bid and ending the auction, despite him bidding, retracting it then bidding again, now i hear the government want ebay to report us to hmrc for selling stuff from around the house i don't want anymore, i got the distinct impression on the phone to ebay they didn't really care if you bothered selling as a small person, she was like go to a boot sale, last time i saw that near me was the 90's, ebay is my only way to sell the junk lying around my house or stuff i buy and decide not two use, now a few days ago i got a message from ebay saying we are now having to pay some new fee for everything we sell, it just feels like a huge waste of time, you put all the work in listing things only for it to sit there for months on end, I'm very lucky if i sell 3 things a week, usually nothing to 2 things, i just think everyone just buys off amazon unless its a niche item you can't get on there, ebay is a much smaller pond now, facebook marketplace is a joke in comparison, constant messages from cranky old people who say they'll come get it but never do or just dead air, i won't use it, i still prefer ebay to sell but at some point you have to ask why you even bother, i think you're better off just getting rid of what you have then being very careful what you buy because getting rid of stuff is a nightmare these days unless its a very popular item like a playstation that a lot of people want, i don't know what anyone else thinks probably the opposite based on my few posts on here over the years, almost like its full of ebay employees or something.

[tressygirl]

I apologise straight away if I don't address all your points above,  as it was very difficult to read with no paragraphs.

I agree nearly 20 years ago it was easier to sell on eBay , far fewer sellers so easier to sell,  now with more than 18 million sellers I agree massive competition and with the big power sellers some items,   books,  cd's dvd's are just not worth selling individually as the ' big' sellers can always be competitive even selling for a 1p less, buyers as we know will if they can,  buy the cheapest when faced with a big choice.

'If you are selling your unwanted home items,  a garage / attic / wardrobe clearance, then please do not worry about the new HMRC ruling and taxing.  Selling the above you are classed as a Private seller and not trading,  it's the traders,  selling all New Items and not declaring who will be the main targets.

All the mentors here are members just like yourself,  we are not eBay employees just sellers / buyers with experience and wishing to help others with any issue they may come across.  We do not get paid for our  'services',  doing this in our spare time.  Some new features eBay introduce we too query, and not fully agree,  one good example is the ill thought out buyer pays immediately,  when accepting an offer.

Any eBay employees here,  you will see their posts outlined in blue.

There's no getting away from it,  it's far,  far harder selling now,  many leaving ,  as competition has beaten them.

  However,  if you are wishing to start again with unwanted home items, and enjoy the selling aspect on eBay,  give it another go,  you won't get to Millionaire status, but it still can be fun,  and even a little money gained  from selling unwanted items is better than nothing,  my humble view.

[jmt1981]

Sorry for not using paragraphs, it's like being back at school, to be fair i sell a lot of new stuff I've bought and simply never used and decided i don't want anymore, so i move it on, i heard you get a £1000 limit from the hmrc website so probably be ok, it's just the slowness of it for me and now the new fees coming in.

[tressygirl]

Unfortunately there's a lot of misunderstanding still about this HMRC ruling.

That limit or a total of  30 items p.a. is for a Trading / Business account. 

Buying items for sale , making items for sale,  or if you are ging to sell ALL new items ,  then this limit and tax will apply to you.

[*vyolla*]

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@jmt1981 wrote:

 i heard you get a £1000 limit from the hmrc website so probably be ok, it's just the slowness of it for me and now the new fees coming in.

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The £1000 is a Trading Allowance, and it's for small/hobby business sellers. They can sell £1000 worth of goods (gross sales, not profit) before having to declare this on a self assessment return.

A private seller selling their own personal items isn't subject to this, you can check your status here:

https://www.gov.uk/check-additional-income-tax

eBay and the other online platforms (such as Vinted, Depop, Etsy) will ONLY pass on data to HMRC automatically if you're selling 30 or more items a year OR have total earnings over the equivalent of £1,770. eBay will automatically share this information with HMRC by 31 January 2025 – the first lot of data-sharing will cover the 2023/24 tax year.

Even though the above data is being shared, it doesn't mean that you will owe tax if you're a private seller.

[555njp]

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@tressygirl wrote:

Unfortunately there's a lot of misunderstanding still about this HMRC ruling.

That limit or a total of  30 items p.a. is for a Trading / Business account. 

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More misunderstanding as that statement is incorrect too!

The new 30 items or £1740 threshold set from Jan 2024 requires online market places to report ANY sellers sales activity to HMRC irrespective of the status of an account.

The £1000 trading allowance is permitted maximum turnover in a tax year that a business/trader/hobby seller can have before needing to inform HMRC that they are trading, and/or the need to file a self assessment.

There are no changes to the trading rules or requirements for filing a self assessment.

Or rules/amounts of taxation.

Genuine private sellers (identified as selling off their own unwanted items be they new or used) can continue to do so and will not carry a tax liability on those sales.
Just be aware that if you do exceeed either threshold eBay has to pass your 2024 sales information to HMRC now by law. It's possible (no one knows yet) that HMRC may in some instances request more information from eBay or the account holder to prove that they are not trading.

The reasons for the new rules are to counter money laundering, organised crime and tax evasion.

[jmt1981]

It's not hard to make 30 sales in a year, i don't believe it's to go after the mafia, i think it's because they got themselves into an economic war with russia and china and they are broke and need to shake down the little man to pay for it.

[btr.style]

The thing with items such as yours for sale are the bric-a-brac nature. 20 years ago there's weren't many charity shops or car boot sales about to buy things such as second hand puzzles. People prefer to walk into one of those places now, buy one, not faff around with postage and get it home the same day. Postage fees of course have to go up to make it even less doable because of eBay taking a cut of postage in fees too. 

Another thing is with eBay auctions, the getting a bargain part of it went years ago because of bid snipers. Not many people like bidding on something and being the top bidder for 3 or 4 days, then with 2 seconds left to go, someone has used automated software to outbid them and win the auction. That's why I haven't bid on anything for over 15 years and never will on eBay. 

[jmt1981]

The charity shops in my town were the same 20+ years ago but yes i like puzzles and i don't think it's a popular section on ebay, trouble is not much is now like i said unless it's playstations.

[farmer-ned]

unless your husband is the PM and you can get non dom status

a tory mp or stash your cash in a offshore bank account in some tax haven 

HMRC chase the small man and leave the big fish alone

[pillarboxred · Accepted solution]

The market is in a crisis of oversupply. EBay is making a fortune from people listing things that don't sell even when you pay for Promotion. There are more sellers than 24 years ago when I started here but the number of serious, moneyed buyers hasn't grown as much, maybe even shrunk in line with what is happening in society at large with the concentration of wealth at the top. Most of the ordinary stuff most us have at home is now worth even less than it used to be because there are few secondhand dealers to bid on it for stock. That gave an initial value to things and then dealers sold things on to the public who now buy directly from owners online. We sellers constitute a huge warehouse of items buyers can browse and pick up for a £1 now and then.

I feel it is over too.

[pillarboxred]

Depends how little money versus the time it takes to make it.

[theelench]

I agree with what you say, but would put a slightly different slant on it.  

Ebay might have a "crisis of over supply" but partly because it's built up a back-log of unsold items, not because more sellers are listing more items than ever before.  The back-log has built-up (IMO) because of auto re-list on BIN listings combined with a Search that fails to find so many items and put them in front of buyers.

When the auto re-list feature was first introduced I said it was turning ebay into another ebid, with items going round and round on the continuous re-list carousel helping to bury new items and slowing their sales.

The search on ebay has got worse since then and now factors-in PL listings, giving them priority in the visibility game.  Compare ebay to a super-market shelf with the front row made up entirely of PL listings and every other listing behind them, pushed further and further back into the shadows and eventual invisibility.

I think that's why so many report that they are selling on other sites, or their own web-site but not on ebay.

I must admit that I've hardly bothered to list anything on ebay since 1/1/24 (just 2 items neither of which have sold), but with no particular effort I've already sold 14 items on another site (that's more than I sold on ebay during the whole of 2023).  The reason being that their search puts my items in front of would-be buyers, not mixed in as an after thought between rows of "similar" PL items.

Surely a selling site lives or dies according to how many sales its Search produces.  IMO ebay's search will show buyers so many PL ads. that are not what the buyer wants to see to justify the PL fee, rather than show them non-promoted ads.  which would produce a sale.  Ebay may have an over-supply problem, but it's exacerbated by a Search that isn't producing sales from within the growing back-log.

Which IMO is why ebay is dying for so many sellers, it just doesn't produce enough sales and so is making itself irrelevant to them.

[555njp]

Exactly! Search is rubbish on eBay so when buyers don't find what they actually want because of all the promoted items being thrust before them they shop elsewhere and likely never return.

[theelench]

Yes, when people on here are regularly reporting that it's easier to find what you're looking for on ebay by searching on google, there has to be something wrong.

The other site I sell on is tiny, has far less foot-fall and far fewer ads. to draw the audience in.  But it up-loads its ads. to Google Shopping.  During the Covid lock-down I used some time to try to make my ads. as acceptable as possible to google.  My sales went from single figures p.a into the 20s p.a.

Obviously others with time on their hands explored new horizons and perhaps relied on ebay less as their "first stop" when searching.  That doesn't seem to have changed back since, as after the lock-downs ended and life returned to normal,  although sales of collectables are always erratic, mine haven't returned to single figures.  They've always stayed at least in the high teens and most years now are in the 20s.  Not much in absolute terms, but I think it does show a shift in buyers' habits? 

[kath3735_wxmjn]

as a buyer i tend to agree.  I went on site yesterday looking for a clothing item and i was offered practically anything but what i wanted (even though i was pretty precise)  in the end i gave up and went to the actual firms online site and paid a little more but got what i wanted (in their sale luckily).   I just do not have the patience to keep on messing around trying to find things.

[555njp]

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@theelench wrote:

Yes, when people on here are regularly reporting that it's easier to find what you're looking for on ebay by searching on google, there has to be something wrong.

I think it does show a shift in buyers' habits? 

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My kids (well adults in their late twenties lol) don't consider eBay at all. They hate search and always think it's a dodgy site to buy from, despite the cast iron money back guarantee. They much prefer Vinted and Amazon (my absolute last resort!). The only time they use eBay is via me if they have something that Vinted doesn't allow and eBay does.

Seems a similar pattern with many younger people.

[jmt1981]

I've heard bad things about vinted, apparently lots of people saying they never got things then getting refunds, sort of like ebay circa 2010-2017, i noticed the prices people get are quite low also, basically the worse of both era's of ebay.

[555njp]

Yes, I don't use it but my daughter does.
Touch wood the only problem she's had in 4 or 5 years was an item of clothing that didn't fit despite sharing all the garment measurements, showing it being worn and providing more measurements 🙄

But clothes always are highish risk as we're all slightly different size wise 😁

The other thing to note is you get a lot more silly offers than on here but sales turnover time is pretty quick so at least there are plenty of buyers.
Prices really vary but people sell cheap as they are not paying fees or postage.

So, if she sells a dress for £15, that's what she gets, whereas she'd have to sell same for over £20 on eBay to get £15 back.

[jmt1981]

I get silly offers on here if i don't set limits.