Business account versus Private seller account

[wortheverypennyspent]

Hiya all. I have been selling on eBay for 16 years now with the same user id and account (one of the longest), I still have 100% feedback score and I am proud of that tbh, but it has not been easy. I just wanted to ask you people if you have noticed the lack of views and bids for your listings? I have noticed terribly that views and bids have chronically dropped in the past 6-12 months. I only sell excellent condition clothing, most are like new. This is my job not a side line and I know somebody as a private seller who makes more money than me and sells more than me and ebay in their fees that they charge me also make more money than me for the majority of the time. I have done a lot of research comparing Business to Private and it appears that a Private seller does in fact make more money. I would so appreciate some feedback on this whether negative or positive to me. Thank you

[mcdonalaldsman2001]

They know we have no choice for this type of platform other than clothing. Until some competition comes along they will always be taking advantage of their monopoly.

Kind regards

[technthread]

I don't blame you for wanting to send things tracked, but it's one of those eBay traps you can't fall into selling CD's.

Because a buyer may have scammed you once, you have made listings uncompetitively priced for everyone else to avoid it happening again but then hardly anything sells.

I would set these under £5 CD's with the 250g RM large letter price of £1.90 and if you wanted, mark it up slightly to cover packaging and the eBay fees but try to keep it under £2.50 so buyers aren't put off. If you start to get things selling you won't need to worry about eBay's cap on free listings as items shouldn't keep going round in circles as unsold auctions. 

[pg_kicks]

12.8% + 30p (not sure why you pay a listing fee as I thought private accounts got those free) is still a lot cheaper than you setting a site up and hosting it around the world and running marketing campaigns to get traffic. I'd love it to be free but then where do eBay get money for customer service, advertising, hosting and everything else that it costs to run a business? They sponsored McLaren on their revenue not our selling fee's, they are different things, the selling fee's will only make up a small portion of them, not being funny but theres businesses accounts on here who will pay more in a monthly subscription to get what you get for free than you pay to eBay in a month, they then have FFV on top of that.

I'd love it to be as cheap as Vinted/FB/Esty but I also dont want it to be the wild west like those sites with very little seller/buyer protection and be so open to scammers. The site needs improvements and it needs to be ran so everyone is trading legally, that will hopefully come and this is one step towards that but it will also take money and everyone who gets the benefit of the site needs to pay.

[mcdonalaldsman2001]

I send most of my items normal Royal Mail 2nd class and in the rare occasion a buyer says they haven’t received it I’ve successfully claimed on the RM website

Kind regards Steve

[paradiseprettycompany]

I've been a business seller on ebay for 17 years. The golden days are long gone. I used to be able to pay all my household expenses from my ebay earnings. Sales fell rapidly when ebay stopped us using PayPal. Many buyers regarded the money in their PayPal account as spending money. Both options should be available to buyers. I just used an ebay fees converter I found on Google which allows you to input your data as a business or a private seller. The profit difference was astounding. On an item I sell at £14.99 as a business seller, my profit would be £3.17, as a private seller it would be £5.91! I can't see the advantage of keeping on with my business account. I've just dropped from the middle tier to the basic tier as I was owing ebay money at the end of the month. Ebay are running another TV ad currently to try and gain more sellers. We need more buyers. No point having sellers if the buyers aren't there.

[mcdonalaldsman2001]

Interesting times, especially now it’s free to list, didn’t see that one coming!  I did talk to eBay just after that post and they said I didn’t need to have a business account. Think as long as you’re playing fair it’s a technicality.

What is their competition then do you think, Etsy etc?

Cheers,

Steve

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

I notice today that all the items i look at no longer show "business" or "private" at top right.

Another glitch or ???.