Help From Private Seller to Business Seller now not making hardly any sales eBay June 2025

[pippacrazey]

Help .  I've just become a business seller, From last 2 weeks of May / June  2025 was a private seller selling vintage and vintage style costume jewellery.  I decided to become a business seller the first week I did reasonably well, but for the last 3 weeks I haven't made hardly any sales, getting no international sales for global shipping like I used to get and wondering if there's something wrong, as I have good feedback, good clear listings and used to sell reasonably well .  Does anyone know if there has been any glitches or if I have opened up my shop correctly?  Wondering if anyone else is also experiencing the same as me.  Any advice would be great.  Thanks 🙏

[storage.boutique · Accepted solution]

I think sales have been a bit slow lately but also when you are a business seller you really need to advertise - at least General Promoted Sales. However, I looked quickly at your listing titles and none or very few actually mention what it is you are selling in the first 4 words. Your titles are like sentences that end in the word you are selling eg brooch. The first 4 words of the title is your prime real estate and shpuld contain the words you hope people will search for.  For example you have everything capitalised - VINTAGE STYLE SEAVIEW MOONFACE GOLDTONE PINK SHIMMER BUTTERFLY SPARKLY BROOCH - so nothing stands out to the buyer. I dont know if Goldtone is correct spelling or if it is two words - gold stone?. The word Vintage everyone uses, so it doesnt really add to your prime real estate, so it should be near the end.  I dont know your business, but at a guess I would say it should begin something like Pink Butterfly Sparkly BROOCH, Vintage Style, Moonface - then I would have something like FREE POST or MANY SIZES or UK MADE etc.

However, it is concerning that you have transferred from a private seller to a business correctly and you may be being penalised for that.

[pippacrazey]

Hi Thanks so much for your quick reply.  I will try  and give this a go.  Fingers crossed it works. 

Best Wishes Laura 

[hugothecockapoo]

Hi Laura. You will  be competing against the unregistered business sellers now,(Private sellers)They can undercut your prices by large margins as I am sure you are. Aware of.  
Business sellers get very little help or incentives from eBay. 😡

[storage.boutique]

The seller here was already competing against these people before she registered as a business seller. 

Private Sellers can sometimes cut prices and accept low margins, but that is a race to the bottom which usually ends in tears. They also have to remain fairly invisible in case HMRC or the DSS catch them - and that day is getting nearer and nearer now. Proper Businesses can develop their products, go for high visibility, develop their brands, access business finance and get grants (depending on location and availability). 

Totally disagree about help from eBay. I get access to a lot of things including support, discounted fees, coupons marketing and many, many other incentives. I have even been to the events. I am the longest selling business account in the UK at over 25 years and so you would think by now I would be moaning at eBay in a similar manner, but I choose to be positive and optimistic.

This thread is in the Business Board, so I can say I welcome the HMRC and eBay movements to ingather NI numbers and start sending out super tax assessments or prosecutions to (non) Private Sellers. But that is not an eBay thing.

If HMRC continues to catch (non) Private Sellers then eBay will need to focus more on properly registered official business sellers. So, we need to get behind eBay at this time and support our site of choice.

[jlovie]

"I am the longest selling business account in the UK"

According to the eBay info, my account is a month older 🙂

I'm definitely not the oldest, as I was buying from businesses before I started selling.

There wasn't even a separate business distinction back then.

There wasn't any fees when I started. Or default online payment methods. Buyers used to send me cash in the post, especially international buyers. No euros back then, loads of different currencies.

The recent experiment when eBay made it free for private accounts was what ruined eBay, one they did it they couldn't go back. 

[storage.boutique]

Thats really interesting. I was involved in a whole marketing thing with eBay as they told me I was the oldest. I started selling some regular things as a Private Seller and within weeks they converted me to a Business Account. I was fuming at the time as I had a job as well, so this was what they call a side hussle nowadays. eBay also gave me permission to use their logo on my shop in a statement saying I was the oldest business seller. Maybe it is the word "Business" Seller that is causing confusion. I do recall the dollars in the post, hilarious how much has changed. I even got UK coins.

Private Sellers are only allowed to sell 30 items a year or a total revenue of £1740 and after that eBay share the data with HMRC and make a decision as to whether you are actually a Private Seller. If breaches are enforced by HMRC and eBay then it should clean up eBay as it will only be very small sellers that can actually sell for free for any length of time.

I know at the moment there are vast swathes of sellers that are suddenly being asked for data to share with HMRC and they are squirming at the idea for many different reasons, but I actually think eBay did need to tidy this platform up and make it a lot more trustworthy. Im pretty sick of being told by people of terrible experiences they have had from eBay. 

I dont think it was really eBay that was steering the free selling idea, it think it was a necessity to find out who were genuine business sellers and to clean up the platform ready for HMRC data submissions. I think there will be some horror stories that will come out in due course when HMRC swoop on some well chosen sellers that have avoided tax for a while. The AI is going to make it so easy for HMRC.

When eBay is cleaned up of all the nonsense, I think it will make it much better for genuine business sellers so Im choosing to be quite optimistic.

For those reading this and who have not realised the implications of being a listed Private Seller, I would urge you to read this:

https://pages.ebay.co.uk/seller-tax-information/

If Jack in Liverpool or Connor in London have even a minimum waged job, or are claiming benefits,.... well.....