Is Upgrading to a Business Account Really Worth It?

[Anonymous]

Is Upgrading to a Business Account Really Worth It?

I'm planning to start selling on eBay and am considering subscribing to a store plan. However, I want to make sure I fully understand the differences before making a decision.

From what I understand:

• Private sellers get 300 free listings per month, and any additional listings only incur a one-time £0.35 fee but can be relisted indefinitely under GTC (Good 'Til Canceled).
• A Basic Business Store costs £27 per month, but only includes 250 free listings. On top of that, GTC listings count toward the monthly free allowance, meaning they reduce the number of new listings I can create each month.

If my understanding is correct, then why would I upgrade to a business account and end up paying more for fewer free listings? Am I missing something?

Would love to hear insights from experienced sellers!

[jonatjonatjonat]

If you can’t return an unwanted item from someone who should be a business seller,  Well right there is one point where you don’t have your full consumer rights.

and if you were reselling something you previously bought, it’s no longer new is it, because you owned it.

[writesoon]

You're right in saying "making items to sell on a small scale does not automatically make you a business seller". You can have a hobby making things, and if you are selling them to cover costs, that is fine. There may come a point, though, where you change the focus to making a profit from what you make, and then HMRC will regard you as a business. 

Obviously if you 'buy' something you discover you no longer want, or want to clear old possessions you've previously 'bought', and later resell them, you're not 'trading'. 

'Trading' relates to buying with the express intention of reselling for a profit - either on eBay or anywhere else.  

You're right when you say "buying....to sell on a small scale does not automatically make you a business seller. Someone who occasionally sees something in a charity shop  and buys it to  make a bit of extra money may be 'trading' technically on that occasion, but you wouldn't call it a self-employed business unless they started doing it routinely and deliberately, and were getting a regular income from it. Likewise, a collector of rare books who bought job lots at auction and sold the ones they didn't want wouldn't be considered a buisiness. And anyway, it's unlikely someone doing that would be making much, if anything,  from the leftovers they sold. It would be classed as managing a hobby (book collecting).

Quite simply, it's the people on eBay who are 'trading' deliberately, and getting a regular income from it,  who should have business accounts. And once their turnover from trading goes over £1000, they have to register for self-assessment with HMRC by law.

[5216elisabeth]

I quite often will look at a seller's shop, mainly those of business sellers.  It also sometimes results in me buying more than one item or putting something in my watchlist that I go back for later.

[sheba-knows-best]

---

@1956glyn wrote:

Is it just me?     I never look in a members shop Business or Private.

---

For the last couple of years ebay protrader team have been pushing developing your shop - as shown by the fact there is now a shop traffic tool. The idea being that ebay has got so big (I think we can agree on that) and the search engine being subsequently so hit and miss (I think we can agree on that too?) that buyers are increasingly checking favourite sellers' shops before (or as well as) doing a general search.

Certainly I have seen my repeat buyers increase from 1% to 5% over the last 3 years. As @5216elisabeth said, this might just be because buyers select two items when they shop, but I don't think so give a 5% repeat buyers rate. A trick is if you get in a conversation with a buyer that goes well - ask them to mark you as a fav seller. Then use a newsletter to direct buyers (who have marked you as fav seller or just bought from you) -  to your shop with a discount and/or coupon. You can create buyer groups.

Possibly it is a category thing - but I get compliments on my shop from repeat buyers so its definitely something to think about in terms of increasing sales.

[pillarboxred]

It depends on your motive. You have told us that you are thinking of opening a store on eBay so that is a business reason. If your reason is to just clear out your home or your late auntie's collection of six thousand bookmarks then you should sell as a private seller.

[4_bathrooms]

---

@the_book_seekers wrote:

• Basic shop: 90 listings: 90 x 30p = £27.00
• Featured shop: 140 listings: (140 - 90) x 10p = £50 (£77 - £27 = £50)
• Anchor shop: 8,700 listings (8,700 - 1,500) x 5p = £360.00 (£437.00 - £77.00 = £360.00)

I'm not following your calculations on where next level shops become better value. Re the basic shop I agree its 90 listings. But the featured shop I make it higher than 140 listings.  £77 - £27 = £50. £50 divided by 0.10p = 500. 500 +250 (basic shop) = 750 listings.  (140 - 90) x 10p = £5 not £50. 

---

Well spotted! I made a mistake when calculating the featured shop "threshold"; I stuck 0.01 (a penny) instead of 0.1 (ten pence) into the formula I used.

That said; I make the "break even" point for a featured shop 590 listings. If you have a basic shop (£27.00) with 590 listings you have 90 free listings included in the subscription and would pay 500 x 10p (£50) on the remaining 500 listings: £27 + £50 = £77.00. It is still a huge gulf.

[4_bathrooms]

---

@writesoon wrote:

You're right in saying "making items to sell on a small scale does not automatically make you a business seller". You can have a hobby making things, and if you are selling them to cover costs, that is fine.

---

As mentioned earlier, the legal definition of a trader is:

"“Trader” means a person acting for purposes relating to that person's trade, business, craft or profession, whether acting personally or through another person acting in the trader's name or on the trader's behalf."

That definition is found in both the Consumer Rights Act and the Consumer Contracts Regulations. Therefore it is impossible for someone who regularly makes things to sell - regardless of any intention to turn a profit - to not be breaking the law by selling via a private account. Of course nobody is going to care if such a seller is below the trading allowance threshold (well, unless they're selling something like food; I have no idea why eBay allows private sellers to list food items).

---

[dunstun365]

'buy a toy from wholesaler for 80p'

if you sold it for £5.99 on ebay why would you only make 3p? ebay fees aren't that much unless you were relisting unsold items for many months or even years which no-one's gonna do.

[dunstun365]

Problem with a business account is that most private sellers won't be able to sell to the EU or N.Ire. because of those ridiculous EU safety regs. which are impossible to comply with for most second hand items like books & records (how on earth are they unsafe? Even many new items  don't have that info as most aren't bought directly from a factory. Thank god we left the EU else they'd apply to uk sales not just EU & they'd be even more private sellers being businesses

[dunstun365]

Yes there needs to be more incentive like more free listings for a B account or even say 25 FREE listings per month without a shop

[dunstun365]

It may be a hobby if they are not making a profit and not selling copies of new items. Sure they may make a profit on the odd item (especially at auction) but if its not all the time then its not a business.

Heck there's no way most private sellers can compete anyway with the likes of music magpie or Ziffitt on selling CD & books for instance as they sell them for little more than the postage price all private sellers pay. (you have to be a business to get cheap postage rates) So you are asking private sellers to compete with that as well as comply with many frankly unworkable EU safety

regs . which unbelievably also apply to the N. ireland & that is not fair but the EU was never fair to the UK that's why we got out. 

I suspect most private sellers would leave ebay rather than cope with the above with a B account. 

[dunstun365]

yes 300 free listings per month free but it nearly worthless in many cases I only sell 1% of that & that's second hand personal items. 3 yrs ago it was nearly 10x that. 

[dunstun365]

this is also why private sellers are pretending to be business sellers they would never work out costs like that so just wont do it or go elsewhere. The easiest way ebay can fix this is limit the total number of listings a private seller can have a month. I won't say a figure though because some ebay employee might listen to my advice & take credit for it & I'll get nothing.

[jorgani-com]

Hi,

not it haven't been worth it at all, it has been a disgrace for me, sold
dropped and profits shrink.

Thanks

[acmediauk]

"Even just to raise the basic shop to 500 listings a month would surely   generate more sales …would make so much difference to the small time business seller… "

An extremely valid and practical point you have made there. Fully agree with this. It is clear in other countries basic shop subscriptions include more than 250 but in the UK we have no choice. We are forced to pay a subscription because paying 30 pence + VAT per listing is actually more than a subscription if listing 250 products. 

Nobody at eBay has given a 100% true reason why a "genuine" private seller would need 300 free listings a month when Business sellers have to pay £27 + VAT every month for only 250 listings.

The next subscription level is around £75 + VAT which is makes it uneconomical to pay this for 1,500 listings when many small businesses would not even use half of those listings.

Like all Business sellers on this forum it is crystal clear that eBay have no interest in following the law and will allow private sellers to undercut Business sellers on every category and buy new & sealed products, often relisting the same products as they are buying in multiple quantities. 

Until eBay take this seriously unfortunately Business Sellers simply have to keep going until accounts are closed which I can see happening more often from 2026 onwards.

[spence0175]

I have been on here a long time. In the category I mostly sell on, you get to know who’s who. There are many in my category who should have become a business a long time ago. I’ve seen name changes etc…those who have businesses in the real world but sell on here as private..and they are selling all the time…It’s a mockery..,

Why are they any different to me. I am small scale but I choose to do it properly and at great cost. I can no longer sell to Europe as I cannot provide the necessary info, whilst they still can..

I do not even use cheap postage as I support my local pop up service by paying the full price.

Maybe there are some categories that you could not compete with the big sellers, but not in mine.

[maarsy]

you will definitely get more fees , compared with before they made selling for private sellers free it was even around 15 to 20 % more expensive to sell as a business 

[securepack]

No it's not, fees are much much higher and there is no sales without promoting, so it's not worth it, our competitors selling from private accounts cheaper and make more money than we do. It's awful.

[dunstun365]

 not worth it if you are selling you own stuff & not worth buying to sell at least second hand either unless you can sell by auction as it'd be too costly to list things which could take months to sell if at all. I have a pair of (not promoted} £3 rackets that took over 3 yrs to sell then had to cancel the order because the postage bought from ebay was wrong.

And I cannot relist the rackets because SD wants me to charge a whopping £12.97 to send the parcel that only weighs 1kg. 

[dunstun365]

I've not seen private sellers doing packaging supplies but I don't think they would get away with it for long.