No Fees for selling Clothing?

[vintagewatchpart]

So Ebay has abolished all fees for selling clothing on a private account.

Now more than ever surely the clamping down of businesses operating from private accounts has to increase?

I feel so sorry for those in this niche who trade legitimately as businesses who are competing with "private" sellers who just got handed a massive chunk of money.

[pg_kicks]

So I was complaining about the lack of action taken by eBay with regards to business accounts on private, getting the 70/80% off every 2 weeks, no returns, no need to have your address/number visible and what not, plus it was a week or 2 after the its free to sell pre-loved clothes (brand new too I believe). I had a list of accounts I reported for such actions and the email replies from eBay stating we have looked into this and no policy has been breached blah blah. The answer from multiple eBay staff members at the event were do you have a private account you can use to sell the clothes for free or have you thought about opening one. So instead of saying thanks for highlighting this very serious issue they basically said why dont you break the law and join them. This wasnt just 1 rogue member of staff either, it was 4 different occasions (pretty sure I was close to being asked to leave due to bringing it up and getting stonewalled) with different staff levels.

In short eBay know of the issue, know their site is allowing people to break the law, know the reporting function is not fit for purpose and their response is to break the law yourself. The next event will be the Opend day in Birmingham so I will attend that and see if anything has changed as hopefully executives will be there and I will present them with the evidence. I should just not care but sadly I do.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Do you happen to know the date for the open day in Birmingham?

I've not been able to get to the others yet, but would like to put in my two pennies worth for this one.

It's so frustating this.  Whilst I do understand the clothes selling taking advantage of the savings, I really don't understand how they are struggling to compete with other sellers of clothes anyway, as the prices that you can buy at, using the right sources of course, make it quite easy to profit on this.

But why should Joe Bloggs benefit from these discounts, when I and many others are following the rules?

Whe whole thing just isn't a fair playing field.

And why on earth would Ebay advise this?

[technthread]

For the smaller sellers like me it is the shop fee where the slap in the face is most felt.

My eBay sales on 1st-2nd June were £56.19, the basic shop fee of £32.40 was due plus £8.76 fees on sales so I ended up with an eBay payout of £15.03. My postage costs were £16.23 so I was £1.20 in deficit before other expenses.

I look at it from the point of view of a smaller seller in the same boat and can understand them looking at it and going you must be crackers, you're down when you could be around £40 in profit and reinvesting that money.

eBay will feel it if a lot of smaller sellers cancel their shop and either go rogue on a private account or move to another platform. And let's face it, may become unable to make it work as a side income and just sack it off completely. If eBay see a reduction in shop fee income maybe they will reconsider but until it hurts them in the pocket or they are forced to change they just don't want to hear about it. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Hang on, that's not really the best way of looking at those fees at all.

The shop fee is once a month, so you can't compare it to a day or two's sales.

You need to compare that with what it would have cost you to list all of the items that you have listed and sold over the entire month, then compare it to the months sales.

So that is not a true reflection of the profit/loss that you would make in those two days.

If the shop fee does not work out cheaper, then you should be listing individually on the basic plan, without the shop.

[papso22]

I think everyone at the event were businesses but they were telling business account holders they could and should just have a private account. 

So ebay staff were telling legitimate and legally compliant businesses that the solution is for them to break the law?

That goes well beyond the mormal poor ebay CS advice by people who can be excused as not knowing any better (but should still refrain from giving 'legal' advice!)

marco@ebay 

This is very worrying.

[technthread]

Maybe not but in isolation I know this, I had to top up my bank account from a reserve fund to pay my mobile phone bill this month instead of using the money I would I have had sat there to cover it if I was selling on a private eBay account.

In fairness yes I could easily ditch the low value items, just pay 36p per listing with no shop and get my higher value items listed. I think that is my plan here, generate a few thousand in sales quickly and do something else as I'm not enjoying it.

The whole point of a shop was that I knew I was overpaying many months but at least I had access to Terapeak, now they have opened that up to private sellers too and made the basic shop even less appealing than before. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Fair enough.   But to be fair, it's known charge that happens at the same time each month, so the ideal is to keep sufficient funds available to pay it, so it doesn't have the same impact.

In all honesty though, in all the years that I've used Ebay, I have never used Terapeak.

Other than to check it out occasionally.

I find it far easier, to search for an item and see what has been sold etc.

I suppose it could come in handy on occasion, but I really don't see the need at all.  So it's never influenced my use of a shop.

If you have a lot of lower value items, it could well be worth setting up a second account and using the low cost items fees for them (5p +15%).  It works well, for items sub £6-£7, depending on category etc.

[pg_kicks]

Nothing has been announced, just on the screens around Leicester they had the other roadshow events then Open Show September, I asked and they said it was the 12th, but obviously that could be changed as nothing official has been announced.

I understand what you mean but if Jimmy is getting it for free and Paul is paying 10% fees then Jimmy can charge less, meaning his turnover of stock is higher resulting in better positioning by eBay, he could even use that 10% for advertising so he gets his products above the legitimate sellers who then think I'll use advertising but can only do 5% further cutting into margins. Once Jimmy has 6 months more sales he can buy more and then basically take the full business from Paul, all illegally.

@papso22 yes thats 100% correct in what they said, started off asking why I saw an issue, if I do it, why dont I? pointless tagging marco as eBay know the issues they face, we will just be told to report accounts as they take this issue very seriously.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Thanks, I couldn't find anything about it anywhere!  🙂  That would be why.

I get where your coming from with that.  I'm relatively new to clothing sales, though not internet sales in general, but when I look around at the prices that some of the wholesalers are charging, I see why people are struggling.

It's insanely high the prices they do charge on some of them.  

But by far, the best way to buy, is to buy in bulk.  I literally buy a pallet a time, as it works out far cheaper paying by weight, than per item as most seem to charge.

So when paying those kind of prices, the margins can get really silly and it makes sense to use the private accounts to save on fees.  However, a little shopping around and you can find much better prices available, if your not so choosy on what your actually getting.  Though still, good value for money.

So I'm able to compete with the vast majority of sellers and make decent margins doing so.

But, the one thing that most seem to forget, is that with used clothing, unless you are selling mass produced rubbish, the items are in the main, different and not all the same, so can dictate a reasonable price.

All these sellers seem to have just jumped on the bandwagon, with little to no thought at all.

There are so many YT videos out there telling people how to make money, but they leave out all of the important stuff.  ie.  Bought sack for £50, sold it for a £100.  = £50 profit!

When in reality, that £100, has fees, postage, sorting, cleaning costs etc that need to be deducted.

This all gets forgotten about.

[pg_kicks]

I understand what you mean but tbh theres no advantage to having a business account (apart from the obvious legal aspect) so if you can either charge 10% less or make 10% more profit its better than not doing it, very few will only be searching for a New York knicks tee from the 70's where there might just be 1 but many will want a vintage backetball tee where there will be hundreds so if you can charge less you'll sell more.

I hate all the videos, they've made everyone think its an easy 'side hussle' but hopefully it'll only last for a other couple years then it'll be back to precovid times when it was serious people.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Yes, I agree.

Of course it's better if you can get lower fees.  

I was just pointing out, that so many complain that they can't make a profit on these kind of things, when it's quite possible, even when competing with those sellers who use "private" accounts.

Yes, the videos are guilty of bring in a lot of people who haven't got a clue.

It is just another trend, that will pass given time.  Especially once they realise it's a lot more difficult, than it's made out to be.  

Used to see a lot of this on Amazon, with all the vids for "make your own brand, sell millions!"

Or the other favourite, "dropship from China"!    🙂

They appear, lose money and then disappear.   

The trouble is that whilst you are getting these kinds of people doing this, they then end up pricing at the bottom to get the sales, which in turn depresses the rest of market.

[technthread]

I'm always on the lookout for rare media so in the past I've found a DVD or CD that isn't available online and has surprising value. 90 day solds on the eBay search wouldn't always give any insight. Without Terapeak I'd maybe have auctioned and undersold but with it, I'll be able to find a sale from a year or 2 ago and price accurately. Some of my best sales have been those type of 20p into £50 sales that Terapeak was a godsend for. 

For clothing etc I can imagine it's not worth searching Terapeak and the seller can use their experience so I get that - it's perfect for something with a barcode. 

I brought it up on today's live chat out of frustration that they are showing Terapeak / Product Research isn't available on a non shop account on their business account fees page yet in reality it's available to even private seller. If we misrepresented what we were offering like that they would come down on us like a ton of bricks and it shows what an afterthought it is that the page has been left outdated for months. 

[sparkinson3]

i think they should put monthly imits on say 50 to 100 items per month to stop the rogue traders and when the so called private sellers go over the limit charge them fees perhaps this would also help legitimate traders as well 

[nigel.wales]

As a business it's getting impossible to make a living, we are Vat registered and pay 20% on all sales then on top of this the eBay fees.

a private seller has a 35% + extra  profit margin on anything they sell how can we compete?? 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I'm sorry, but you don't understand VAT if you think that your paying 20% on top of everything else.

You charge the customer 20% vat on each sale, but you claim back the vat on every purchase etc that you make.  The customer pays the VAT and not yourself.  Even allowing for the fact it's an extra expense, the net cost to you is considerably less than 20%.

As a clothing seller, I can honestly say that I've not lost out on sales due to this introduction.

In fact, I'm now more of the opinion, that it's helping sales overall.

But frankly, private sellers have always had the advantage price wise.

Never mind the fact that profit is not the real motive, it's just getting some money back in.  

And it's certainly not something that they rely on for a living.  Which is why you can see people selling things for a couple of pound.  But these go pretty quickly.  And the business seller does have advantages, which are often overlooked.

Obviously, this excludes those pretending to be private sellers, that another thing entirely.

[nigel.wales]

I think I do fully understand how Vat works after paying it for 30 years.

Most clothes are purchased from private clients so we cannot claim vat back as they do not and cannot charge Vat so there's nothing to claim back.

Nearly all sales of clothing in the area that we look to trade are being taken over by bedroom sellers who are turning over considerable sums of money and paying no tax whatsoever.

These people are not just getting in a little bit of money for their old clothes they are running businesses under the radar.

[nigel.wales]

Also the retail customer doesn't pay us an extra 20% on top of the price, 20% of our turnover is paid in Vat as explained above very little can be reclaimed as we're not buying from Vat registered businesses.

Ultimately a bedroom seller would not have to pay anything as previously stated it's something the government needs to looks at or no business will exist as everything now benefits the small sellers who are everywhere.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

It still applies, you can claim the expenses for various other costs.

Whether that be the VAT on your rent, electricity and so on.

Aside from which, why on earth are you not on a VAT margin scheme then?

Irrespective, your costs are still not 20%.  And whether or not the price is displayed as including or excluding VAT, the customer pays this cost.  Why else do you think that the supply chain, is all exclusive of VAT pricing?

Yes, there are a lot of bedroom sellers out there.  But those who are truly private sellers should not be paying any additional tax on, unless they have a lot of items to sell.

Those who are pretending to be private sellers, will still have to pay their taxes on those sales, as they are now being reported by Ebay, directly to HMRC.

But the ones who will continue to get away with this kind of thing, are the ones who are doing everything right with HMRC, but are using the private accounts for the reduced fees.  These are the ones that Ebay should be targetting.  If they get removed, it will make a fairer playing field.

But there have always been those who sell off their odd bits and pieces, they will never really effect anything in any major way.

[nigel.wales]

It would be a better and fairer system if the government and eBay really did anything about the pretend private sellers but I've never heard of one being caught and numbers are increasing into tens of thousands in the UK

as my original post stated the system is not fair and whilst it has such huge benefits to the private sellers, people will cheat the system.

Things need to change to make it fairer for the businesses.

I don't think we should discuss how tax and vat works as some people really don't understand.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

It's actually by having discussions about how tax and VAT works, that helps people.  Not by hiding it behind closed doors.

In any case, there have always been those who will cheat the system, whether that be Ebay, Amazon, the local market stall or the big trader, hiding their profits on the stock market and so on.

The system itself is fair enough, but the policing of the "private" sellers is what is need to be improved.

If that is done correctly, then the problems caused by them, will be considerably reduced.

But what of the system itself, is actually unfair?