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.

[moldosgifts]

I'm not shooting anyone its ebays explination that make no sense at all.

[pg_kicks]

The ccommunity team said it helps business sellers because it'll bring more people to the site, yeah thats a real benefit but they also told us that positive business announcements were coming at the roadshow, Thursday cant come soon enough as I can not wait to hear what these announcements are.

[brindsey]

I love it:

"gas lighting".

Dont' need any further information/explanation - it just says it all.

[ile136yz]

Excellent idea, but Buyers already know the way round the Private Seller's no returns, by stating 'Not as Described'.

It will be interesting reading on this Forum when the Private Sellers of Clothing have had to refund their Buyers in Full & possibly not get the items returned.

[theelench]

I think it will be even more interesting reading Seller Central as private sellers are probably more likely to post there if faced with such a scenario.

It'll be interested to see if there is any increase in private seller activity on the board considering that there is precious little ATM.  Of the threads on P.1 only about half were started by sellers I could positively identify as private, most of the rest were started by business sellers, as were most of the replies to all threads.

[kempseykate]

For sellers that are not board regulars, the 'help' page says 'ask the community', but the link actually takes you to the Member to Member board. I would imagine most of those would be from private sellers/buyers.

[douglaspuglas]

Anyone read yesterdays MSE survey on where people buy their clothes.

In the used clothes category Charity shops got the biggest percentage of 62.3%.

Vinted got 51.7% of votes as opposed to eBay's 33.3%.

People are still voting so the figures will change but probably not in eBay's favour!

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/poll/2024/clothes-shopping-2024/?sg_sessionid=1713372338_661ffcb20... 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I think that poll is more than a little skewed.

Out of about 4k respondents, only about 300 of them where under 35.

If you where to add in the younger people, I think that a lot more will be buying online.  Though how much between Ebay, Vinted etc is up for debate.

[technthread]

The depop percentage does seem to be a bit on the low side. That does make sense though based on what you have said as their buyers tend to be younger.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

To be honest, I don't think that Depop is even much of a player these days.  They do seem to be on the way out.  And frankly, their website and support is not good.

I would be very suprised if they are still around in the next couple of years.

[carbootsalesuk]

Whats the other site you mean?

[elianajvintage]

This will change how I do things. Over nearly 20 years of business selling I have sold a number of my personal items from my own wardrobe. Up until now I haven't bothered about doing this on a private account and have happily just sold everything on my business account. Now this is happened I will sell my own items on a private account so that I can sell them without paying fees. This is only for my own personal items and I will continue paying eBay to sell my stock on my business account.  

[sheba-knows-best]

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@elianajvintage wrote:

This will change how I do things. Over nearly 20 years of business selling I have sold a number of my personal items from my own wardrobe. Up until now I haven't bothered about doing this on a private account and have happily just sold everything on my business account. Now this is happened I will sell my own items on a private account so that I can sell them without paying fees. This is only for my own personal items and I will continue paying eBay to sell my stock on my business account.  

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I wouldn't be surprised if one hell of a lot of preloved sellers do the same 😎

[elianajvintage]

Absolutely there will be business sellers considering their best way forward given this new move by EBay.

Over the years I have jumped through all eBay's hoops and now I feel like I've really been dumped on by them.  What frustrates me the most is paying 'selling' fees on postage and if they were to remove that it would be a step in the right direction. They won't of course because they want people to sell using 'free' postage. What a farce.

[p.retorian]

are shoes and boots included?

[1956glyn]

No just clothing.

[fatbobfan]

Its opened the door most defintely

[1956glyn]

I am wondering if private sellers are actually selling their clothes or is this area of Ebay just being flooded and more competitive than ever???  I know some buyers will only buy clothes from Business Sellers.  I personally think it is a harder category to sell in generally.  Dare i say that recently i have noticed a load of tatty clothes being listed by private sellers 😞

I never sell clothes but saying that have listed a few aimed at a specific/specialist market.......i have no clue if they will sell 😞  I am really not in competition with business sellers.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

The thing is, what many people are not actually seeing, is that the second hand clothing market isn't anywhere near saturated yet.  As a percentage of clothing sales, it is still quite small overall.  And has plenty of room to grow.

So yes, there will be a lot of people throwing their rubbish onto Ebay, but that should in turn help grow sales overall.  I really do think that this is just in response to the likes of Vinted and once they have clawed back a chunk of the sales, then they will likely reintroduce some fees.

But at the end of the day, there are still advantages to business sellers in this market.

Private sellers don't offer any kind of return bar defective items.  And this will effect those pretending to be private sellers, as they will inevitably get more returns as defective, simply because an item doesn't fit.  

I certainly wouldn't buy from a private seller, knowing that if something didn't fit me, I have no recourse, but to game the system to get a return.

[1956glyn]

Well i never buy clothes online for myself as the sizes vary so much.    Even when the same brand  depending on the cut or style i am either a 12 or 14.   I find its the same with trainers.  

I prefer just to go to a shop and try them on....old school lol