My plans for selling on ebay in '25.
I don't really have any as a private seller apart from watching the boards as it's still not clear in my mind whether ebay is planning to go into overdrive to try to collect everyone's NINO in January, or only collect them from those who sell over the HMRC thresholds throughout the year.
As I'm not planning to hand it over at any point, I might still be able to list and after only making 4 sales this year might still be able to sell the odd item well into next year if things continue as they are.
The compulsory payment holds coming in Feb. don't worry me too much and even if ebay is making a few pennies in interest from my un-Sponsored sales without my paying any FVF, I think the deal works OK for me and once the Christmas delivery backlogs clear, I might list a few things again.
I'll also be looking out for details from ebay about Simple Delivery which will also be made compulsory for all private sellers. Ebay has already said it will be aimed at raising ebay's revenue, again I don't mind if they confine that to the difference between what non-ebay prices are and what ebay pays to the carriers. But knowing ebay they'll spoil the idea by being too greedy and will try either increasing delivery prices above the "stamp" price or being selective about which services it offers to buyers. Either would probably reduce sales even further from this years four.
Trying to twist their arms to buy expensive "Next Day" services like it currently tries (and fails) to do with many sellers. That would further reduce my sales here (IMO) and might even back-fire and help my sales on the other site I sell on. As there I can always offer a small postage discount because they don't skim anything off my postage costs. Any rigging of postal options by ebay would only make my discount look more enticing.
So I suppose to sum up my ebay "Plan" for '25 I could describe it as viewing ebay as a dead duck for any sort of regular sales, but perhaps worth the time to list a few items if the risk of the funds being held until I hand over my NINO doesn't seem too great.
