Resell? What's the thinking behind this then?

[sheba-knows-best]

Well! There I was, on my sniping account (private not business), happily combining and paying for a few purchases, when I noticed that when I leave feedback for some items (not all items interestingly), the top tab then turns to 'resell'.  This doesn't happen on my business account which stays as 'view similar items'.

When I clicked on 'resell' all of the item specifics are filled in.  The photos are not. Although they are very easy to simply go and copy from the original listing of course.

What's going on now? Is it to try and reduce returns? Get the buyers to resell instead? Be nice... can't see it working. Is it to encourage selling? eBay must be able to see I buy a lot on that account. Is it thinking I sell on a different online site? 

Curiouser and curiouser... all thoughts welcome x

[technthread]

Yeah I noticed that, I think many of them still keep their prized suppliers on the down low. The comments section usually has people asking for those leads hoping for a reply.

V is terrible for it. I have noticed a handful of accounts starting following me and then followed users from my feedback. I’m a small seller so there isn’t much to gain unfortunately but sellers who are smashing it have to be wary of it. 

[bravergrace]

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@cobwebcottage wrote:

Well it's all gone very quiet.

I am waiting for a new thread on the subject so we can all have a good debate about it.

I also want to know if, when I go buying, I should wear a big badge stating 'trader' to be legal??

---

Well, yes, in a way.  If you're an antique dealer knocking on house doors offering to "help out" an elderly householder by "taking something off your hands for cash, like that old vase you've got in your windowsill, that's my auntie's favourite colour", and offering a low price, you're breaking the law by wilful misrepresentation to get a favourable price.

But among cannier sellers  - say, at a car boot sale, or if you're pouncing on something your local charity shop has just unsuspectingly put in their window, unaware that the "squiggly design" is a giant-sized but genuine hallmark - Do you need to wear a badge?  When I go buying, I'm assumed to be a trader, and the asking price is are raised accordingly - or reduced if the seller wants my trade for the future.

It's a bit of a nuisance if I'm buying something for personal use, because the seller suspects I know something they don't, and doubles their asking price.

But as for badges: you certainly can't misrepresent yourself as a private buyer, or pretend to be a private buyer when asked.  That is illegal.

I believe the laws are stricter in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

[theelench]

It doesn't matter what the reasons are, illegal is still illegal, or that is the line taken  when businesses are found selling on private accounts and so should it be when traders are found buying on private accounts.  It's still a crime that ebay should stop.

Just like someone knitting a few baby clothes and giving the proceeds to charity.   Selling off remaining oddments of stock after going through the process to close down a legitimate business making the oddments their personal property.  Or someone who has a solitary stroke of luck and finds a bargain worth flipping. 

They are all told in no uncertain terms that making to sell, selling ex-business stock to get their money back without profit or the lucky find bought to re-sell just once makes them all businesses and they should re-register as such or they are trading illegally. 

But it's OK to trade illegally to gain the advantage of Cashback, but shouldn't the cash be declared as business income ?

How does finding a 'gem' of a supplier and concealing the source of those supplies help the seller get more bids or a better price?  It looks to me that by concealing that the buyer is a business they are seeking to conceal that they have found undervalued items that they can buy on a one bid auction, or if they Watch long enough they may get an even cheaper offer.  Revealing that they are a business might tip-off the seller that they are undervaluing their items, but ebay makes anonymity so easy.

But a crime is still a crime, no matter how often it's committed or how little money is involved.

Why does it matter to ebay.  Because it increases ebay's reputation for sharp practice and rip-off tactics.

Private sellers aren't all lazy or stupid, they are quite capable of following the 'bread crumbs' and tracking down some of the 'bargains' they've sold and who they were sold to.  They resent being ripped off and either don't come back or refuse to honour the sale.  There are enough complaints about that to make one wonder how widespread the problem is, or it should do.

[4_bathrooms]

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@cobwebcottage wrote:

I also want to know if, when I go buying, I should wear a big badge stating 'trader' to be legal??

---

Where eBay - and other distance sales are concerned - yes, you should. It is a requirement for a trader to provide the trader's details (including name, address and contact details) prior to making a distance purchase from a consumer (private seller). This requirement can be found in Regulation 13 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations. As you cannot exchange any contact details through eBay messages until a transaction is in place a trader can only comply with this requirement by purchasing from a private seller via a business account.

You also can't misrepresent yourself as being a consumer (private buyer) to a private seller as per Paragraph 5 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. It would be pretty difficult to argue that you are not creating the false impression of being a private buyer if you are purchasing using a private account.

These laws exist because in a consumer contract the business is ruled to be in the stronger position. A private seller's best interest is to sell the item for as much as possible; a business buyer's best interest is to purchase the item for as little as possible in order to resell it at a profit. The business could use their stronger position to negotiate a lower price from the seller (by using their superior market knowledge or through outright lying) causing the seller to make a transactional decision they wouldn't have made if they knew their buyer was a business from the outset.   

[technthread]

I wouldn’t argue about that, it’s logical.

I have always felt that on eBay, a seller sets a BIN price or gambles on an auction, it makes no odds whether it’s a business or private account buying the item if the final sale price is the same number.

However given what you have said, I’ll buy on my business account in future but it will reduce the price I am willing to pay by around 10% on average. 

[cobwebcottage]

It wasn't in relation to buying online, it was buying in general from shops, markets etc, and slightly facetious. 

I use my business account to buy purchases online for the business and vice versa on my private account. I very much doubt if the seller checks to see if I am a business before selling to me.

I have had private sellers buy from me and then resell on their private account but I still can't see how the @theelench can say  'there are enough complaints' about  businesses buying stock on their private accounts without the evidence to back it up.

[leadhills_scot]

I wonder if I'm giving the wrong impression to private sellers as I'm buying on a business account.  I no longer have a private account and won't open another one. That is why I dislike the resell button showing up as soon as the item has arrived, as I have no plans to sell them on. The jigsaws I either keep, give to my daughters or they go to charity. With the books it's normally to see if I like the author if I do I keep it otherwise I give it to charity.

[technthread]

Technically someone could accuse you of being a private user masquerading as a business. It starts getting silly. The private sellers who converted to business account to avoid SD and aren’t actually trading have a similar issue. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@cobwebcottage wrote:

It wasn't in relation to buying online, it was buying in general from shops, markets etc, and slightly facetious. 

---

Where the CCRs are concerned the requirement for providing your business details vary depending upon the type of contract. It defines three types of consumer contracts; distance contracts, off-premises contracts and on-premises contracts:

• Distance contracts means contracts entered into online or over the telephone; i.e. where the trader and the consumer are not in each other's physical presence (i.e. eBay). Distance contracts require the trader's full details to be disclosed prior to the contract being entered into.
• Off-premises contracts typically means contracts entered into somewhere other than the trader's business premises where the trader and consumer are both physically present. This would include car boot sales - where the public are selling items - or where the trader visits the consumer's home (for example). Traders still have to provide their full details.
• On-premises contracts means contracts entered into at the trader's business premises. The trader's business premises can be a physical retail shop or a moveable retail premises (such as a moveable kiosk or pop-up shop) where the trader normally conducts their business (a "business premises" does not mean a sole trader's home). A trader does not have to provide their details if it they can be deduced from the context or if it is a "day-to-day" transaction that is performed immediately at the time the contract is entered into.  

If you're buying from a shop or a market trader (i.e. another business) consumer law doesn't apply as it isn't a consumer contact. 

[theelench]

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough when I wrote "There are enough complaints about that to make one wonder how widespread the problem is,...." following on from a sentence referring to private seller's reactions to seeing their items sell for one bid so refusing to honour the sale.  I thought it was clear that I was referring to the number of complaints about sellers refusing to honour such under-valued sales.

Couple that with, in many niche collectables areas, a little sleuthing in the same niche and it's all too easy to find items being re-sold at a large mark-up by a business both properly registered or not.  It's also just as easy to use the Sold pages to follow items being flipped and who is doing the flipping.

[cobwebcottage]

'There are enough complaints'

Really?  I check the boards most days of the week and do not see these complaints often. In fact I cannot remember the last one. Just you bringing it up.

In the grand scheme of Ebay, I am sure that your sleuthing would only result in a minute amount being found. I would put my money on more sellers who should be registered as businesses than businesses buying on private accounts to make a profit and as you say, this would only be in a niche market.

Coincidently. I have just sold an item to a 'private' seller who has a bricks and mortar shop. No mention of selling for profit or that they are a business but then sale is a sale and don't forget, the seller gets what they want for the item they are selling.

[technthread]

I have sold a lot to business sellers on private accounts in the past. It doesn’t bother me usually (even when they are reselling on a private account) as I’m still getting the price I asked for.

The only times that it doesn’t sit well with me is when people are flipping the items for resale very unethically. I sold lots of coins to one guy and he was re-listing them in batches with a treasure chest type image and the impression that they were unsorted unchecked lots which may have higher value coins hidden from view. That’s the closest I have got to blocking someone who hasn’t done anything to me personally to warrant a block. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@leadhills_scot wrote:

I wonder if I'm giving the wrong impression to private sellers as I'm buying on a business account.  

---

If you're choosing to sell off your personal possessions through a business account you're giving your (private) buyers far more rights than they would have if you sold through a private account. The obligatory acceptance of remorse returns is not the only right you confer; they also have all the rights conferred by consumer legislation such as durable items lasting a reasonable length of time. This means if one of your buyers reported a "durable" item as being faulty within six months of purchase the onus would be on you to prove the item wasn't faulty when the buyer received it; a buyer could theoretically pursue you beyond eBay's MBG limit for such a claim.

In my opinion the biggest issue with using a business account for private sales is HMRC. HMRC has access to all sales conducted on eBay UK even without the data Bay is obliged to hand over under digital sales reporting legislation. All your listings will state "Seller business information", your feedback page will state "Registered as a business seller" and your "about" page will state "Business details". I have no idea what thresholds - other than the £1,000 trading allowance - nor criteria HMRC uses when sending one-to-many letters etc. out to online sellers but if HMRC did contact you I imagine you would have a hard time convincing them your eBay sales were not the result of trading when everything about your account - including your listings - clearly stated that you were a business seller. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@cobwebcottage wrote:

'There are enough complaints'

Really?  I check the boards most days of the week and do not see these complaints often. In fact I cannot remember the last one. Just you bringing it up.

---

Most (not all) of the complaints I have seen on the boards from sellers relate to eBay's Global Shipping Programme. Typically an item that Pitney Bowes deemed to be "restricted" isn't forwarded on - the buyer is refunded and the seller is not held liable for refunding them. The exact same item is then listed by a private seller who presumably purchased a job lot of such items from PB (or someone working on their behalf) - their listing using the exact same images and description that the original seller used. Admittedly I haven't seen one of these threads for a while but that's probably because any thread that receives no replies for 6 months or so is now "archived" meaning it effectively vanishes into the ether. 

I don't look in the buyer boards very often so I don't know how many complaints appear from affected buyers there. However, on the selling boards I have seen plenty of business sellers state they use a separate (private) account for buying stock to resell as it conceals the source of their stock from their (business) selling account. Doing this is just as illegal as a business selling through a private account as per the legislation linked earlier. The thing is it is much harder for a private seller to spot unless they went searching eBay and/or other online marketplaces for the exact same item they had previously sold (why would they?).

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@cobwebcottage wrote:

Coincidently. I have just sold an item to a 'private' seller who has a bricks and mortar shop. No mention of selling for profit or that they are a business but then sale is a sale and don't forget, the seller gets what they want for the item they are selling.

---

You're a business so they didn't break the law; that would only have happened if you were a consumer (private seller). I'm guessing you knew who the buyer was when they purchased or when you saw the delivery address. 

Consumers have consumer rights that are enshrined in law whenever they enter into a contract with a business - a consumer being a private buyer or a private seller. A private seller may not know the market value of something they are planning to sell; especially if it is something they are unfamiliar with because they inherited it (for example). This is why a trader has to identify themself as such upfront because in this situation the private seller would be in a disadvantageous position.

Going back to the opening post it seems providing a "Resell" link is something that was introduced on eBay.com and has ended up here due to eBay only really being a single website with regional front-end translations. The hilarious thing is eBay UK showing a "resell" link on a private account when eBay UK's own published policy states:

"If you want to sell large quantities, if you have items that you've made or bought to resell or if you already have a business outside of eBay, you’ll need to register a business account." 

[leadhills_scot]

I'm not selling on ebay anymore, just buying items I want, as I said I don't have a private account and have no intentions of getting one.

[cobwebcottage]

'Most (not all) of the complaints I have seen on the boards from sellers relate to eBay's Global Shipping Programme. Typically an item that Pitney Bowes deemed to be "restricted" isn't forwarded on - the buyer is refunded and the seller is not held liable for refunding them. The exact same item is then listed by a private seller who presumably purchased a job lot of such items from PB (or someone working on their behalf) - their listing using the exact same images and description that the original seller used. Admittedly I haven't seen one of these threads for a while but that's probably because any thread that receives no replies for 6 months or so is now "archived" meaning it effectively vanishes into the ether. '

I seem to be missing the point you are making in this example. 

Restricted items, sold by a business or private seller, are in effect being 'bought' by Ebay with no loss to the buyer or seller. They then sell these, legitimately as per their T&C's, we believe through an auction. Items are bought by, who knows, a registered business or a private seller looking to make a profit.

The only thing wrong with this is if they are being sold on a private account.

My example of the item sold to a business on a private account, probably to be sold for profit, was to highlight that it doesn't matter who buys it as long as I am happy with the sale price.

And to add, because I forgot to mention last time, sleuthing the sold pages as mentioned by the @theelench to find items which have been sold and relisted for profit, it is near impossible to identify if the buyer bought the items on a business account or private account as that information is restricted by Data Protection.

Items for sale can be traded 3, 4 , 5 +  times with an increase to the price. It has happened since the world began. It only matters if the trader is breaking the law and there is no way of identifying if a person bought on a private account and sold on a business or private account unless you are the seller and see your item for sale again. A few examples have been brought up on the boards, but not many.

[theelench]

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@cobwebcottage wrote:

'There are enough complaints'

Really?  I check the boards most days of the week and do not see these complaints often. In fact I cannot remember the last one. Just you bringing it up.

Yes really, I also check the boards most days and see buyers complaining that sellers cancel purchases regularly.  Perhaps we pick-up on the posts that interest us, but glide over and ignore those that don't ?

In the grand scheme of Ebay, I am sure that your sleuthing would only result in a minute amount being found.

My sleuthing turns up enough in one small niche to arouse my interest.  Other private will no doubt do their own and find the same.  They have to, to some extent to avoid being ripped off.  They (should) learn not to take ebay's advice and start auctions at low prices.  Or they try BIN listings and wonder why they always get Watchers but so few sales.

I would put my money on more sellers who should be registered as businesses than businesses buying on private accounts to make a profit and as you say, this would only be in a niche market.

So you are saying that businesses pretending to be private sellers and who are willing to defraud ebay of fees, evade their taxes on the profits they make and deny buyers their legal rights will suddenly develop a conscience when it comes to buying ?   Leopards do not change their spots.  If the problem of unregistered business is as big as is it's made out to be every one of them is, potentially, buying while mis-registered to gain an advantage over the seller.

Given a platform that makes anonymity so easy, recommends that inexperienced sellers start auctions at low prices.  Always tells them to lower their price if an item doesn't sell.  Emphasises at every opportunity that it increases sales if buyers can make offers and encourages them to send Watchers lower offers.  Buying on a private account is just another string to the dishonest trader's bow.  They use every trick offered to them and any others they can think of to source their stock for the lowest price they can, including pretending to be a private buyer whenever it suits them.

Coincidently. I have just sold an item to a 'private' seller who has a bricks and mortar shop. No mention of selling for profit or that they are a business but then sale is a sale and don't forget, the seller gets what they want for the item they are selling.

Do you really think that a crook is going to tell you how much they're going to make on the transaction?   Would any sane and honest business seller ?

I think you hit the nail on the head when you say "...but then a sale is a sale..." , for some it's where the rot starts.  Some play by the rules and laws and suffer when competing with those that don't.

That's why there are rules and laws.

So let's have some consistency.  If mis-representation is wrong when it hits honest businesses income, it's just as wrong when it can and is used to hit a private sellers proceeds from selling their goods.

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[cobwebcottage]

'I also check the boards most days and see buyers complaining that sellers cancel purchases regularly. '

You've lost me there as to how this supports your views. You have no way of knowing why a seller cancels an item. Unless you are talking about the rare auctions where an item didn't reach a high enough value.

'My sleuthing turns up enough in one small niche to arouse my interest.'

Are you still talking about business sellers buying on private accounts? As I have said in a previous response, how does your sleuthing of sold items identify which account the buyer is on??

'So you are saying that businesses pretending to be private sellers and who are willing to defraud ebay of fees, evade their taxes on the profits they make and deny buyers their legal rights will suddenly develop a conscience when it comes to buying ? '

Not at all, but where is your evidence?  How are businesses evading taxes unless you are implying that they are buying and selling on private accounts which is a different argument. We are talking about registered businesses buying using a private account. You have no evidence that they are not paying their taxes.

I have given up on the rest of your arguments as there is no point in trying to sway your belief that a lot of businesses are crooks.  Maybe you should write to Ebay head office or start a thread giving tips to inexperienced sellers who may sell items too cheap.

'Some play by the rules and laws and suffer when competing with those that don't.

Now that is very true and one I can relate to as a registered business seller competing with so many accounts selling similar 'collections' 'house clearance' items in their 1000's as a private seller.

[theelench]

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@cobwebcottage wrote:

Items for sale can be traded 3, 4 , 5 +  times with an increase to the price. It has happened since the world began. It only matters if the trader is breaking the law and there is no way of identifying if a person bought on a private account and sold on a business or private account unless you are the seller and see your item for sale again. A few examples have been brought up on the boards, but not many.

---

But it is breaking the law if a business mis-represents themselves as a private buyer, whether they do so with intent or not.  It is the mis-representation that is illegal not what the buyer does with the item after the sale.

Buying and selling in a small niche has the advantage of being able to see, quite easily, items being flipped, by whom and how often.  I've sold items to two traders (one registered, one 'private') multiple times and at no time did either draw attention to the fact that they were in business, as is required by law.

[cobwebcottage]

'Buying and selling in a small niche has the advantage of being able to see, quite easily, items being flipped, by whom and how often.  I've sold items to two traders (one registered, one 'private') multiple times and at no time did either draw attention to the fact that they were in business, as is required by law.'

Then get legal representation and take them to court. Problem solved, if you have the evidence.