The bitterest pill

[spence0175]

I can't help it. I've never seen so many "private" sellers come to life in the category I mostly sell on. I'm seeing dollshouse makers in the real world selling on here as "private".

Ebay are you really going to let this fiasco carry on into the new year whilst us small business sellers are well and truly stuffed by your very poor decision.. Talk about a flood of stuff and a drop in what items are selling for because there is so much.

and as for the new wonderful private seller who is told it's easy to sell. Well yes it is easy to sell but it's after the sale..I purchased 4 items on separate days from one. Not one item had the correct tracking number applied.

3 have turned up, 1 hasn't but that one has the tracking number applied from the first one to arrive and says it's now delivered which it isn't and once an item is marked as delivered you cannot change the tracking....

[dch2112011]

There is not a lot to say - except that maybe now is the time to spread your wings and look for alternative outlets.

Such a shame after building your wonderful niche business - fingers crossed you will come out of it unscathed, bigger and stronger.

ebay are on a mission - now sending £15 vouchers to sell on ebay to private accounts not already selling - so no fees plus £15 to get started - you can't compete ! 

[spence0175]

That's the problem. I'm happy with eBay. My brain couldn't cope with selling on different platforms plus  the lack of space to do it.

M aybe we will come through it unscathed but it's galling watching what is going on

[dch2112011]

I totally get where you are coming from - looking at your listings it is plainly obvious that what you are doing is exactly what makes ebay such a diverse and interesting place to buy - you clearly are passionate and spend a lot of time sourcing your items - it is clearly enjoyable for you.

Hopefully buyers looking for such items can see this and I assume you will have built up a following - the items are niche and hopefully fairly unique.

It would be a good thing for ebay to offer some reward to sellers like yourself who are too small to compete with major retaillers  but now more than ever need to benifit from increased visability - a priority boost to being seen before these 'private' so called sellers  would go a long way in maintaining the status quo.

There are supposed to be more changes in the pipeline (January) hopefully this imbalance will be addressed particularly for sellers in your position - fingers crossed !

[brindsey]

Well said Spence - I feel exactly the same.  I'm just going to plod through to next year - not exactly feeling optimistic, but hopeful that something (don't know what)  will come along to help.  Surely at some point eBay must realise their ONLY chance of survival is looking after their business sellers and creating a level playing field. 

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

You have my sympathy, to a certain extent it is similar in the categories we sell in, it has become a total and utter free for all for private sellers making items to resell or buying items to resell.

We used to sell £6,000 - £8,000 a month in November however I doubt we will sell more than £2,000 on Ebay this November, my expectations for this platform are now so low.

We have turned off all promoted listings.

It is quite incredible what is happening, it seems Ebay are obsessed with killing off Vinted etc at the expense of large parts of the UK platform, I am totally and utterly baffled by it.

[spence0175]

You too have my sympathy. EBay were once the king but things change. Others came, tried and died but some came and have succeeded. I wouldn't use Vinted myself. I don't buy secondhand clothing and like to use real shops to buy new clothes which is not very often these days, but it's a  thing aimed at the younger generation who have less to spend and are happy to buy secondhand and that site I believe is aimed at them.

i joined EBay to buy vintage and antique collectables which no one else had at the time..

Ebay just have to accept there are new kids on the block and from what I see are not going anywhere soon.

Should concentrate on what makes eBay its uniqueness...

[treetopsminicottages]

You have my sympathy. As a buyer, not seller, of dolls house items I do like to look for something different/OOAK items on ebay away from the standard Streets Ahead/DHE items & try to buy either from private sellers selling off, say, their late parents items or from registered business sellers. 

There is one seller of DH items who clearly is a business but still trading as 'private' that I have reported to no avail. She currently has over 1k of items listed and over 6k of sales. I am guessing she 'buys' up stock from local charity shops and car boot sales to resell. I say this as she regularly puts her listings in holiday mode over the weekends then adds new stock after the weekend.

I know she is just one of many.

[spence0175]

Thankyou. Yes that's the problem. One of many. I've been on here for 16 years and have gotten to know many on and off line. 
I can tell people from what they sell. They have resorted to name changes and new accounts. 
In fact very few business sellers in dollshouses now.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Free final values across the board is now inevitable, it really is just a question of when and if it comes too late for a lot of business sellers.

Ebay have created this mess when there was no need for it, they should have opted for 5% final value fees across the board regardless of if you are on a business or private account, that would have been good value and they would have gained from businesses paying more to promote.

[the-nutwood-collection]

It's not just business sellers masquerading as private that are causing the problem for business sellers.

In one of my categories, since fee-free selling started, a private seller has created 81 listings.  I think it is probably genuinly private, because the listings are not showing more than one available.  The prices are low, £1.80 - £2.50.  The postage is what it would cost to send the item.

Would this seller have created 81 individual listings at 30p (or whatever the charge is) + FVF if it wasn't free to sell?  I doubt it.  However, all these listings are crowding out business seller listings - business sellers that pay for a shop or pay 36p per listing, plus FVF.  There's no way that any business seller could make any sort of margin on £1.80 plus postage at cost.  They'd just be busy fools.

[the_book_seekers]

However, all these listings are crowding out business seller listings - business sellers that pay for a shop or pay 36p per listing, plus FVF.  

This has been my thought. I'd like to think that ebay thought through the consequences of private sellers being fee free. The squeeze on business sellers is obvious and ebay may assume we can take it. ebay probably think the squeeze will bring in a higher rate promotion fees.

[billyandbrian]

I think Ebay has realised too late that sales across the board were crashing. There are other platforms for selling that work better for sellers and buyers. Vinted is no longer just clothes. There is a huge array of collectibles, games, books etc. The fee structure on there is very transparent and passed on to the buyer. As a buyer, I have no problem factoring that in to what I pay; if I sell, I know I am in control of how much I will get for the item. You can send offers to each other. Money made transfers usually within 24 hours once cleared and the buyer has to confirm they are happy within a certain time frame.

After enough sellers moved there, the buyers followed. Its 100% easier to sell on there than ebay.

I have never used Etsy but that seems to be doing well for sellers too.

I no longer operate as a business anywhere, so I only ever sell the odd item-latest was a prom dress for my daughter-sold on vinted and got a lot more than I would have on ebay. 

I miss the old ebay format: really feel for the seasoned businesses on here who have basically been shafted (again!) by this latest free to sell right before Christmas. 

Ebay need to rethink how they are applying fees uniformly and how to protect smaller businesses before they lose them.

I wish you all the best of luck, and hope Ebay realises the gravity of the catalogue of errors it has made over the past couple of years.

[spence0175]

But how much more can they squeeze out of people. There has to be a limit and hopefully the people who are paying incredible amounts to promote will see the light.

In fact if everyone saw the light and stopped promoting, things would be very different..

[billyandbrian]

Very true, but sadly I think things are so bad, people are willing to try anything at this stage to sell something

It was inevitable someone would move in the market to fill the gap and listen to what sellers have been saying here for at least 2 years. 

Considering how much ebay take from business reg accounts I am amazed at the lack lustre approach to keeping them happy.

Ebay feels much less like an open competitive market now-and much more like Ebay shows you what it wants you to see (I have posted a couple of times about search terms frustrating me as a buyer-I know the items are there, but only if ebay chooses to show them, can I see them. Very irritating. I generally search via google instead now)

[messier44000]

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@british-ceramics-and-paintings wrote:

Free final values across the board is now inevitable, it really is just a question of when and if it comes too late for a lot of business sellers.

That is what I am hoping for. But will no doubt increase PLs to take money out the other hand.

Considering starting the shop again in the new year, if / when eBay wake up.

Closed it back in April. Oddly there was no offers of a few free months subscription 

to keep me, or any other incentives.

Being a self employed care worker is more than filling the gap for me.

BTW , PLs (google ads) have done great for the website. Sept - Oct sales were great.

Plus Google gave me a months worth of free ads thrown in after a month.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

I think a deal for business sellers will be coming soon, you cannot operate a two tier system like this for long, it simply isn't going to work.

If Ebay want to destroy Vinted they are going to have to compete with them across the board, that includes business sellers.

Also it looks like ebay cannot cope with the businesses trading on private accounts issue, there is one simple way to eradicate some of the problem, free final value fees for businesses.

Like you say it will result in higher promoted listing fees however that is more acceptable if there are no final value fees.

[ashlands-emporium]

If the sole reason for removing final value fees for private sellers was to compete with Vinted - a company that has only just turned a profit -  then I really do not think eBay have thought this through- a 2 tier fee system which leans heavily in favour of the party which is not generating any (direct) revenue. 

The fault lies in eBay not enforcing its policy on what constitutes a private vs business seller. I sell mostly used items - the same items any private seller will sell, yet I am expected to pay ~20% + promotion fees to sell that item... the worst of it being a percentage on fixed postage costs (an issue that private sellers abused in the past which led to final value fees on postage costs).

A true private seller will only have a handful of items to sell and is not going to impact upon the business sellers on eBay. The number of clear business sellers on private accounts that are now able to sell for free & have 300 listings for free is unbelievable. This equates to the £31/month shop + no fees. To top it off they are not limited to 300 listings.. additional listings only cost 35p - an absolute bargain if you are selling without fees!

Considering eBay have data on the number of sales (& other metrics) - singling out those falsely claiming to be private sellers should be an afternoons work - sellers with 8,000 sales on a private account (really??). It is in eBays best interest to limit these accounts as they are essentially defrauding eBay of fees - I thought when the change in October came they would considerably crack down on false private sellers as they now provide very little revenue to eBay - it turns out they cannot be bothered to enforce their own policy. If an average user can find these business sellers masquerading as private sellers then I am sure with access to full seller databases this should be a walk in the park.. 

The disadvantage to business sellers on this platform is clear - a business seller on a private account can undercut products like-for-like at a rate of close to 20% - in some categories this is the difference between a sale or not. Similarly, considering they have no fees to pay they can instead considerably outspend any business seller on promoted listings - again leading to sales falling off a cliff. 

If eBay do not implement policy enforcement or changes to level the playing field then I will be taking the majority of my business to etsy & vinted pro - both platforms understand that making a 2-tier system helps no-one. Once vinted have poached enough business sellers from eBay I am sure they will expand their categories to copy eBay like for like and signal the end for eBays platform dominance. 

[spence0175]

Well said.....

[ashlands-emporium]

Aside from levelling the playing field in terms of fees - the other biggest thing eBay could do to support their revenue generators (us) is provide a reporting system that allows you to report a business operating on a private account & provide feedback to you on the outcome of this - this is something that eBay have completely overlooked in their reporting system which is now considerably outdated as it was solely focused on preventing off-site sales and fee avoidance (off which they get none now!). AI generated rubbish from customer support is not enough. 

As others have mentioned on other forum posts, these business sellers on private accounts are also breaking UK distance selling laws - another toothless policy. 

I do not think that eBay will do anything about this until atleast the new tax year, and especially not before Christmas.. they want their sales to look as health as possible for their investors.