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....

[bojangled]

@british-ceramics-and-paintings 

Sorry to see another one go.

I fired off an email to CS this week, won't do any good but felt better for it.
Pretty sure I'll get the same response.

But got to shake this negativity off, not doing me any good. 
Onward, upward and all that.

[the_book_seekers]

Well there's a response which has glossed over the issues

Remember, private sellers are not in competition for business sellers - Yes they are when they are not genuine private sellers.

We have also taken various measures to prevent business users from pretending to be private sellers - No where near enough. ebay's statement about creating a level playing field hasn't happened so far. 

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

It was basically just a cut and paste job from the blurb Ebay churned out a month or two ago, utterless  pointless really.

The fact ebay seem to think unless you sell 80k plus a year you are not a business shows how clueless they are across the board. Plenty of the people who contribute to this forum operate legitimate small businesses that have revenues under 15k to 20k a year.

The current situation will kill the UK platform if it is allowed to continue, I'd love for someone from Ebay to argue otherwise, they would get pulled apart by members of this forum.

[brindsey]

Right now the only solution I'm seeing is for eBay to stop charging fees for businesses and bring them into line with private sellers.  Without a doubt they are moving toward a buyers premium, I wouldn't be happy with this, but if it meant the same fee structure as private sellers then I could learn to live with it.

Legislation/Trading Standards need to step in though on the matter of returns.  You should be able to return anything bought online, and unseen,  regardless of the seller's status.  How you would police this I don't know, but companies like Vinted should be held responsible for their sellers. eBay at least does have a money back guarantee for mis-sold items.

Vinted's buyer protection?  Biggest joke on the planet.

[ashlands-emporium]

@british-ceramics-and-paintings I too spoke with the eBay customer service and got a completely different response. I will psot the transcript when I am at my PC. 

[ashlands-emporium]

Here is the transcript of the conversation I had with ebay support yesterday. As of today all accounts I submitted are still private accounts and are actively uploading new items. Some of them have over 800 items on a private account. 

 Jhazmine

Hello, Thank you for contacting eBay Customer Service- my name is Jhazmine . Please allow me a few moments to catch up on your conversation so far.

Jhazmine

Hello , hope you and your family are doing well. As I can see here you need assistance with regards to the seller you wish to report.. Correct?

 Jhazmine

I also see you opened this account 10 years ago, thank you for your loyal .

ashlands-emporium

yes, i would like to report a seller who is a business (reselling used items) on a private account

ashlands-emporium

they are infringing upon UK distance selling law. they are also defrauding eBay of fees. I am a business seller and it is impacting upon my ability to sell on this platform

Jhazmine

Hi, . I would like to commend you for raising this to us as we do not tolerate this kind of behaviour in the site. I can definitely proceed on the high priori report regarding this seller. May I please have the details? Thanks so much.

ashlands-emporium

account names: ***********, **********, *********, ********, ********

ashlands-emporium

all of these sellers are business sellers acting on private profiles. Some have upwards of 6000+ sales. They are defrauding eBay of fees doing this.

ashlands-emporium

they are also impacting upon my ability to sell the same kind of items.

Jhazmine

This is really a big help to us, . Thank you so much for providing all the account names. I'll now proceed on creating the high priority reports and forward it to our Team directly so that they can take action as soon as possible.

Jhazmine

Sorry to know about that and we certainly do not want other sellers to experince this, . I'll make sure this will be prioritize.

ashlands-emporium

Thank you Jhazmine. Please can you note that the UK law on acting as a business seller is stated as someone who buys or makes items to resell for a profit. all of the accounts i have mentioned do this. they buy used items and sell for a profit.

ashlands-emporium

Now that ebay are giving private sellers free fees it means that business sellers on private accounts are abusing this. this is going to kill ebay unless it is sorted

Jhazmine

Yes, I'll definitely included that on the reports, . I got you on this.

Jhazmine

I certainly agree with you on that, .

ashlands-emporium

From ********** ebay account about page - they openly state they are a business...

ashlands-emporium

"Pride ourselves on selling great quality second hand clothes” ... “Family run trying to do our best to avoid landfill”

ashlands-emporium

From ******* item description - openly states the item has been purchased from a house clearance (and is then re-sold on ebay):

ashlands-emporium

House clearance find tested no further than power up and results shown Pics not been PAT tested

ashlands-emporium

Jhazmine - will i get an update / message sent with an outcome of this report please?

Jhazmine

I was able to see those too and I include it on the report. Thank you so much for raising this report to us, . You really help us in maintaining the safe of our site by reporting this kind of sellers that are not in compliant.

Jhazmine

I want to be transparent with you as I do not want to give you any false hope, . Though we will not be able to give you an update regarding these reports since we will now take it from here, I can create a note that if there is a possibili that you can have an update on these. You are in good hands with me.

ashlands-emporium

thank you Jhazmine - it is appreciated. I will monitor these users and check their account status in the coming few weeks to see if ebay has taken action and moved them to a business account. thanks again. i will sign off

Jhazmine

I appreciate all of your efforts, . Pleasure is mine to help you on these reports. Thank you for contacting eBay Customer Service and have a great day. Stay safe!

chat ended by Jhazmine

[spence0175]

And the chances that EBay will take action on that account are.....

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

In my experiences I very much doubt anything will come of it, the overseas customer service staff are very polite and talk a good game however beyond that nothing seems to happen.

[dch2112011]

100% ebay will take action - you have to believe every word they write / say  -  I have it on good authority that once the laughter quietens down - ebay  will send a message saying that they can see that these accounts do not contravene any policy - oh and they will add thankyou for drawing this to their attention,

Action taken - back to daffy duck on the video 

[ashlands-emporium]

I sent the usernames of several accounts across - all large business accounts selling off a private profile. I agree it is unlikely they will do anything. 

Out of interest from comments a page or two ago - talking about if the German site (from which eBay have based this off) & if is also riddled with fake private sellers - I spent a bit of time on there searching for items and checking the private sellers on there. Using the same items I instantly found fake privates on the UK site. On the German site i did not find any clear cut examples. Most private sellers had 10-20 listings... compared to UK fake privates on 800+. 

Try it youself - ebay.de 

Set location to Germany only. 

[howmuchtobid]

The seller of this item makes great use of images 🙄

235488434452

[pg_kicks]

eBay plus on eBay.de too, €19.90 a year for free returns and a few promos, probably a few other things but my German skills are very bad. I think its for buyers, hopefully somebody can speak German and explain it much better than me.

[dch2112011]

Basically looking at DE it is aimed at top brand sellers - opt in for sellers by getting the new badge - it will push buyers to the big sellers and away from the small sellers  for the type of buyer signing up but otherwise of no use or interest to small / medium sellers and general 2nd hand buyers

• Free returns
• Easy, free returns on all items (domestic only)
• eBay Plus Deals on Top Brands
• Every week -10% extra discount on thousands of branded products at top prices.
• eBay Plus Listings for New Brands
• Get an additional 15% off newcomer brands in all categories.
• More benefits with eBay Plus
  1) Sign up for eBay Plus now, Enjoy exclusive offers, points to earn and free returns during the 30-day trial period.

2) Earn points when buying and selling, For every euro spent, you will receive one point and for every item sold, you will receive 50 points. In addition, you'll earn 10 points for every shipping label you purchase through the eBay fulfillment platform.

3) Redeem points and save,Simply redeem the collected points at the checkout and save on your next purchase.

Terms

Good to know
During the 30-day trial period, you can test all the benefits of eBay Plus.
You can cancel eBay Plus online at any time; without any problems until the last day of the runtime. Otherwise, your eBay Plus membership will automatically renew for another year at a cost of €19.90.
Look forward to regular extra points with exclusive multi-point promotions.

[pg_kicks]

Just looked at the Aussie site, they have similar, guess thats coming to .co.uk soon, it looks like its for buyers who return a lot as thats the only real benefit I can see.

No doubt they'll spin it as a positive for business sellers.

[dch2112011]

Top rated plus is the badge being replaced - small and medium businesses will have no benefit whatso ever unless ebay spin that it will attract more affluent buyers who by default will stray and buy from small and medium businesses who are not included in the scheme ?

My guess is that these buyers will have a different experiance in terms of search, offers and support - I have a suspicion that any other seller will be almost invisible to them as it effectively becomes an elite seller and buyers club 

Or worse the small and medium seller will be buried in the search results - hang on Has that already started ?

[crg_music]

Business sellers are really feeling hard done by for sure. I am yet to speak to a single business seller feeling positive about where things are currently. If they are on about charging the buyer then get on with it and atleast make it a level playing field so we can compete.

I wont be listing much while its all so in the air, luckilly there are plenty of other places to list what I have and see what happens over here. That + fairs etc through the winter.

[spence0175]

Probably one of many still doing this but that is quite blatant

[the-nutwood-collection]

What is Top Rated Plus?  I'm TRS, is there another level above that?  eBay Help is silent on the subject.

If TRS is included in any free returns scheme, then I'm definitely leaving the platform.  My returns have to be weighed and re-packaged.  I'm not running the risk of someone ordering all the greens I have so that they can choose one and send the rest back.

[dch2112011]

Follow this link it explains top rated plus - free shipping - same day dispatch  amongst other things

---

top rated seller - top rated plus 

---

[crg_music]

Yeah I think a free + a next day option on every item + top rated. Its probably worth doing if you already do those or just need add a next day option etc.