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....

[pg_kicks]

What blows my mine is that you can see it, I can see and and many others can, but somehow people getting paid ten's of thousands and even hundreds of thousands thought it was a good idea. I'd love to know if they honestly thought businesses would just bend over and take it without complaining/leaving. Nobody will ever answer the question though as no answer paints them in a good light.

[the_book_seekers]

Its easier for ebay to apply a monetary value to working out whether a seller is private or business rather than the mechanics behind the listings ie selling personal items or buying or making to sell.  It seems ebay is applying some ridiculous monetary amounts - the VAT limit has been mentioned, which would be crazy.  It's a mad situation which ebay has allowed to develop. There's no incentive for new business sellers to register as such and as things stand ebay isn't making them. I think the frustration is growing because ebay gave a brief impression of actually doing something meaningful about the problem, but this seems to have fizzled out to nothing. 

[spence0175]

It's not too late.

They could at this point decide to do a fee cut for business sellers at least until Xmas.

[spence0175]

That's the thing...No incentive at all....to become a business...

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Don't worry..... 😀

At eBay, we are dedicated to ensuring a fair and equitable marketplace for all business sellers.

[pg_kicks]

Even a small crumb like that wouldnt tempt many back, it needs to be a permanent end to the 2 tier system or a much more legal/fair system, all that small crumb would do is please people for 6 weeks, come 1st January the problem comes again.

What they should do is either have an across the board price to use the site, be is free to list and you can pay whatever for advertising, 5%/10% and pay whatever you wish for advertising but have it the same for business and private. The other option is to have it 2 tier but you have a low bar that once you hit you are then forced to pay for the site, be it 30 sales or in my opinion 100 would be better, once you go over this you have to become a business account and pay to use the site. Yes Dave who is selling his great aunts collection of teapots will have to pay and accept returns but hes selling over 100 items, why does he think he should get it for free? 

It needs to be a permenant change and in line with the law and eBays own policies. Sadly eBay and its employees do not care at all, the atitude has probably come from the top as its a terrible managerial system where you can happily stand infront of your biggest customer base and not mention the biggest change to the site in over 20 years just a couple of weeks before its coming, if thats the top no wonder we get so many threads and posts outlining the lies they have been told by staff.

@british-ceramics-and-paintings  I love that line, whenever I'm taking to an eBay member I try and drop it in as it just shows how bad they are doing.

[the-nutwood-collection]

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

I'm not comfortable with this as a solution.  To me, it would just be an opportunity for eBay to hold sellers to ransom by quoting greater and greater PL percentages.  With fixed FVF, I know what the fees will be, and I can cost the item accordingly.

Also, what about the loss of revenue from sellers that don't promote (like me).  If, to get around this, eBay force sellers to promote at a minimum percentage - that's the same as a fixed FVF.

My proposal would be a two-tier system, based on VAT registration.  VAT registered entities would pay a greater fee, but as the VAT can be reclaimed, the fee would be the same for both.  At the moment, non registered business entities pay greater fees than both private and VAT registered businesses - and eBay says it supports small businesses!

The result would be the same FVF fees across the board and there would be no incentive for businesses to claim to be private.  I'm also inclined towards mandating returns for all sellers, irrespective of status.

eBay could introduce targetted incentives, for example list and/or sell more than same quarter last year, get a fee discount for the next quarter.  A reward based on performance, not seller status.

Many private sellers wouldn't like this because they've been conditioned to expect fee-free selling, both by the private seller incentives that have been running for some time and by these fee-free periods now and earlier in the year.  It will be painful to wean them off this but, when reality sets in, the platform will stablise.  Many private sellers will initially depart for Facebook and similar, but these platforms don't have the footfall of eBay.  Their departure could be a blessing for sellers that remain, as it will thin the herd - a herd that's grown too large because of free grazing - and there will be space for the rest of us to get more grass.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

You are talking sense however........

Ebay are not going to reverse free final value fees for private sellers so we have to deal with the reality of the situation they have created hence why I feel an increase in promoted listing fees would be inevitable / acceptable if final value fees were removed for business sellers. Also it isn't mandatory to promote now so I don't see why that has to change.

I would have preferred a flat rate final value fee of 5% across the board however that is not going to happen now as the horse has bolted.

There are a lot of things Ebay could do very quickly to improve things however their changes generally seem to do the opposite. 

[brindsey]

Just as a by the bye -

Our internet connection has never been good.  Sunday afternoons it was almost impossible to access eBay because the servers were so busy and, if desperate, I had to go sit by the router.  These days eBay isn't a problem,  instant connection.  However,  Vinted :

"This site can’t be reached

"www.v......co.uk took too long to respond" (had to use dots as didn't want to post a live link!)

Constantly, all day long.

Says it all!!

[spence0175]

I just think moral is low for business sellers.  Even a crumb would have been a brucie bonus at least for the next five weeks. At least it would be an even playing field for all, even though it's not a perfect solution and only temporary but it would be something.....and something is better than nothing....

[gemini-project]

I have upped all the prices on my eBay business account listings and have to tried and point sellers to my website which is 10% less, for some reason they still perfer eBay???

[pg_kicks]

Sadly that cant happen now, its like Dominos or SCS nobody would ever pay full price if either of those tried to stop discounts, once you give people stuff for free you can't then up it, the free selling only came about because they ran the 70/80% off for so long that people stopped listing unless they had these promos.

100% agree with incentives to have good accounts, currently its be decent or we will hide your listings, why not be great and we will promote your listings, I'd rather they give us a discount but why not say if you have top rated and a great account you get 5% promoted for free. Have strict and hard to get standards but if you put the work in you get rewarded.

[technthread]

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@gemini-project wrote:

I have upped all the prices on my eBay business account listings and have to tried and point sellers to my website which is 10% less, for some reason they still perfer eBay???

I get 10% cashback when I buy from eBay. Given the choice I'd still buy from eBay and get the cashback rather than pay 10% less on someone's own site as I have the backing of the eBay MBG and well, it's just familiarity and the trust eBay have built up so I am more comfortable.

If I buy from someone's website that I haven't heard of previously it takes up my time. I have to research who I'm handing my sign up data to and check reviews etc... to really indice me personally it would have to be a lot more than 10% off for those reasons. 

[pillarboxred]

If you have factual information, including screenshots, you can submit the data to HMRC. A late friend of mine who worked in the City as a tax adviser said it was standard practice to report competitors who were breaking tax law, provoke an investigation that would lead to fines and bankruptcy, and buy up the bankrupt's assets and take their market share. I was horrified but he thought I was naive and assured me it was what was done in business, absolutely.  However, do you have facts? Are you talking about hobbyists who love to build dolls' houses and then sell them and probably haven't been paid for labour at the National Minimum Wage rate but can't fill their homes with dolls' houses?  Many works of fine craft if costed at £50 per hour for scarce skills, would cost more than anyone would pay. Are these people businesses? If you really are angry and you really know the true position, you can report the offenders: you are not a snitch, you owe them nothing and they are harming you by stealing your trade and you do not need to tell anyone.

[spence0175]

I'm not angry with them but peeved at EBay for allowing it. I'm talking about professional makers, not some person in a shed.

[ashlands-emporium]

The issue is there are literally thousands of business sellers operating as private sellers on eBay - perhaps this is worse in the used goods market than other categories but whenever I check completed solds for researching prices I find every 2nd listing is clearly a business seller on a private account..it is perfectly clear as day.

As a small business, why is it my responsibility to sort this for eBay when they could themselves sort it at a drop of a hat. The time it takes to report to HMRC is just not worth it - ontop of that you will receive no feedback on this due to GDPR.  All we are asking for is a fairly weighted platform to sell on. Currently, and rather strangely, it favours those who pay close to nothing to use it. 

When eBay introducted this in October the reasoning behind it was they trailed in Germany and seen an upstick in sales on business sellers items - they suggest it benefits all parties. I would like to hear from german eBay business sellers first hand - perhaps the german site isnt awash with thousands of 'private' sellers & it is generating the circular sell & spend economy eBay envisions.. I am not confident the UK eBay has the same structure. 

[dch2112011]

It seems to me to be a simple equation - vastly increase the number of private sellers - give them the opportunity to immediately spend their sales proceeds on ebay and some of that money will find itself into ebay's and business sellers pockets !

What is not clear is what proportion of the new funds finds it's way into small businesses rather than the large sellers and how much extra sales are generated.

Given that initially sales drop for established small sellers  any small increase due to the new money held in ebay balance in percentage terms could be shown to be an incredible growth - when in reality it is merely replacing some of the lost business !

Of course if ebay can entice the new sellers to spend on ebay - ebay gain fees from it 

I feel that the only one's to gain are the big sellers who offer high street goods and of course ebay - small sellers will be swept aside 

[selectrouk]

That's a joke...

Reported two sellers (private) with over 300 sales in the last month (listings with still hundreds pieces available) and just got email from ebay.

"We looked into your report and didn't find the listing to be in violation of our policy. This determination was made using automation of artificial intelligence".

"Thank you for being part of the eBay community".

Erm. 

[messier44000]

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@gemini-project wrote:

I have upped all the prices on my eBay business account listings and have to tried and point sellers to my website which is 10% less, for some reason they still perfer eBay???

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For whatever reason many buyers think there is not a world outside eBay.

Plus the MBG due to eBays FDDs is an easy way to get a freebie 

[the-nutwood-collection]

... perhaps the german site isnt awash with thousands of 'private' sellers ...

It's not possible to make a straightforward comparison between the UK and EU countries, because the VAT threshold differs widely as does the definition of a business.  For example, the threshold is 22,000 euro in Germany, even lower in some other countries.  I believe that, in Spain, there is no threshold, just a set of rules that define when an entity has to register.  If the seller misinterprets the rules, they have to pay the VAT on transactions that are considered vattable.

I have had numerous EU companies refuse to sell to me because, to them, I am not a business - because I'm not VAT registered.  It matters nothing to them that I don't have to register until my turnover is £90,000 and that they can see from my website that I am a business. 

Even my major european supplier doesn't class me as a business.  To them, I'm just a private individual that buys a lot of stuff.  When the supplier registered for UK VAT, they couldn't class me as a business on their system because I don't have a VAT number, which meant they charged VAT at source - and then I was assessed for VAT again at the UK border, and that assessment charged VAT on the VAT.  That took months to sort out.