Time for a Level Playing Field...

[collectablecats]

Let's call a spade a spade. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of 'private' sellers  on ebay who are trading. And the number of their listings is ballooning as they get rolled over for free every month.

I often check other listings before deciding whether to list a card I have, and its not unusual to discover 'private' sellers with many thousands, even tens of thousands of sales, and hundreds or thousands of free listings that roll over for free every month, meaning their 'shops' get bigger and bigger, slowly making business listings harder to find. Just yesterday I discovered a 'private' seller in my category with 26,000 sales and 2000+ listings - all sitting there free of change and paying no commission when they sell.

There is no way to address this effectively without LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD  and giving all sellers the same deal when listing and paying commission. This is what happens in the USA an in Australia, where you also get a huge number of 'free' listings when you pay for a shop compared to here in the UK.

Sure, give private sellers 20 or 30 free listings a month - who, listing things they want to get rid of, would honestly need more -  but include the monthly roll-overs in that total so they have to decide whether to keep those items running, just like businesses do.  And charge them commission on sales. 

Ebsy likes to call itslef a 'community' - but when the community leaders make businesses pay through the nose to allow their competitors to have everything free, it doesn't feel like a community for many legitimate businesses on here. Especially when they are then invited to pay even more to 'promote' items, so they have a better chance of being seen among the vast sea of 'private' listings they have been subsidising.

One hopes eBay will one day place 'community' values at the heart of their 'community' and treat businesses fairly by reintroducing a level playing field. 

[sheba-knows-best]

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@5216elisabeth wrote:

 Likewise I have sold camping items in December, for example. In many cases these had been left running from their original season as I had spare listing capacity. 

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You mean... no spare listing capacity? ie they rebounded again even WITHOUT being relisted or sell-similared?

(Not trying to be picky, just trying to understand 🙂)

[5216elisabeth]

Yes, I mean I had left them running with no tweaking.

I have a shop and they seem to count them in the new months allowance whether I leave them alone or take them off and sell similar. I checked this listings counter as they passed their month to see. So some, particularly ones with a good sales history, I just leave running. 

Needless to say I do sell similar if the season gets underway and they don't pick up again. As I do with things that aren't moving or have stalled. 

By the way, thanks for all the helpful things you post on here. I have found quite a few very good to know 🙂

[jlovie]

They could also be using old free listings as placeholders.

Is there anything to prevent completely editing an old listing into something different?

[sheba-knows-best]

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@5216elisabeth wrote:

Yes, I mean I had left them running with no tweaking.

I have a shop and they seem to count them in the new months allowance whether I leave them alone or take them off and sell similar. I checked this listings counter as they passed their month to see. So some, particularly ones with a good sales history, I just leave running. 🙂

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Yes - I understand - I forgot about sales history for people with multiple numbers of the same item. 

[vintagechinashop]

I’ve officially hit a milestone on eBay. After 12 years almost to the day of selling on eBay I have gone a whole 7 days without a single sale. That’s a record. Sales for me have been in decline in the last couple of years and I took the decision to downgrade to a basic shop but still with 250 listings I have been getting sales   My sales no longer justified a higher shop level hence the reason for a downgrade so I’m now rotating the listings each month keeping the most popular but to go seven days without a sale is even making me question if it’s worth me selling on here at all

ive started selling on other platforms and this week I have had 5 sales and I have limited listings over there and gradually listing more. I know it’s usually quiet for me during the summer months and the cost of living and I guess the heatwave doesn’t help but it proves to me that people are still buying on other platforms. So I guess I now need to shift my focus over from eBay 

very sad that eBay is definitely not the place it used to be. I still recall months when my mortgage was paid by my sales on here. Now I can barely manage to pay for a few essential items at the supermarket 

[the_brick_lodge]

Very quiet here, blistering heat after such a bad start to the year with half term on top, market in town was bustling yesterday, beach was packed last weekend, I think people are just out and about, which is a nice thing but obviously not good for sales unless what you are selling is outdoor related. It's a good time to do all the boring jobs like taking photos or dealing with paperwork.

[vintagechinashop]

I do agree that weather has a significant part to play 

However. I listed two things which have been on eBay Tweeked and sell similar numerous times,  and have been on eBay probably for about a year , and I decided to put on vinted this morning   They sold within an hour of me listing them so we can’t put all lack of sales down to weather and cost of living 

also I was talking to a lady this morning who knows what I sell and has bought direct from me a few times and she asked me how I was doing on eBay obviously the conversation followed and I told her that I was now selling on E..y and she said that when she was looking for things she never goes on eBay any more and much prefers the other sites. I do wonder how many other buyers out there have done the same 

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

I think in the type of categories you and I sell in more and more buyers are heading elsewhere, the traffic and sales speak for themselves, the buyers are out there however far fewer are venturing onto this platform. Much of this decline is down to the way Ebay have managed the platform.  Once buyers have been lost it will be extremely difficult to get them back.

[vintagewatchpart]

A seller in my niche I found yesterday has 9700 items listed, the total value of the first 50 items he is selling at highest price first adds up to £135,000.

His total listed value is probably in the £5million to £10million range.

His account is private. 

With everything that AI is capable of, why not get it to weed out these obvious accounts, make us all happy, make Ebay more money and just generally do the right thing? 

Its simple really. 

[collectablecats]

Was this private seller based in the UK?

I occasionally find private sellers with an extraordinary numbers of listings who are selling overseas. For example, the Australian private seller with about  1.5 million listings.

But as Australian businesses operate on a level playing field with private sellers, that particular seller enjoys no trading advantage over businesses in terms of listing fees or commission.

Unlike here in the UK, where this is now the case on an industrial scale.

[eyewear247]

Law breaking business sellers operating on private accounts has now snowballed totally out of control and getting worse all the time whilst eBay continue to turn a blind eye, even when these accounts are reported.

I think the playing field will only be levelled up when the law finally catches up with eBay and surely it has too, in the same way HMRC make eBay liable for VAT evaders, and eBay are held liable with massive financial penalties for the blatant business sellers masquerading as private sellers and depriving consumers of their statutory rights .

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

The situation is totally out of control and it deepens week after week.

[ett1954]

"I think the playing field will only be levelled up when the law finally catches up with eBay and surely it has too, in the same way HMRC make eBay liable for VAT evaders, ............" - or should this Government bring down the level for VAT registration to around £15,000 as it is in many European countries.  Then it would be magically solved overnight by eBay.

One thing is puzzling however.  Some of these high value 'private' sellers must already be VAT registered with their 'legitimate' business so how do they reconcile their eBay sales with HMRC through their accountant?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I think that the vast majority of those private accounts who are actually trading are well within the VAT threshold.  If they are over, it brings in a whole host of issues.  Not least illegally selling without VAT.
And frankly, once you hit that point, it really isn't worth the hassle of HMRC chasing you, as they will do at some point.  It also becomes criminal with jail time a possibility when you get to that stage.

As to the government dropping the VAT threshold to 15k, it's not going to happen.  There would be such an upproar about that.  What I can see happening, is that the threshold stays frozen and effectively drops over time.

[ett1954]

"As to the government dropping the VAT threshold to 15k, it's not going to happen." - 12 months ago I would have agreed, but with the recent proposals being floated on tax changes such as with ISAs and inheritance tax I wouldn't be as certain as R.R. is becoming desperate.

"I think that the vast majority of those private accounts who are actually trading are well within the VAT threshold.  If they are over, it brings in a whole host of issues.  Not least illegally selling without VAT." - Interesting; I am well below the VAT threshold myself however the example @vintagewatchpart  gives of a private seller with £5 - £10 million stock must surely be over that threshold to be a viable business.

@vintagewatchpart  - perhaps you should call the HMRC hotline if they are a competitor of yours.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I'll agree to disagree on that one.  

But just because you may be seeing an account with what appears to be x amount of stock, does not necessarily mean that they have that much stock.  It could be dropshipped etc.
And the other side of that, is that even if they have that level, then that still does not mean that sales equal to, or above the above the VAT threshold are being made.

And if said company is based outside the UK, then it is very likely that Ebay are collecting VAT on the account anyway.  As they are far quicker to do that, than they are to move them to a business account.