Who is right - (Private) business sellers

[messier44000]

With regards the long running Q&As about trying to report business sellers on private 

accounts, we now have 2 answers. Who is right and who is wrong

Anita - You can report these sellers here (link) > select 'The seller has violated one of eBay’s policies' > Continue. The report goes to our Trust & safety team for a review.  

Dave - Unfortunately there isn't an option for that exact topic 

Looking at the options, how difficult would it be to add Business seller avoiding fees and reducing buyer rights on a private account.

Give me access to the editing pages and should take me a couple of minutes

BTW - Other in the options, I guess means not important

[bravergrace]

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@the_book_seekers wrote:

Or ebay interperts 'private side hustle' as (incorrectly) being private selling. The term side hustle seems to cause confusion. There's business or there's private nothing else.

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I think "side hustle" is just a polite way of saying "unregistered business trading illegally".

eBay are indeed trying to legitimize the practice by giving it an exciting and respectable new name.

Rather like calling an extortion racket "independent insurance cover".

[pg_kicks]

The issue is Dave is that there is no option to report a business on a private account so just telling us to report these accounts when we have told yourself and many other eBay colleagues that there is no option as its all checked by AI is neither helpful or and now it just seems like baiting from staff. It needs to be passed to somebody with some power who can (if eBay actually want to make the site and its customers trade legally) actually improve the reporting so the option of correctly reporting is there. 

I will attend the Roadshow and speak again to managers and remind them that they are allowing illegal trading on their site and currently seem happy to promote it, this has been brought up in multiple weekly chats but all we get is the same copy and paste reply even when we tell you outright that the reply is not helpful and the reporting doesnt have the option that is needed.

@papso22 I'd hope they dont send out the letters but my council send me 2 letters every year telling them I owe them for business rates with the last line saying money owed is £00.00, Royal Mail also send 3 letters for each letter they send out all directed to different positions like storeroom manager and Director which as a one man band I fill every position.

[bravergrace]

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@vintagewatchpart wrote:

Can anyone verify any success in reporting a private seller as a business seller and seeing their account change or listings be removed?

Ive reported about 10 accounts the past few months, all still going as Private, clearly businesses. 

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Yes, I reported one yesterday and to my surprise, the listing was removed within an hour, having been checked by an actual human.

However, I don't know for sure WHY it was removed.  It was a 99p BIN listing from a "private" seller where:

- the listing stated the actual price was around £2000 (cash only)

- no returns were accepted

- the listing included the claim that the seller was an established business with many years' experience of selling this particular type of item

- there was no picture of the item, only a picture of a delivery van with the seller's contact details plastered all over it.

So it might have been removed on any number of grounds. 

[555njp]

I think "Side Hustle" is just an Americanism for "business on the side." Meaning a business run part time alongside a full time job to make some extra cash.

Nothing wrong with that of course if properly registered, trading legally and paying any tax due.

I imagine a majority of businesses run on eBay are exactly that. Only the biggest of players can make enough to operate full time and pay the bills? 

[555njp]

So Dave, I've reported 50+ listings in the last couple of years doing exactly what you just said and selecting 'other'.

Trouble is nothing is ever done. These 'private accounts' are still operating having hundreds of listings, selling multiples of brand new stock and are very easy to spot.

This issue is a huge problem for legitimate businesses and is possibly the most talked about topic on the community boards in one way or another. 
By operating on a private account, they have an unfair advantage (free listings and discounted FVFs), and are denying customers of their legal rights by not offering returns or displaying business contact details.

Do eBay really care about this?

[the_book_seekers]

This issue is a huge problem for legitimate businesses and is possibly the most talked about topic on the community boards in one way or another. 

And ebay keeps making it more of an issue with their incentives for private sellers. Up to 1000 free listings per month which can be rolled up to even greater numbers, FVF fees promotions, free selling for selected sellers and now free selling for clothes - which has probably sent a shudder through the entire business community. What can we expect to happen next? I don't think any business seller objects to reasonable incentives for genuine private sellers, but allowing, condoning even encouraging abuse of these incentives - there was talk that we would be banned from talking about this issue on these boards - gives the lie to the image ebay likes to portray. 

[bravergrace]

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@555njp wrote:

I imagine a majority of businesses run on eBay are exactly that. Only the biggest of players can make enough to operate full time and pay the bills? 

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Depends on how big the bills are.

My business is a small one - but it certainly makes enough to pay the bills and allows me a reasonable (though not extravagant) standard of living.

I should think quite a lot of older people - with the mortgage paid off, the children grown up and perhaps a small pension coming in - must find online selling a rewarding occupation.

[vintagewatchpart]

I reported a private seller who has 3 private accounts all selling the same items as a business seller months ago and nothing has ever been done.

Recently, this seller has added a watermark to their images with a website address on! So clearly a business!

I reported some of their listings saying that they were avoiding fees and selected "Other" explaining they are clearly a business operating on a private account going into detail as to why - nothing done.

But now I reported them stating "Contact info in listings" - the website address as a watermark in images. And each item I report is being removed.

The issue now is that this is proof that they are a business as they have put their website address in their images but nothing is being done, they only remove each item on an item-by-item basis if I report it individually and I am not sitting here and reporting 600+ items.

So its a business, operating on 3 accounts, not accepting returns and spreading their turnover across multiple accounts to avoid the VAT registration.

Ebay is a community of people, we look out for each other. Most of us here follow the rules and of course we are going to get annoyed at those who don't - we pay our fees (£40k for me last year...) and when we have competitors pop up operating on private accounts listing 100 items on each listing deal weekend who continue to get away with it and without intervention, the community of businesses who obey the rules are going to get disheartened.

Jab jab jab, all of these instances are going to poke at our want to stay on this platform. One instance, yeah you'd get annoyed and shrug that off, but then for it to happen over and over and over again repeatedly all the time from every angle and for nothing to get done is going to push everyone off this platform eventually.

The unspoken and most like denied by the powers that be truth is pretty obvious - if we remove these sellers from the platform or force them to convert to business accounts, we may run the risk of losing their fees if they jump ship. So better to turn a blind eye to it.

[line1towing]

No fees to lose now with free for private sellers.  I wonder if this will make any difference?

[cbennissupplies]

the new no fees for private sellers is going to make EBay a whole lot worse for Business sellers. wont take long before a business will split into multi private listings saving that average 15% in fees 

more and more nails being hammered into the final coffin of Ebay

[hudsonsclothes]

They will catch up to them eventually, the only problem I have is how many genuine hard-working small businesses doing everything official will or have closed up as a result of the unfair competitive edge for 'private' sellers in the meantime

[555njp]

Yep, it's virtually impossible to compete unless as a business you sell something that the public cannot buy in bulk to sell on.

Years ago wholesalers would only sell to registered businesses but even when I started on here some 20 years ago they would happily sell to the general public, ship to private addresses and at the same price. 
The selling fee disparity gives proper businesses at least a 15% disadvantage which for many is more than their mark-up.

[hudsonsclothes]

I operate from a private address so to be fair I'm glad they do ship to them however I registered as a business as soon as I bought stuff to sell.

I understand eBay logic behind boosting traffic to the site, beating off competition etc I just don't like the half hearted offers of clamping down on fraudulent refunds or going after fake private sellers to try appease business sellers, it's stuff they should have been doing anyway, not a reward for us.

[555njp]

Same here but only ever part time for me. 
It used to be easy money but it's been going downhill for years.

If it's not regulations it's the ever increasing postage costs, rubbish search engine and now being disadvantaged by eBay's latest move.

Our wholesaler is massively over stocked. The used to sell most of their products to eBay reselling businesses but this is rapidly drying up and has been for the last 12-18 months.

Maybe eBay cutting private selling fees will spark some more to illegally trade for a while and so save the wholesaler, but I can see the majority of small (cottage industry) part-time businesses disappearing from the site as the margins are now too low to make it economically viable.
That's if you can even price low enough to sell anymore....?

[hudsonsclothes]

Today's the first day since I started around 7 weeks ago that I havnt listed anything new. I went on my page and had no motivation to be fair. This was a side income business that I hoped would have become a little bigger. I think now I will just remove all promos etc and just let things sell naturally and not bother wasting my free time uploading new stock. I could do so much more to earn the same or more money with the amount I make on here once fees are taken etc 

[extra_discount_deals]

I wish I could, was researching some of my listings, came across a private seller with over 12,000 listings!!  He has multiple duplicate listings on, ie 'Jingle all the way dvd' he has on 50 times but with a different number at the end of each listing, then again 'hollow one dvd' 12 listings. Had a look through their shop and there are loads of duplicate listings - reported these for duplicate listings and advoiding fees/add info/business seller trading as private.  Had  responses back yesterday - not been removed as determined by A.I.  

[pg_kicks]

They've had years to catch up with them but eBay seem to be moving slower than the tortoise, people might think they will act now that they are losing all seller fee's but they have ben losing 70/80% on a lot of these accounts for the last few years and still when presented with facts they allow them to carry on trading. Unless eBay are fined directly then they love the fact that they can gain more users and hopefully stop vinted/depop, as long as genuine business sellers carry on giving them fee's they dont seem to care, they can say as much as they like but the fact they announced this after the open event screams they dont care about genuine sellers.

[stormatic2015]

There is one simple fix in my eyes... 
Change this to yearly limits for private sellers and set the limit to £1000. If they want to remove the limit they must prove they are not a business or register as a business. If not they can not list or sell. Limit resets every tax year back to default and they go though the approval procedure again if they want to go above £1000.

[kempseykate]

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@stormatic2015 wrote:

There is one simple fix in my eyes... 
Change this to yearly limits for private sellers and set the limit to £1000. If they want to remove the limit they must prove they are not a business or register as a business. If not they can not list or sell. Limit resets every tax year back to default and they go though the approval procedure again if they want to go above £1000.

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How on earth can someone prove they are not a business seller? My OH doesn't have receipts for the annuals and toys he was bought as child; we don't have receipts for the collections we purchased years ago, we were only thinking of collecting then, not selling them 40 years in the future; we don't have receipts for the items we have sold that belonged to my late brother in law. (And if we did have receipts, surely that would make us look more like a business?)

This 'prove the items are yours' is difficult enough when dealing with HMRC, I certainly wouldn't want to be trying to prove it to ebay.

Also, I'm in my late sixties - I want rid of this stuff ASAP. I certainly don't want to be limited to just listing a small amount of items each year - I may not have that many years ahead of me, and I don't want my daughter to have the problem of dealing with it all.

[pg_kicks]

Whilst £1000 I agree is way too low I think something around £8000 or 350/400 items would be about right, if you go over that amount then you get put through to a team in Ireland who then look at your account and they decide on a basis of probability if you are a business or not, not just by looking at your listings but compare your listing style to other businesses, how many items you relist once sold, multiple sizes of the same item, return address. 

Some may think that its unfair on those who are forced to upgrade when they are not a business but that will be a lot less than buyers who are not getting the correct consumer law rights. Like you say there is no certain way to prove you are or are not a business so it has to be done on probability, in the case of your OH he might have a couple of multiples but I'm sure he hasnt got 10 boxes of each power ranger figure or 10 Beano annuals from 1998 (giving away my age range there). Like I said some will be caught up but there are thousands of buyers who are not getting their rights currently on this site, its a fine line but this latest move has made the site less safe.