Base item price shown to me is much higher than actual base price set by the seller

[swappy-alien]

I'm located in the EU in Austria and wanted to buy an item from a seller in the UK. I'm using the UK ebay website, so I should see all the original prices in pounds. The seller has confirmed to me that the item has been listed for 70 pounds plus free shipping, but I see 83.40 (3.40 is the buyer protection fee as shown when I try to check out).

Interestingly, when I open the listing in a different browser without being logged in and without having any ebay cookies, I see the price as intended by the seller. As soon as I log into my account, ebay just adds 10 pounds on top, even if I change my primary delivery address to a UK address.

This is all without the buyer protection fee or the shipping cost or any import taxes or fees (the seller isn't shipping through ebay's shipping service). It really is just the item's base price that's being changed by ebay.

Neither of us understands what's going on there. Is ebay just randomly skimming off an additional amount according to some weird internal formula? I also purchased another item from the same seller, which was supposed to cost 150 pounds but ended up costing 156. This all seems totally random.

[xyz307xyz]

No idea myself. Maybe someone else will have come across similar and will provide an answer. Otherwise if you and the seller were willing to do so - you might get more responses if we knew the item number.

What is the final price if you try and buy the item on https://www.ebay.at/ with the UK shipping address?

[fargvs]

If either the Buyer/Seller is located or has an account registered outside the UK ,  then additional  Import/Export VAT and any other shipping/delivery duty is liable on  EU > UK < EU delivery transactions >

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/paying-tax-ebay-purchases?id=4771&st=12&pos=3&query=...

[swappy-alien]

Thank you very much, I think this link contains the answer:

"As of 1 July 2021, there is no longer a VAT exemption for small consignments up to EUR 22 and eBay will be required to collect VAT on certain orders delivered to EU addresses:

• Orders up to a value of EUR 150 imported into the EU and sold to consumers (for shipments to Metropolitan France and Monaco, see next point)"

This explains most of it, but raises a few additional questions for me: Do I understand correctly that for items valued above €150, I pay VAT and import tax in Austria, but for items below this value ebay collects only VAT and the parcel goes through customs without any additional payment? If so, does the seller have to declare anything specific when shipping the item, so that our customs office knows that VAT has already been paid? He would ship it with another item valued at more than €150, for which I would have to pay VAT and import tax here. The seller is not using ebay's shipping but his own, so I want to avoid having to double dip.

[wellingnorth]

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@swappy-alien wrote:

Do I understand correctly that for items valued above €150, I pay VAT and import tax in Austria, but for items below this value ebay collects only VAT and the parcel goes through customs without any additional payment? If so, does the seller have to declare anything specific when shipping the item, so that our customs office knows that VAT has already been paid? 

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Yes, generally this is correct, if the order is below EUR 150, then when you pay ebay should collect the VAT under the IOSS scheme. The safest way for the seller to send it is to use Royal Mail's Click & Drop system. It's possible to integrate this with an ebay account which will then pull in the order details and add ebay's IOSS number to the customs information which is digitally encoded into the label, but it can also be added manually in the IOSS field of the form you fill in when you book a label. Personally I always add a note to the parcel as well - 'Ebay sale, VAT paid, IOSS number IM2760000742'

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@swappy-alien wrote:

He would ship it with another item valued at more than €150, for which I would have to pay VAT and import tax here. The seller is not using ebay's shipping but his own, so I want to avoid having to double dip.

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This element is more of a grey area! I would think that the best way to handle this might be to try and check out for both items at once. I think in principle then you would not pay VAT through ebay / IOSS and it would all be handled through Austrian customs.

FWIW I think I have read that the Buyer Protection Fee only applies for sales through ebay.co.uk so if you're on ebay.at or .com that may not affect you. 

[swappy-alien]

Thank you very much, that cleared everything up for me. We decided to cancel my original order and combined it into one big one and I ordered it through the Austrian ebay website, which meant I didn't have to pay for buyer protection as well.

[wellingnorth]

Excellent, I'm glad that helped, that sounds like the correct / best way to have done it!