300 listings per month for private sellers it is very bad as I am a Pensioner

[bumblebeecrafts-2008]

I am a pensioner and since my husband past I have been using nearly all of 1000 listings per month as I am trying to sell things  (down sizing) to try & help make life a bit more viable with the cost of everything nowadays. It is a huge reduction for  private sellers 1000 down to only 300 per month. Good for businesses less competition. I spoke to an ebay agent on the telephone and complained about it and was told it has brought us into line with Europe.  Doesn't ebay know we are no longer in the EU so that arguement  falls flat on its face.

I am hardly selling many items anymore because of this so, I will look at other sites to sell on . Ebay I have been with you for over 16 years shame on you.

[messier44000]

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@vintique*violet wrote:

eBay and their shareholders - as they rid of the " unwanted" ... they make way for the " global trade leaders".. ie. China ... 

The words I use for those of who do not want to pay to promote (OK I do 2.1% till they raise this as an "improvement") , I call us The Expendables 

[moldosgifts]

What has being a pensioner got to do with anything?

I think 300 is too many free listing I'd have set it  much lower, say 50 free.

Controversial maybe but when businesses get nothing but shafted.

[Anonymous]

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@moldosgifts wrote:

I think 300 is too many free listing I'd have set it  much lower, say 50 free.

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Of course you would, because you want to eradicate unregistered business sellers and don't care a toss if this also means getting rid of most genuine private sellers. I guess you will also be happy to lose the sales from those private sellers when they leave?

Your issue should be with ebay for not policing the site, not with private sellers, who may also be your customers.

[bumblebeecrafts-2008]

If you were to read what was written properly. Being a pensioner means one does not know how long one has left and it is quite sensible to "downsize" and help to make the pension go a bit further so the hugely drastic cuts in monthly listings is not good. Perhaps one day you will be in the same position and understand. Hope you had a good Christmas

[bumblebeecrafts-2008]

Sorry for my late reply I have had laptop problems but thank you for your kind words. It is appreciated. Some people have not been so kind with their words.

[johnwash1]

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@bumblebeecrafts-2008 wrote:
If you were to read what was written properly. Being a pensioner means one does not know how long one has left and it is quite sensible to "downsize" and help to make the pension go a bit further so the hugely drastic cuts in monthly listings is not good. Perhaps one day you will be in the same position and understand. Hope you had a good Christmas

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Although I can understand and relate to some of that, I'm puzzled after taking a quick look at your listings.  Currently you have 40 auctions and no BINs.  So, 40  x  4 is 160, well under 300.  Even if you start getting close to 300 you could list some items as BIN and take advantage of auto relisting of BINs not counting towards you monthly total.

What am I missing?

[kath3735_wxmjn]

Not sure what being a pensioner has to do with anything, i am one as well but i am quite happy with the 300.   I have other things to do with my time rather than spending 24/7 selling on E Bay, i am going to make the most of my time left on this mortal coil. 

[vintique*violet]

"What’s your take on eBay’s efforts to stay competitive in the global market?"

Interestingly it appears that China, Taiwan, India and the like are all " aiding" eBays global market... On a UK site... is that eBays effort to stay competitive ? 

Regarding pay to promote there are many many posts regarding this and how it simply does not work for many and costs them an arm and a leg particularly businesses- as a private seller I choose not to use this " feature" ... it even states in my messages promoting how eBay can increase  visibility by 100%. -- bizarre to say the least, to increase 100% then my listings visibility is at 0 , substantiated by the lack of views , watchers and sales.  Nothing is ever free... so the " free to sell"  I think is being offset in the hope that sellers will " pay to promote"...  

Happy New Year 😉 

[moldosgifts]

You say you have to be a pensioner to downsize utter nonsense I'm not a pensioner i need to downsize.

Nobody knows how long they have left a random accident could wipe one out tomorrow or today or in the next 10 mins! LIVE LIFE don't dwell on when it will end.

I am sorry your on such a poor pension but blame the government for that not me or ebay.

Of course individuals are going to disagree with the 50 that s an extreme example but seriously it s going to take something extreme to stop private seller who should operate on a business account.

Apologise if you took my example to heart but i still think 300 is to many for FREE

[*vyolla*]

300 free listings per month is more than enough for private sellers.

Buy It Now listings automatically relist each month and don't count towards the 300 monthly allowance, nor do auction style listings automatically set to relist 8 times so, in theory, a private seller could end up with over 1k free listings running after a few months.

Alternatively, if your items are worth selling and this still isn't enough then simply pay the 35p.

It's a good way of weeding out some of the private sellers who buy from charity shops and boot fairs to resell, so shouldn't be getting the free listings anyway, though one of HMRCs red flags on their latest AI algorithm is for clothing (and shoes) - if you list clothing ranging from size 8 to 18 then that will be picked up. Yo yo dieters and sellers who've been gifted clothing to resell by friends and family may end up having to prove this to HMRC. You just know that they're going to go after the soft targets and not the big guys.  

[vinylscot]

We've all been through this often enough on this thread and others.

If any business sellers are still advocating cutting private seller's selling limits down to as low as 50 items per month, these business sellers are simply being spiteful (and basically totally wrong-headed).

Anyone with a decent sized collection could have literally thousands of items to shift, legitimately, on a private account. At 50 a month, my own personal record collection would take fifteen years to list; my football programmes would take another year, as would my magazines. Other items would certainly add more years to that.

In addition, sellers needing to raise money reasonably quickly (one of the big attractions of eBay), may legitimately need more listings, from time to time.

Three hundred is a decent compromise, and should cut out SOME of the bogus private sellers. 

If the figure is cut more, eBay will lose more genuine private sellers, and while I don't think it's quite what it was back in the Paypal days, much of their proceeds from selling is spent on eBay, with sellers such as yourself.

If you vindictive people got your way, it would certainly put a huge dent in eBay's income, and a corresponding dent in your own. So be careful what you wish for.

[moldosgifts]

See vyolla example above (90) and I'll stick to my 50 example.

[vinylscot]

But neither of you are yet thinking in the real world, putting yourselves in the position of a genuine private seller.

Take for example my own private record collection. There are 8,000 singles there. The average price will probably be around £4.00, so I would need to sell a fair amount to get a significant sum of money.

These items WILL sell, but probably not first time round. Even on this business account, I'm still selling stuff which has been listed for over two years - sooner or later, somebody wants it.

In no version of reality would it be worthwhile paying to list these items, particularly at 35p per listing.

If either of you stopped to think before posting your cruel, thoughtless opinions, you would realise this. Without this sort of genuine, law-abiding, private seller eBay would be a much quieter place.

Getting rid of the business sellers wrongly operating private accounts is quite a different matter, and it should be possible, and certainly desirable, for an alternative solution to be found, one which doesn't "throw the baby out with the bath-water."

[moldosgifts]

Getting rid of the business sellers wrongly operating private accounts is quite a different matter, and it should be possible, and certainly desirable, for an alternative solution to be found, one which doesn't "throw the baby out with the bath-water."

On that we totally agree.

[*vyolla*]

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@vinylscot wrote:

But neither of you are yet thinking in the real world, putting yourselves in the position of a genuine private seller.

If either of you stopped to think before posting your cruel, thoughtless opinions, you would realise this. Without this sort of genuine, law-abiding, private seller eBay would be a much quieter place.

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Do you really need to resort to insults?

Surely a discussion can be held without any of this. I'd never dream of telling you that your posts are   'cruel, thoughtless opinions', no matter what I really think of them. 

I'm certainly thinking in the real world and just pointing out the math here - it's not 300 free listings per month. Listings can be carried over to in one month you can have 300 then, potentially, 600, then 900 etc. 

Great that you have listings that sell after a couple of years, I personally feel that if something on my private account doesn't sell after 6 months then it's clogging up the site and I either bundle it with similar items, and if that doesn't sell I give it to charity. 

[kath3735_wxmjn]

I am waiting for HMRC to pounce because i sell for my family, they get whatever is taken, i enjoy (or should say enjoyed as these days it is more like hard work with all the changes) doing it and was running out of my own stuff.  The ones i sell for are either working or just not interested in e bay or car booting.   Not worrying about it though because what will be will be.  Will not be for long anyway as i will be departing the site when simple delivery is here. (unless of course they make it optional but i seriously doubt that will happen, no money in it for them.

[*devils.advocate*]

300 with carry over - that seems to be one of the main causes of friction?

If it were 300 without any being able to be carried over (and no multi-buy, etc) …………

[krafty-kreations]

If eBay put as much effort into cracking down on these business sellers using private accounts to sell as they do messing the site up it would be resolved pretty quickly.

They seem too busy making changes that are just going to drive genuine sellers away rather than deal with the actual problem.

It shouldn't matter how many free listings a genuine private seller has, or what selling tools they use, it shouldn't matter if they list the odd item as new, they shouldn't be penalised because eBay cannot be bothered to deal with it! 

I have given up worrying about it now, If eBay wanted to put a stop to it they would, instead they make it difficult to report and make changes supposedly to try and deter them and to be honest I don't think these changes are being implemented to deter them but to try and appease the fed up genuine business sellers and give the staff answering the questions in the weekly chat a bit more script to add on to the usual we are doing what we can but you may not see the results of any actions we have taken... Blah Blah Blah!! 

I will be seeing how it goes January and decide my eBay future then, I will be sad to leave but I am fed up of being pushed to pay for promotions and trying to compete with these business sellers who get to sell for free!! 

[lucy_farmer]

‎

'I am waiting for HMRC to pounce because i sell for my family....'

I hate to say I think you're right 😒. I'm pretty sure that HMRC will go for the easy targets ; as Vyolla said up there^^ they'll go for the soft targets not the big boys.

Us 'soft targets' don't have accountants and lawyers and money to deal with challenging HMRC and most of us don't have a deep intellectual grasp of how the tax system works. So we can easily be scared ***less.

Silly really; whatever the 'little people' are deemed to owe, wouldn't touch the sides of the 'national debt' or whatever. Whilst bringing down a 'big boy' or two would be enough to keep all pensioners homes heated over the winter....

[vintique*violet]

I'm certainly thinking in the real world and just pointing out the math here - it's not 300 free listings per month. Listings can be carried over to in one month you can have 300 then, potentially, 600, then 900 etc. 

As a private seller I only have 300 listings allocated per month and according to my overview- there is no rollover, therefore it does not accumulate.  

For the month of December I used 40 ( including relists) I have 260 left to use by tomorrow 1st January... if I don't use them I think I lose them and the 300 starts again on the 1st of each  month. 

The message actually says "get up to 300 free listings per month"  

Over the 300 a month a charge of 35p per listing applies. 

I have never needed to do that as I am well below the 300 a month. 

In any case - there appears to be zero visibility so same old same old. 

Happy New Year to all. 

Edit - spelling.