Absolutely exhausted with new private sellers!

[thehipponation]

Hi all,

So like many of you private sellers are now undercutting my already low profit items like pin badges, I buy and sell most of them really cheap with some making 20p profit.

Now, private sellers are coming on, selling the same badges, lower than I can, because of fees we as a business seller have to pay.

I've found lots of sellers, some with over 300 listings selling similar items with more feedback than myself but still operating as a private seller....

What am I supposed to do, ebay doesn't care, I've reported these sellers and get back email saying they're not breaking policy when they're clearly above the selling limit of private sellers....

I'm so done with this platform, seriously thinking of selling and liquidating my stock and going onto amazon.

See image for proof.

[bojangled]

@thehipponation 

I have some similar inventory to you, I agree they are driving the price down. 
They are also using the duplicate listings method, just changing categories and titles.
I won't get caught up in the race to the bottom, and have had some considerable success pricing higher, offering order discounts.
If they really want to sell for £2.50 let them.

However I have one private seller competitor (I keep moaning about) has at least 5 shops, 1000s of multiple quantities, what is interesting though is they price at £8 - £9, and get the sales. 

Jo

[thehipponation]

Yeah I have a similar seller, they list around £5 for terrible button badges, but yet sell them really easily.

It is crazy though how they're allowed to use promotions for boosting the listings because they can just raise it higher than we ever could and still have a good profit.

I'm still making relatively good sales, but I know If something isn't done soon, it is going to kill business sellers.

[*vyolla*]

I feel your pain folks, it is absolutely bonkers that eBay doesn't make this a priority (bad business model for them too seeing as it would result in way more fees for them). I've given up trying to understand it. 

[bojangled]

@*vyolla* I agree, I've wasted too much time and energy, now focusing on this hopefully busy period and see what 2025 has to offer. 
Refuse to report anymore, doesn't work, just winds me up and results in zero productivity!

Jo

[plpmr]

adding to the advice already given -

Looking at your well displayed items I, unfortunately, would not buy from you as you use Global shipping with its exorbitant postage - which is double even treble the item cost.

[myriad*seller]

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@bojangled wrote:

@*vyolla* I agree, I've wasted too much time and energy, now focusing on this hopefully busy period and see what 2025 has to offer. 
Refuse to report anymore, doesn't work, just winds me up and results in zero productivity!

Jo

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I've seen people sent warning messages for "reporting TOO much" as well which is new!! 

Even when they were reporting BLATANT businesses trading on private IDs!!

eBay is losing business sellers on a daily basis! 

[thehipponation]

That's a very valid point I've never really given EU market or global markets a thought because of the complexity of maintaining the correct fees, this might be worth looking into for sure.

Thanks for the idea

[funkybunnie-direct]

How can anyone ' Report too much'. If someone is reporting 'illegal' business sellers (that's what someone running a business and trading as private on ebay is) gthen they are doing free unpaid work for ebay!

Getting fed up with all these 'private' sellers. Ebay seem to be happy to allow this illegal trading which is losing them revenue and quite likely driving genuine business seller off the site.

I have one 'competitor' (one of these so called private sellers) who has over 16,000 listings, with multiple copies of NEW items.  Just listing that number would cost me an extra £870/month on top of my £92/month shop subscription. And now with free selling fees they can undercut my prices by 10% say, and still make more profit than me. But more importantly more likely to make the sale.

It's about time someone at ebay woke up to the revenue they are losing and stopped illegal trading on their site.