Ebay's new Buyers' protection fee from the 4th Feb

[rsbrickshop]

I'm a private seller. Items I sell are between £2.90 - £10. Is It just me or will ebay's new Buyers' protection fee from the 4th Feb make it near impossible to sell competitively. A few months ago Ebay got rid of Sellers' fees for private sellers, which was a welcome move. But this new change and getting rid of multi-buy discount for private sellers will make it worse than it was with the original fees.

[carrotdrusus2]

I am that man, and now I have to go through hoops with HMRC having listed as a business account that I am indeed selling off a collection. Although it isnt difficult to prove as I make less than than the items I paid for., and even less when I pay the free postage.I am literally the one account in a hundred thousand!!!

[lucy_farmer]

'I suggest taking a stall at your nearest radio rallies'

HA!

The only one we ever go to and sell at is Newbury (it's *usually* dry around midsummer when it happens....😁)

He just visits the others and come back with even more, erm....'collectables'!

[vapey_vapey]

As I understand it up to £1000 there is a trading allowance and its not an issue .From £1000 to £1700 (approx) you can offload private sales without having to pay tax but you have to declare it  to the taxman. Over £1700 you would be liable to tax if you couldnt prove they were your private items that you were disposing off and not deliberately buying stuff to sell at a profit. These are the figures for every year running Jan 1 to Dec 31st.The taxman wouldnt be bothered whether you were using a business account or a private account its all about what youre selling and how much profit.Youre allowed £1000 profit anyways.

[jefftopman]

Selling £1.50 postcards. I bet you don't send items tracked. How will you stand when eBay say they need proof of delivery before they pay you?

[neosmaster009]

I have to wait 14 days to get paid... To be honest it's not going to be
worth my while selling postcards for £1.50.. I'm probably going to end up
trying to sell them as a bulk lot just to get rid of them now.

[lucy_farmer]

'......Over £1700 you would be liable to tax if you couldnt prove they were your private items that you were disposing off and not deliberately buying stuff to sell....'

My problem with this whole thing is how can you prove to the taxman that you're selling your personal stuff? Even if you kept all your receipts...which, to my mind, is a bit of a give away that you *are* buying to sell. (As, if you weren't buying to sell, why would you keep stuff to put through your books, because you wouldn't be doing books in the first place!)

All a receipt can tell HMRC is, what you bought, when you bought it and for how much. It won't tell them your intentions for the item....

[vapey_vapey]

Well Lucy  HMRC arent daft they know from experience if people are trading i.e deliberately buying stuff to make profit on.They also have a protocol -  "9 badges of trade" whereby they assess if you are a trader or not and you have to prove youre not a trader if they suspect you are.....If you are selling 8 new pairs of identical shoes in different sizes its likely to be a trade for profit thing.If you sell a bunch of antiques all different its easier to argue that they are not intended for profit, even if you did buy them to make profit on.But if you do end up selling dozens of antiques over a relatively short time  then you will arouse suspicion again as most people dont have room to house this amount of stuff for their own amusement.If you have the receipts you can prove you didnt make a profit if they questioned you if thats the case .Even if you did make a profit  it would only be 20% to a basic tax earner so all is not lost . To sum up the tax man will know  fairly sharpish if youre just disposing of personal items to which there is no tax liability at all  or trying to make a fast buck. You can have the first £1000 free each year in any case.

[caz-uk1]

I WILL STOP BUYING FROM PRIVATE SELLERS,THE NEW CHARGES ARE NOT FAIR TO THE BUYER.

[papso22]

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@mitchiemasha wrote:

Exactly what I am thinking and wish to know the answer too. How will the 75p work on multi listings or even separate listings to the same buyer. We may need to add a note in the listing for buyers to message us directly for the items they require and make them 1 unique listing, saving the multiple fees. However, this will be timely!

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You have sold 22,000 items on a private account and have over 2,000 items currently listed.  Rather than trying to find workarounds for these changes to private accounts, perhaps registering as a business would be the right thing to do?

[papso22]

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@carrotdrusus2 wrote:

I am that man, and now I have to go through hoops with HMRC having listed as a business account that I am indeed selling off a collection. Although it isnt difficult to prove as I make less than than the items I paid for., and even less when I pay the free postage.I am literally the one account in a hundred thousand!!!

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Why bother to argue status with HMRC if you can show a loss on your tax return?

Businesses make losses, that doesn't mean  they are not a business.

[papso22]

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@vapey_vapey wrote:

As I understand it up to £1000 there is a trading allowance and its not an issue .From £1000 to £1700 (approx) you can offload private sales without having to pay tax but you have to declare it  to the taxman. Over £1700 you would be liable to tax if you couldnt prove they were your private items that you were disposing off and not deliberately buying stuff to sell at a profit. These are the figures for every year running Jan 1 to Dec 31st.The taxman wouldnt be bothered whether you were using a business account or a private account its all about what youre selling and how much profit.Youre allowed £1000 profit anyways.

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Sorry but you are confusing the trading allowance with the new reporting limits.  You are also confusing turnover and profit.

[papso22]

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@caz-uk1 wrote:

I WILL STOP BUYING FROM PRIVATE SELLERS,THE NEW CHARGES ARE NOT FAIR TO THE BUYER.

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Was it fair to buyers when most private sellers didn't drop their prices when they stopped paying selling fees?

[snowylilliput-0]

This is a typical responce from some buyers for then to simply say " I will
no longer buy from a private seller ". At the end off the day it will be
the seller who will take the hit, it will become the sellers fee . Private
sellers prices will become cheaper to cover the charge or they will just
not sell . This will allow buisness sellers to push up the prices so you
will end up paying more for your goods in the future anyway.

[snowylilliput-0]

I notice some buyers are saying 'I will no longer buy from private sellers . At the end off the day it will replace the private sellers fee . If people do not continue to buy from a private seller it will allow the buisness sellers to push up there prices so you will end up paying more anyway for your items because there will be competition from private sellers .

[bojangled]

@mitchiemasha from the FAQ page. Just one 75p fee but 2 x 4%

Item price set by the seller for multi-quantity listing (£5 per item, quantity = 2)	£10
Buyer Protection fee variable (4% of £5, x 2)	£0.40
Buyer Protection flat fee	£0.75
Price that buyer sees for the listing	£11.15 + postage

Jo

[headfodder]

I think this move will just drive a lot of genuine Private sellers onto other oulets. I 'm a collector and like many others I buy job lots of items every few months (as well as individual pieces); with the job lots we pick the pieces we want and then sell on the surplus. Fact is we mostly have many existing networks of like minded collectors and people are increasingly doing their sales off ebay. There are no shortage of platforms and methods to choose. I watch with interest to see how much Private sales drop after February. There is absolutely nothing of benefit for private sellers in this change. It's potentially a double whammy because if the sellers stop putting things up, buyers will spend time looking elsewhere so you get a vicious circle. The old system of deducting published fees before sending the payment worked perefectly well and was transparent.  As has happened so often over the years ebay has changed a system that worked perfectly well for one that has obvious flaws.

[1956glyn]

I think the biggest thing that will drive private sellers off the site is probably having to wait up to two weeks for their funds to become  available.   I think quite a lot are still under the wrong impression that Ebay is a way to make "fast cash".   A lot of seller will also refuse to post until they have their funds made available to them

The above does not bother me at all..........but if Simple Delivery is to work as  we suspect that will definitely drive me off the site if it becomes compulsory.

Although hubby and i do not like car boots or markets to sell/or even walk around......we will probably just do one maybe 2 a year

[game_raid]

With over 700 items sold over the last 90 days, times have been good paying no fees on any of these sales.

I genuinely have sympathy for the private seller looking to make a few quid on low value items they no longer need or use, times are tough for people and that extra bit of money goes a long way but those that are blatantly abusing the system should be keeping quiet instead and maybe correctly registering their accounts instead of crying about how it will affect them and thinking up workarounds to maximise profits.

[seedbankers]

£1.50 postcard is really tricky to make money. Might as well do it on Facebook. I collect my own seeds and sometimes cross pollinated them and some of them are so big that I have to use £1.55 for postage. Any money received is used to buy perlite, compost and more flowers or plants. This method is getting silly, meaning I have to use Royal tracking or ebay tracking and Royal Mail don't bother tracking the 75p transaction. Are we going to ask every single buyer to do us a favour by telling us upon receipt? Is it fair to impose on the buyers? Is there a dedicated system for the buyer to tick so we sellers can know the items are safely received. Why tinker with what is working. One way to sit on your pennies, I guess.

[g1dgl]

Thanks for that.  I certainly didn't see that example in the FAQs yesterday when I looked.  Either eBay have added it because it has become a "Frequently Asked Question" or (perhaps more likely) I was having a senior moment!