Have suspended all sales due to Simple Delivery - Absolute Joke of a policy!

[foyersguy]

What a god awful system this is and as such Ive suspended all of my listings as Simple Delivery simply does not work for my business

The vast majority of my items are small car parts which fit into letter envelopes, SImple delivery has increased costs to my buyers maming most items now unsellable at 0.99 - 1.99 each. Also, living in a remote area with limited Post Office Hours where I used to rely on my parents to post items on my behalf when I wasnt there means my entire small business model is now not viable!

Ebay, sort yourselves out!

[foyersguy]

Not making anything.up, it's all on eBay's website!! 

[jonatjonatjonat]

If you got gifted those old car parts. I apologise.

if you for some reason collect bagged old random car parts, each to their own, but again I apologise.

if you bought them to sell however…

[foyersguy]

Dead relative garage clear out ... Next smart comment please!! 

[goodibags]

You may find this site useful.

Badges of Trade | Menzies LLP

Acquiring stuff through inheritance is one of those 'red flag' things that suggests to HMRC that a seller is NOT actually running a business. For obvious reasons. How many relatives have you had that died more than once?

It does trip up the Pedantry Police on here. Practically every week. 😉

[foyersguy]

Lol - only one! 

[goodibags]

"If you buy to sell or make to sell you are a business, if you are selling unwanted personal items you are a private seller, there is no grey area"

But what if you made something and then sold it after 6 years of it having been a personal possession? Rather than listing it the following day but it subsequently taking 6 years to sell, so pretty much the same thing? Trading has always been (or used to be) a fundamental part of Ebay's buy/sell ethos, regardless of seller status.

We have these discussions on repeat and there are always people who'll insist there is simply no room for either nuance or reality. But one size will NOT fit all. In practice, there may be MOSTLY grey areas. There will be some black and white too, but it's usually complicated.

[akemp1]

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@goodibags wrote:

But what if you made something and then sold it after 6 years of it having been a personal possession? Rather than listing it the following day but it subsequently taking 6 years to sell, so pretty much the same thing? Trading has always been (or used to be) a fundamental part of Ebay's buy/sell ethos, regardless of seller status.

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If you made something with the intent of it being a personal possession and it was held for 6 years then you obviously didn't 'make to sell'.

That's quite a different motive to making something (or even lots of them) to sell for profit and then due to a slow market it/them taking 6 years to sell.

In practice if you only make one to sell then nobody is going to find out but the consumer protection rules are written to ensure consumers get protection from traders regardless of the quantity they might be selling to others.

[4_bathrooms]

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@foyersguy wrote:

Dead relative garage clear out ... Next smart comment please!! 

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This was the very first sentence of your opening post [sic]:

"What a god awful system this is and as such Ive suspended all of my listings as Simple Delivery simply does not work for my business"

If you're simply clearing out a deceased relatives possessions you are not trading and therefore are not a business. You have repeatedly referenced HMRC's trading allowance which does not apply to people who are not trading. The trading allowance is intended for people starting a trade - i.e. a business - as a second income and sets a threshold before they are required to report their additional trading income to HMRC (such a seller would need still need to comply with consumer law). No such threshold exists for selling personal possessions which includes things that were gifted to you or things that you inherited.

You really did cause all the confusion yourself. 

[gjalp]

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@akemp1 wrote:

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@goodibags wrote:

I'm happy to admit to having bought large job lots and selling on the ones I don't need. It used to be called 'collecting' and Ebay users did this for many years (admittedly, it's become a LOT harder now).

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Yes I think it was very common in the first 2 decades of people using ebay collecting beanie babies etc.

I do think it is a bit harsh on the genuine vintage collector who might only want to keep 1 very rare item in a joblot and has no need for the other items and only wants to realise their residual value for that to be treated as a trading activity but those are the rules and guidelines.

I also think it's quite a barrier that ebay require traders to open a business account to be compliant and maybe it would be better if they developed the functionality to enable people to classify each listing as either a personal listing or a trading listing within the same account for it to be compliant with the relevant requirements.

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This is how I actually started my business. Ive been a collector (or hoarder at times) since I was about 8 years old. My grandfather got me into stamp collecting (I even joined a club at school 😅) at that age. The internet opened up the market for buying new additions. Ive collected vintage costume jewellery, paperweights, tea light holders, postcards, pewter figures, thimbles….the list is endless. I also used to make beaded items (jewellery, flowers etc) and I liked good quality glass beads. I found a manufacturer in the Czech Republic that would sell to me as an individual but even then the quantity was too much for my needs so I started selling the surplus on ebay to fund my hobby BUT  I opened a business account to do this after some research and registered for self assessment . I then realised I could also sell the stamps I didn’t need when I bought job lots (buying job lots is a fun way to buy stamps as I enjoyed sorting through them, filling gaps in my collection or replacing ones for better examples) and that is what Ive ended up doing as a main stream of income. I no longer sell the beads as I can no longer work with small beads, thread and wire. 

My own stuff I sell on a private account although annoyingly Ive been priced out of selling my books which is a shame as I feel like I have the equivalent of a library cluttering up my home 🤣

[4_bathrooms]

Anyway...now that we have cleared that up and to help with your original post:

It is possible to avoid SD and stay within eBay's rules. eBay have been rolling out making SD optional for letter-sized items under a certain value but until that is extended to the category you are selling in there is this guidance on the Simply Delivery information page:

"If you don't use the Simple Delivery label provided, you or your buyer will be refunded, depending on who paid for postage.

• If you selected 'Buyer pays’ when you created the listing, your buyer will automatically be refunded for any Simple Delivery label that isn’t used after 30 days
• If you selected ‘Seller pays’ and offered free postage on your listing, you'll need to fill out the Request a refund for Simple Delivery form for the label that wasn’t used. Make sure to send your request within 14 days of your item selling"

So, the simple answer is you select the "seller pays" option and include what you want to charge for postage in the item price. Your buyers will see "free postage" so you must incorporate the postage cost in the item price else you will not be compensated for it. You then need to request a refund of the SD label you purchased - but didn't use - from here. 

There are some important caveats, however. First, you will need to use a "tracked" service which in practice means sending the item as a Large Letter minimum if you're using 2nd Class and paying for the postage either on Royal Mail's website or at a Post Office counter - this is so you can obtain an online delivery confirmation. Royal Mail does not provide a delivery confirmation for 1st or 2nd Class Letters; Large Letter is the minimum size they provide this for. Second, some users have reported that eBay drags their feet when issuing refunds for unused labels even when an online delivery confirmation has been provided and the refund request made within the 14 days stipulated.  

[sml192]

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@style_wise wrote:

In case you want to protect your account while you think about @jckl1957 's advice...

You could request eBay remove your most recent Negative feedback, as Buyers are not allowed to mention returns.

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That rule was actually removed from eBay's Feedback Policy back last year.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/feedback-policies/feedback-policy?id=4208&st=3&pos=1&query=Feed...

[goodibags]

Yes, but the key thing is the intent to make a profit, at least as far as HMRC is concerned. And it's often difficult to know the intent or motive or the circumstances in which items are being sold without asking questions. We're just left guessing, ignorantly.

You can certainly amass lots of things that you made yourself (or from other sellers) and sell them at what turns out to be a loss. I know that it's very easily done. And yet there are 'advocates' on here who will tell you that you must start a business in order to do so. Apparently, house rules, if admittedly nonsensical ones.

In practice, NOBODY would start a business with the explicit intention of making a loss. You'd definitely struggle to find any investors for it.

[goodibags]

If you collected lots of things as personal possessions couldn't you have just waited a bit longer, at least until enough time elapsed to ensure you wouldn't need a business account to sell the ones you no longer wanted? Just asking.

[akemp1]

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@goodibags wrote:

Yes, but the key thing is the intent to make a profit, at least as far as HMRC is concerned. And it's often difficult to know the intent or motive or the circumstances in which items are being sold without asking questions. We're just left guessing, ignorantly.

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That's why HMRC have the badges of trade to set out a criteria as it's not possible to get inside the seller's brain. In particular a 'Profit-seeking motive' is about trying to judge intention. It doesn't matter at all if the result of the trading activity on an item is profitable or not in determining if it's trading although obviously less profit would create a lower potential tax liability.

[pegr-834437]

I know I said I wouldnt return but annoyingly I have.

The discussions are on repeat as people are constantly breaking policy and law. In your example which is not grey but very clear its a personal possession, as I stated if you make to sell, your example is the person made it for themselves, then sold when they decided it was no longer useful to them the same as if I bought a coat for my nephew then when he grew out of it I sold it. Its not a grey area, no need to use nuance and I used a real life example to prove it. If for some reason their is a business out there on eBay who make things to sell but place it on a shelf or in a tub for 6 years then yes they should be a business, not sure we have many fish sauce businesses or the likes on eBay though.

The discussions will go on till eBay actually enforce their own policy and people who are clearly on the incorrect account stop coming on the forums complaining about how unfair things are when they are ripping off buyers forcing them to pay a bpf, not offering returns or some of their consumer rights.

Hope that clears it up for you though.

[goodibags]

Yes, once you start invoking the concept of 'profit' it becomes somewhat more complicated. If you're trading at a loss then the tax liability would potentially go into negative territory, but you're unlikely to get a cheque from HMRC.

The things that I've made the greatest profit on are the items I've had for many decades, including freebie railway ephemera, freebie promotional material and 1980s home computing brochures. I still haven't calculated the % mark-up on a toy car that may have cost 15p 50 years ago and is now worth over £500. There's simply no way a 'trader' could match that kind of profit margin.

@pegr-834437 

I'm saying you do need to KNOW in order to arbitrate, and for as long as you don't then you can't. 

As regards clarity, I'm happy to reserve judgement in the knowledge that it's rarely black and white and more usually a grey area. It's always worth remembering how ignorant you (and I) are.

[pegr-834437]

I'm saying you don't need to know for 100% certainty though, eBay is a private site and not a court of law.

I'd argue its better to give eBays users more consumer rights and force the accounts in the grey area (a tiny proportion) and the ones that are 100% business on private accounts to upgrade. I've yet to hear a good reason for somebody who has 5 of the same pair of jeans all with tags but different sizes, or somebody with 500 pairs of Adidas trainers all brand new in box but different sizes/styles, eBay though claim they cant be certain these are businesses, sorry but thats just wrong.

I'd be more than happy to reserve judgement if it didnt mean people were getting scammed out of consumer rights and being forced to pay a bpf when they legally shouldn't have to. We seem to disagree on this and thats fine, I seem to be more hard-line and argue the grey area is a lot smaller than you do. 

[sunflowers4me59]

Brand new car parts.

[gjalp]

No, because I needed the business account to sell off the surplus beads. That was what introduced me to selling as a business. I did well enough to have it as my main source of income while bringing up my children. That side disappeared with the explosion of cheap chinese ‘tat’. Everyone wanted beads at silly low prices after that and didn’t want to pay for high quality glass ones. At that time I also sold some of the jewellery I made too since Id got the business account instead of just gifting it. I sell on both business and private accounts now.