This is going to mean the end for many small private sellers. "Buyer Protection Fee"

[vinylscot]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/paying-items/buyer-protection?id=5594

75p plus 4% buyers fee, so something which was priced at £5 will be £5.95 in February.

[game_raid]

What do you mean support a business? There are millions of businesses being run from a bedroom, garage, living room floor in the UK, you're not expected to have a warehouse or office or do you mean you may actually have to pay some fees?

In reality most would not owe a single penny in tax or even have to register for self assessment.

People don't care whether you're a business or not, it's the HMRC you have to convince. People are advising you of UK consumer law .

[papso22]

---

@grantbananaz wrote:

I'll tell you why. 

Because I make things in small amounts, sporadically... 

Low priced items.

I don't make enough to sell to support a "business"

Nor do I expect to do so. 

---

As I said, quantity and value are completely irrelevant to whether you need an ebay business account.   

You make things to sell, you need a business account.  If a correctly registered account is not viable financially,  find somewhere else to sell your hand made items.

[cobwebcottage]

'Their tv ads are aimed at people who want to "get rid of stuff" (private sellers). I'm a private seller, selling things I make for small prices , along with stuff to declutter.'

How do you explain selling packs of 'Santa's Bum Hairs'? Unless you are the real Santa?

Pull the other one.

[goodibags]

"quantity and value are completely irrelevant to whether you need an ebay business account"

Is that true? Suppose I harvested some rose petals and bagged them up for sale on ebay? How many bags would I need to sell to be considered a 'business' rather than 'private' seller? Is it more or fewer than 2? 

What if the rose petals were harvested by a neighbour and given to me as a Xmas gift? Would that change matters? (obviously I'd keep them for the 6 weeks or 6 months needed for them to become a 'personal possession'.) I could sell the previous year's petals too. Except it might look like I was 'running a business'?

I can understand why ebay may want someone earning £12 from selling 3 bags of rose petals to pay more by 'upgrading' but it's not a viable business in any meaningful sense. If you contacted HMRC they'd more likely give you a warning for timewasting.

[hideawayvideo]

Wrong.  People sell their own personal goods.  Example:  I purchase a CD at the price of £17.99 and after a few years I decide to sell it on eBay for, shall we say, £3.00.  Then I decide to download all music and sell my entire CD collection.  I may have paid thousands for the CDs and get little back.  I am not making items to sell, buying multiple items discounted to sell.  The CDs have been paid for and are my own property.  This applies to any items people own and have paid for - we do not require a business account, as we are not businesses.  We are selling items we could equally sell on Facebook or at a boot sale, or a multitude of places.  Businesses make a living from eBay; private sellers don't.  Hence private vs business.  

[moldosgifts]

---

@goodibags wrote:

"quantity and value are completely irrelevant to whether you need an ebay business account"

Is that true? Suppose I harvested some rose petals and bagged them up for sale on ebay? How many bags would I need to sell to be considered a 'business' rather than 'private' seller? Is it more or fewer than 2? 

Definitely a business activity

What if the rose petals were harvested by a neighbour and given to me as a Xmas gift? Would that change matters? (obviously I'd keep them for the 6 weeks or 6 months needed for them to become a 'personal possession'.) I could sell the previous year's petals too. Except it might look like I was 'running a business'?

Definitely a private activity (even a business can have stock more than 6 months does not make it a private sale)

I can understand why ebay may want someone earning £12 from selling 3 bags of rose petals to pay more by 'upgrading' but it's not a viable business in any meaningful sense. If you contacted HMRC they'd more likely give you a warning for timewasting.

---

[m-bevis-1815]

According to HMRC, a business on Ebay/Vinted/etc is anything that sells 30
items or more a year and earns £1000 or more.
You don't have to be profitable to be a business. Look at the oil industry.
Obscene profits of $200 billion a year or more, $7 trillion in subsidies
from taxpayers per year worldwide.

[ett1954]

According to HMRC, a business on Ebay/Vinted/etc is anything that sells 30
items or more a year and earns £1000 or more. - Incorrect.  HMRC 'badges of trade' define a business activity.

30 items or approximately £1740 (€2000) of sales is the trip point at which digital platforms have to report income to a country's tax authorities under an OECD agreement.  Those don't in any way define what is or is not a business.

[goodibags]

So if I sell 1 bag of rose petals on Ebay is that a private sale or somehow magically a business one? Ignoring where it came from, any seller could forget that.

[tsdragon63]

I do not consider myself a business 99% if the stuff I have sold has come from my late mother and aunt - some I have kept but I can't keep it all and there is a lot of it. A few bits I bought from an auction as a bundle, again I've taken what I needed and am passing along what I can't use. I don't make a living from it, by the time I have deducted packaging materials I will probably make just enough to declare it to HMRC.
Due to having shifted a fair bit, it will be even less this year

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[goodibags]

I suspect HMRC probably WILL BE interested in quantities and values. Ultimately it's income that matters, not item count.

You could easily sell 31 items from clearing out grandma's attic and even that won't mean you're 'running a business'.

Except of course in the Ebay sense, where 'running a business' need not involve actually running a business.

[goodibags]

I wouldn't call myself a business for selling unwanted personal possessions INCLUDING any items that got passed down as family heirlooms from relatives. If you've already been through probate and the estate inheritance tax business there shouldn't be any need to declare the same items again if and when you decide to sell them.

[papso22]

---

@goodibags wrote:

I suspect HMRC probably WILL BE interested in quantities and values. Ultimately it's income that matters, not item count.

You could easily sell 31 items from clearing out grandma's attic and even that won't mean you're 'running a business'.

Except of course in the Ebay sense, where 'running a business' need not involve actually running a business.

---

Ebay's published guidance says that if you buy, make, or grow things to sell you need a business account. 

If you are simply getting rid of unwanted personal possessions (including inherited items), then you are not a business and can sell on a personal/private ebay account. 

HMRC will only be interested in business sales.

[vinylscot]

When threads like this have been running for some time, and attracted hundreds of responses, they quickly become pointless.

Those posting now are either the genuinely uninformed, or the totally misinformed.

For the genuinely uninformed, almost every possible question has already been asked and answered many times by knowledgeable, helpful members. These members aren't wasting their time now, posting answers to the same old questions again and again. The answers are all there - just spend a few minutes looking. Posting again will very possibly not get you a high quality response.

However, worse are the totally misinformed, particularly the "barrack room lawyer" types, who ignore everything already posted, and basically post nonsense. They're not going to stumble upon something eBay has missed, or provide a useful response. Many of them are dreadfully misinformed about the very basics, so it's highly unlikely they will be much help when it comes to the nuances of a new policy or procedure.

I know I started this thread, but mods, it's really time to shut it down.

[papso22]

---

@hideawayvideo wrote:

Wrong.  People sell their own personal goods.  Example:  I purchase a CD at the price of £17.99 and after a few years I decide to sell it on eBay for, shall we say, £3.00.  Then I decide to download all music and sell my entire CD collection.  I may have paid thousands for the CDs and get little back.  I am not making items to sell, buying multiple items discounted to sell.  The CDs have been paid for and are my own property.  This applies to any items people own and have paid for - we do not require a business account, as we are not businesses.  We are selling items we could equally sell on Facebook or at a boot sale, or a multitude of places.  Businesses make a living from eBay; private sellers don't.  Hence private vs business.  

---

No definition of a business requires the person doing it to make a living out of it.  That is absolutely not a way to differentiate the type of account that needs to be used for the sales. 

Nothing in your example says anything other that 'private seller' by the way, so I am not sure why you think I am wrong.  

[game_raid]

Here are the 9 badges of trade for anyone that's interested.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) now lists nine badges of trade:

• profit seeking motive.
• the number of transactions.
• the nature of the asset.
• existence of similar trading transactions or interests.
• changes to the asset.
• the way the sale was carried out.
• the source of finance.
• interval of time between purchase and sale.

The link below will explain and also it details case studies, If people refuse to accept this then there is nothing more to be said or done, at the end of the day it isn't another eBay user people need to convince or argue with it is the HMRC they will have all the data on an individuals selling activity across all marketplaces no matter if they sell on eBay or any where else and they will make a decision based on this.

How strict the HMRC will be is another guess, I would imagine they will send out the brown envelopes requesting that a return is to be submitted and those that wish to appeal will be allowed to, the seller then has to make sure they are 100% confident they are not reselling for profit because the penalties can be quite severe, I believe it's over 7% interest paid on any unpaid paid tax which I would imagine gets added if the appeal fails and most probably result in a full investigation of your finances from the last 4 years and longer.

I personally don't think they will be bothered with those who have just a couple a grand of sales per year as this would indicate a private seller, but if you have £000s of sales and are also working or claiming benefits I wouldn't expect them to be so forgiving.

https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/technical-activities/technical-resources-search/2011/august/badges-...

[maujohwai]

HMRC's definition of 'trade' is quite a different thing from ebay's definition of 'business'.

[irt303]

I think that there will be a great increase in buyers asking sellers to create custom bundle lists for individually-listed items they wish to buy, so they only have to pay 75p, not 75p multiplied by however many items they want (the 4% remains unaffected, of course).

That's extra work for the seller (if they agree to re-list as a bundle). I, myself, don't even know how to do this - or, rather, I don't know how to send the listing link to the buyer, or how to ensure that the bundle is not seen and purchased by a different buyer (still a sale from my end, but the buyer making the bundle request would obviously be disappointed, which is far from ideal).

P.S. I didn't understand the last bit of your comment "Perhaps if there are a number of items sellers would be prepared to relist as a bundle, but they might not even list single items."

If a seller isn't prepared to list items singly, let alone as a bundle, how can they actually sell them? Buyers cannot purchase from non-existent listings!

[lucy_farmer]

'or how to ensure that the bundle is not seen and purchased by a different buyer (still a sale from my end, but the buyer making the bundle request would obviously be disappointed, which is far from ideal).'

When I have been in a similar situation in the past, the buyer and I have decided on a day/time that would suit both of us to be in front of the computer at the same moment. 

I'd put up the listing at that time.

The buyer would keep 'refreshing', until the listing appeared then buy it instantly.

I never had a failure this way.... took a bit of messaging but was always worth it 😊

[ett1954]

@irt303   "That's extra work for the seller (if they agree to re-list as a bundle). I, myself, don't even know how to do this - or, rather, I don't know how to send the listing link to the buyer, or how to ensure that the bundle is not seen and purchased by a different buyer" - Although a business seller I create bespoke bundles all the time and have never had an issue.  Try the following:

Arrange with the buyer a time which is convenient for them to purchase.

Create the listing and place in the scheduled listings for the time and date agreed with the buyer.

View your listing in the schedule by opening it and copy the whole https link at the top of the listing; this includes the item number.

Send the link via eBay messages with a short note to the buyer confirming the time it will become active.  Its best to mention that it can take up to 30 mins or so to become active.  Also warn them it will be available for anyone to purchase - there is not much to do about this however see below.

If the listing has been in your schedule for any time this will be visible almost immediately as any AI checks on compliance will have been carried out whilst in the schedule list.

If the items are those of which you have multiple variations or issues you can title your listing to be a random selection whilst promising with agreement from the buyer that you will supply what they requested.  It requires a little trust on both sides but I have never had an issue with the type of buyers I deal with.  This then allows you to service both purchases if someone does 'beat them to the draw'.

A couple more things to note:  With international buyers don't forget to adjust for the time difference.  Again if international consider GSP (enter the weight and dimensions of the bundle); if it is heavy they can probably give a competitive price for postage and it will limit the eBay fees you will be liable for.

I trust this helps.