What is deem'ed a low-priced ebay on simple delivery?

[lace_specialist_uk]

Now that ebay are making simple delivery mandatory shortly what is deem'ed a low-priced ebay on simple delivery.

Is it items listed at £20.00 and under or what?

As a low priced item is excluded from simple delivery 

I prefer to just put on a 1st class stamp or 2nd class stamp on most items I sell

Thanks Pearse 

[tressygirl]

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@zoli.-60 wrote:
Hi susapric-68,

I am not pretending to be a "private seller". Can you help me locate the exact definition of a "private seller"? I couldn't find it in eBay's T&C.

I am also not hiding any fees from my buyers, they pay exactly what is displayed. Could you be clear what hidden fee did you mean?

Unfortunately, no Google search hit was found for the suggested "you are pretending not to be a business to avoid fees that are typically charged to businesses".

This is eBay's explanation what is a Private Seller, and what is a Business seller.

On eBay UK, a business seller is someone who sells items they've bought to resell, creates items to sell, or sells as part of a pre-existing business, according to eBay's Business Seller Policy. This is different from a private seller who sells items ...as explained in an eBay article on business accounts. 

All your items are Brand New, a Private seller would not have so many brand new items to sell, as a Private  sells their unwanted used items,  such as a wardrobe / cupboard / attic clear out.

@zoli.-60

@zoli.-60

[susapric-68]

You may think people are ganging up on you but they're actually trying to help you. Under the new law any buyer of yours can report you to the CMA and if found guilty of passing fees over to them you should have paid you could get a fine of 10% of turnover or 30K, It will be what is greater. 

[zoli.-60]

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@susapric-68 wrote:

If you get yourself correctly registered then as you sell low priced items you could activate "Low cost items - FVF 5p + 15%" and you would pays less in fees than what eBay are adding to your listings for BPF" making you more competitive

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I missed this. Thanks, I'll check this out! I also totally missed that I don't have to create a shop to be a business seller and pay £27 every month, which is more than I'd made in an entire year. 🤭

[susapric-68]

The shop will be £32.40 after VAT is added by eBay. Not worth it if you only have a few listings but if you ever get above 90 listings then it makes it cheaper to get a shop subscription as that comes with 250 listings free and you also get 100 7 day auctions listings free

[jil_3862]

I know it seems harsh when the rules get pointed out to you, but it's just an unfortunate fact. The sweeping rules catch the tiny sellers like yourself as well as the guys running a full time business as private sellers.

Did you find out any more about the problem you were having with listing & delivery?

I experimented last night and ran into the same problem, going round in circles until I gave in and listed with SD.

[zoli.-60]

It's not harsh, no worries! As I mentioned, I have been barely selling anything so by stopping completely selling on eBay will make no difference to me. I appreciate every comment. 

I have set up a business account just to experiment, and try to figure out how that works, but so far I couldn't even work out how to specify what delivery you can use. The listing tool looks very different from that of the private account. There is no way to select delivery directly in the business account, I can create rules where I select delivery services and then apply the rule to the listing but when I create the delivery rule, and I select Royal Mail Second Class Small Letter, it won't let me save the rule saying something like that you can't use that service. 🤷‍

I also figured out that the listing fee will apply every month, when it automatically relist, so even if I sell just one item in a year, I will still pay 12*30p = £3.6 listing fee for nothing. 

There's also nothing like "small value item" discount, I checked with eBay support, maybe that was a campaign for existing business accounts some time ago (I've seen hints back from 2022).

Anyway, I'll be having a break from selling anything on eBay for the time being, I might come back one day and start learning (I.e. troubleshooting) again the eBay listing interface when I have more motivation or just being bored.

Lovely chatting with you all!

[zoli.-60]

Replying to my own comment with corrections (ran out of time window to edit the previous one)

It's not harsh, no worries! As I mentioned, I have been barely selling anything so by stopping completely selling on eBay will make no difference to me. I appreciate every comment. 

I have set up a business account just to experiment, and try to figure out how that works, but so far I couldn't even work out how to specify what delivery you can use. The listing tool looks very different from that of the private account. There is no way to select delivery directly in the business account, I can create rules where I select delivery services and then apply the rule to the listing but when I create the delivery rule, and I select Royal Mail Second Class Small Letter, it won't let me save the rule saying something like that you can't use that service. 🤷‍

I also figured out that the listing fee will apply every month, when it automatically relist, so even if I sell just one item in a year, I will still pay 12*36 p = £4.32 listing fee for nothing. There is also no transparency about the rest of the fees you would pay. How difficult would it be to put that amount at the bottom of the listing page? 🤔

There's just so many things that are not transparent on eBay.

(Regarding that, I just noticed eBay recently started putting "including 75p buyer protection fee" next to prices that buyers see from private seller account listings, I guess to avoid the hidden fees conundrum you were talking about).

There's also nothing like "small value item" discount, I checked with eBay support, maybe that was a campaign for existing business accounts some time ago (I've seen hints back from 2022).

Anyway, I'll be having a break from selling anything on eBay for the time being, I might come back one day and start learning (I.e. troubleshooting) again the eBay listing interface when I have more motivation or just being bored.

Lovely chatting with you all!

[susapric-68]

As far as as can find out the “Low-Cost FVF” is still being offered to new and existing businesses. You need to contact customer support and request it. Best to contact in the morning and request a phone back in the hope you get an Irish rep. It replaced the "Micro-payments" businesses used to use when they got paid by paypal on low cost items.

A way to keep listing charges down is to group listings into a multi listings, greeting cards can go on one listing and you can add the different card you have in the variation section so buyers pick what one they want from the drop down menu on the listing. You can keep adding new cards to that listing under the variation section and it costs nothing apart from the 36p you paid when first listed each month. Same with your seeds.

As a business seller you can then offer multi buy options to try and increase the order size by offering a discount on each item depending on how many they order