I ask a question on a subject that has had many questions asked within the community chat but has been very quiet recently – the question of ‘Business seller’ trading as ‘Private sellers’.

I personally don’t have any issue with the genuine ‘Private seller’, just those that are pretty obviously ‘Business sellers’ who are breaking ebay’s own rules which state

Business sellers are required to follow all government regulations, including registering as a business on eBay, and providing contact information and a return policy.

An eBay seller must register as a business if, for example, they sell items they have bought to resell, they make items in order to sell them, or if they buy items for their business.

But also breaking the terms the DMCC Act, and UK commercial law.

I have been following a seller who is registered as a ‘Private seller’. They presently have just over 300 items listed, all brand new, mostly within the range £30 to £100. In the week 7th to 13th June they sold 64 items with a value of approx. £3500. And quite a number of those that sold were duplicates.

Now it doesn’t take too much to work out that they MUST be a business seller according to ebays rules and UK commercial law.

I could give an example of a search which when you look at the completed nearly every one is from a ‘Private seller’ who has multiple copies of brand new items.

Can we assume that ebay isn’t really bothered about these sellers who not only are breaking UK law and ebay’s terms of trading?

These sellers will obviously be able to undercut genuine sellers (who provide a huge amount of income to ebay)