From yesterday, the 3rd of March, all Private Sellers on eBay UK now get a whopping 1,000 free listings every month.
- For consumer sellers without an eBay shop subscription, eBay will offer 1,000 free listings and will charge a £0.35 listing fee if they choose to list for a shorter duration (between one and three days)
- For consumer sellers with an eBay shop subscription, eBay will offer 1,000 free listings and an additional 100 short duration free listings, after which auctions and fixed price will cost £0.35.
1,000 Good ’til Cancelled Listings and Feature Fees
It’s worth noting that from April Fools Day, the only listing duration for fixed price listings will be Good ’til Cancelled. However this also means that Private Sellers won’t have to worry about listings rolling over each month as unless they have more than 1,000 the listing fees will be free.
What Private Sellers will have to consider is the advisability of adding any listing enhancements. Feature fees for listing enhancements will also be charged each time a Good ’til Cancelled listing automatically renews.
“We’re delighted to launch ‘Free to List’, and as a platform we’re always looking for opportunities for people to make more through eBay.co.uk, and this provides them with a trusted platform and global audience to showcase their unwanted items. Consumer-to-consumer selling is an area we continue to invest, develop and innovate in. In this time of uncertainty we continue to look for opportunities to give families a boost as they declutter to cash in.”
– Nikin Patel, Director, UK Consumer Selling, eBay
Are you a Business or a Private Seller?
There will likely be temptation for some businesses to scrap their eBay shop and simply list on a Private Seller account.
eBay warm that 6nder the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (April 2008), a business may not falsely represent itself as a private individual. Also bear in mind that final value fees differ for Private and Business sellers so before you jump at 1,000 free listings without a shop fee check what you’ll be paying when an item sells.
You can check out the Private Seller eBay Final Value fees here.
Private Seller eBay Final Value Fees
When your item sells you pay eBay 10% of the final transaction value, including postage. eBay cap final value fees so you will never pay more than £250 for a single item.
Business Seller eBay Final Value Fees
In all categories except Crafts, Event Tickets, Jewellery & Watches, Pet Supplies, Wholesale & Job Lots and Everything Else (and some Health & Beauty) where the fees are 11% you’ll pay 10% or less in final value fees and in some cases as little as 5%. Fee caps can be as little as £15 or £20 in certain categories for Shop subscribers.
All eBay fees for Business sellers are exclusive of VAT. You can check out the Business Seller eBay Final Value Fees here.
7 Responses
This will just encourage more business sellers to masquerade as private sellers and deny buyers their basic consumer rights when buying from a business. Unless ebay plan to clamp down on these sellers they have got it majorly wrong with this new offer.
How long will it be before unsuspecting buyers are caught out by private unregistered business sellers with a no returns policy, when an item doesn’t fit for example? It will certainly put me off buying on ebay if I have to waste time weeding out unregistered business sellers as well as the China based ones.
You have to laugh….’eBay warm that under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (April 2008), a business may not falsely represent itself as a private individual.’….
Well then maybe if they did something about the masses of people doing it, it would be more of a deterent? I have given up reporting them as nothing happens even after reporting the same people month after month..
If you can’t beat them…. join them.
Light bulb moment! This prompted me to check the fees I’m paying, because I have been selling personal items (from Mother’s house clearance) alongside my business items on my business account, then deducting these amounts for income tax purposes – as I am not VAT registered, I couldn’t see a problem.
However, I think I am correct in saying my business Final Value Fees are 9% + VAT, while personal accounts are 9% inc VAT!!!
So it looks like a ton of work taking all mother’s listings off my business account and listing on a personal account, if I can be bothered.
This will then mean I do not need my Featured Shop anymore, so can drop that to a basic shop – so I save on shop fees (I won’t miss the £10 packaging voucher for useless flimsy boxes) and VAT on some Final Value Fees.
Have I missed something or have eBay actually done me a favour?
Sadly the editor has given private sellers more bad press. Yes we get a “whopping” 1000 free listings per month……….for the last 2-3 years we have been getting 100 per day, so roughly 3000 per month for free. So essentially this is a cut of 66% in free listings available to us. That may actually stop some businesses masquerading as private as they have lost thousands of free listings.
Also, buyers rights, so far as I can tell buyers rights whether from Private or Business are taken as sacrosanct. All you have to do (as a buyer) is click “not as expected” and the full weight of ebay comes down on the seller, money is embargoed, a case is opened and as a seller you have no rights. You write and ask for photos (if damaged) or how it is not “as expected”……the days wind down and ebay finds in the buyers favour whatever has been said. So that mention of buyers rights being done down is a misnomer.
I had a shop, no longer, but I still do my accounts and file my tax returns each year with all the receipts / expenses etc to the UK tax office / HMRC. So unless ebay has been made a tax office, I cannot see how i sell is overly important. The tax man gets his cut, buyers rights are unassailable and ebay get fees on all my sales and a slice of the postage too, so everyone’s gets a piece.
And dont forget people like me, who buy and sell, also buy items from ebay sellers, packaging, promo materials etc, so we also help support the businesses above us. The editor may think private sellers are bottom of the heap, but we help keep the heap up by buying on ebay too.
A whopping 2000 listings per month REDUCTION for private sellers.
I think your story is misleading!
This is what I find remarkable…
eBay give you a 1000 Free Listings thereby, (hypothetical example) if you had a 1000 brand new iPhones and priced them up at 50% off retail (i.e. you’re guaranteed to sell all 1000), by giving Private Sellers 1000 Free Listings per month eBay are saying that you can sell 1000 items PER MONTH.
Who on earth considers themselves to be “Private Selling” if you’re shifting 1000 items PER MONTH!
Let’s continue…. so a 1000 items per month split evenly over the course of the month in “working days” is about 1000/20 = 50 items per day.
So my “hypothetical” PRIVATE SELLER here is trundling off to the post office EVERY DAY with 50 parcels in his car.
LOL. Private my arse.
They could Give you 10,000 free a month, issue is unless you pay them an excessive amount on promoting listings which private sellers cannot do….ain’t anyone going to find your listings on eBay they will have them well hidden behind all their big partners and Chinese knock offs.