eBay UK Cracks Down On Private Sellers, Reduces Monthly Free Listing Allotment
eBay UK is cracking down on business sellers who are incorrectly registered as private sellers, forcing some to upgrade their accounts and dropping private selling monthly free listing allotment from 1,000 listing to 300.
Earlier this month, some sellers were perplexed when they started receiving emails telling them they will need to upgrade their accounts from private to business, only to have customer support tell them the email was sent in error due to a "technical issue."
I had a message yesterday on my private selling account and an email, to say that I needed to upgrade from a private seller to a business account, I called eBay this morning to ask about various things with regards to upgrading to a business account and the tech support person said....No need to, the emails have all been sent out by mistake.
I asked will I receive an email to confirm it was a mistake, they said no, but they are currently working on the issue.
The tech support person did say, if I received a 2nd email to say I needed to upgrade to a business account, then it would be best to call back and confirm if I do need to upgrade, but the 1st email as been sent out to many, many private sellers and they have no need to upgrade to a business account.
UK community staff chimed in to confirm it was not in fact a technical issue and that sellers who received the emails will need to upgrade their accounts due to government policies and regulations.
I’m just confirming this is not a tech issue.
These emails are sent based on the accounts selling activity, anyone who received the email appears to be operating as a business seller. In order to comply with government consumer protection legislation outlined in our Business seller policy, we’ve asked that they upgrade their eBay account to a business account.
When an account or linked accounts have higher trading history than normal private accounts, or indicators that they are operating as a business, we must request that they register as a business.
But the topic still ruffled feathers amongst community member as it was revealed eBay was offering impacted sellers a special deal that would waive fees until the end of the year if they upgrade - a deal which many felt was incentivizing bad actors who have not been operating honestly on the platform.
As part of the deal to upgrade to a business account, they are offerring zero seller fees until December 31st 2024, free featured shop for 6 months.
It will actually be a tempting offer for many.
I find this reprehensible!
Ebay are either incentivising previous law breakers to abide by the law (and kicking law abiding sellers in the teeth yet again), or they are incentivising genuine private sellers into incorrectly declaring themselves as a business, and possibly leading to all sorts of issues with HMRC, with no way back to a private account.
And today, eBay UK has announced that starting October 1st, the monthly allotment of free listings for private sellers will be reduced from 1,000 to 300 and the international fee will be increasing to 3%.
While some sellers believe this reduction is being driven by government regulations and tax requirements, others say they believe it is mostly a financial move on eBay's part to get more sellers to pay the 35p per listing fee once they've exhausted the free allotment per month.
Hi all. Is anybody else as disgusted as I am at ebay reducing free listings per month (for private sellers from Oct 1st 2024) from 1000 to 300? That's not a small drop at all and it will impact people massively.
I won't pay for my listings so I'll just use the 300 and stop there but there'll be a lot of people who will really be affected by this so badly. Ebay has really screwed the seller over here once again.
its to stop private sellers trading as a business. `Even more bad news incoming a lot of private sellers will be forced to a business seller account before xmas
This is more clearly to do with charging people the 35p listing rate, they've done the maths and realised how much they're missing out on and the massive amount of money they already make seemingly isn't enough for them and they want more.
I understand it's their platform and we don't have to use it but that's a huge reduction that'll leave folk hugely out of pocket.
The additional listing fee revenue could certainly be a catalyst for this decision, especially since eBay announced in April that private UK sellers would no longer pay final value or regulatory fees for items sold in clothing categories.
Liz Morton
Unlike competitors like Mercari and Depop, eBay has not shifted fees to the buyers, instead limiting fee free selling to a smaller cohort of sellers with the apparently hope that Promoted Listings ads and other optional fees would make up the difference.
If eBay saw an influx of sellers who should be registered as businesses open up new private accounts to take advantage of the 1,000 free monthly listings plus fee free selling, that could quickly change the math on how much of a loss they are taking on these listings - in which case the reduction in free listing allotment may be a lever to try to rebalance the scales to avoid having to consider joining the competition in passing fees on to buyers.
Unfortunately, it could backfire on eBay as some legitimate private sellers say 300 listings per month is not nearly enough, especially if they need to relist items that do not sell.
I've currently got 167 listings, all my own & my sons/husbands used stuff, mainly clothes which no longer fit/no longer used. So now once I list them for a week, the next week I will only be able to list 133 items (if nothing sells) and that will then be my limit used for the month...... No wonder Vinted is doing so well, I don't think I'll have any choice now but to sell items on that platform....... Ebay are shooting themselves in the foot......
What do you think of eBay's latest moves to crack down on businesses posing as private sellers and reducing the monthly free listing allowance? Let us know in the comments below!
