Hey James! Thanks for making this video it was really interesting for someone thats on the edge of thinking of making the business account jump! We're making about just over 1k a month atm (our first month getting back into the swing of things properly) Just wondering if eBay push Business accounts listings more through the algorithm? We currently promote everything at 5% but still not seeing amazing amount of sales come through each day. It's really bipolar atm.
Hi, thanks for sharing, glad you liked it! I think eBay do push people with basic shop / store accounts but I'm not convinced if they do it for vanilla business accounts. I know some people who use dynamic % for the ads, and others who only put the bare minimum 2% - I use ads on some listings but a lot of my items were one-offs or low number items, so it's not always easy to see if you get 2x sales for 2x the ad spend, but I think there is definitely a sweet spot for a lot of items where you can increase the ad spend and the price by X% and you will make more money, but I think it's different for every item! Good luck with your sales :)
Hi James very helpful. Thanks for this insight. Recently Ebay asked me to change my private seller account to a business account. So I had to. My question is i have been selling alot of stuff by getting from a FB market place and selling for profit on Ebay. Will there be any problem? . Ebay might ask for the receipts etc. Thanks
Hi, that's a really interesting point, as there was a prolific ebay seller who has a massive RUclips Channel and he was effectively booted off the platform for not having any / enough receipts. He was selling $1M+ USD / year though, so I think unless you are doing massive numbers or are involved in high-risk items or have a lot of failed transactions then you should be ok. Hand written receipts might be a way though? or a picture / video record plus excel as evidence (?). I think it's for tax purposes, so if you keep records of every purchase / sale that might help if they ask for receipts, but I'm not sure tbh. My best guess would be that if you register as a company / sole trader and then buy some stuff from a wholesaler (or even a bulk lot of something off eBay) and then put that for sale on eBay so that you have a receipt and full traceability for it. I'm going to have a look at the T's and C's this weekend because I've not checked them for ages. The last time I got asked for receipts by eBay was when I was dropshipping steam keys from a retail PC game site and selling them on eBay (which was breaking at least 2 eBay rules) and they kept being bought by hacked accounts and eBay had to refund the transactions, so naturally they looked for ways to stop it from happening, so they hassled me for things they knew I didn't have. This was a few years ago, so not sure if they are stricter now. Good luck :)
HI, Thank you for the video. I am a private seller in the UK and thinking of going for a business account.You mentioned the free 100 listings on a business account. Could you tell me whether this is only when I pay for a shop subscription or is there a way of having a basic Ebay business account with the 100 free listings?
Hi, great question - sadly you do have to pay for the shop subscription to get the 'free' 100 listings. Since I started selling again, I'm paying the 36p per listing and just keeping 10 - 20 bigger listings, rather than 100's of smaller ones like I did before. This is mainly because I've got a lot going on at the moment at home and I'm not planning to dedicate a lot of time to it, just a few hours per week. If I knew I would do 2+ hours per day, then I would commit to it and get the subscription again. I think having the shop subscription becomes better value after 65 listings - those 100 are good value, but they aren't really 'free'.
Hi, thank you for your video. I started selling on ebay 6 months ago. I wasn't sure which acount to choose to start my business on ebay so I started with private account. I don't know if I should change my account to business acount would be good or not? As my products are around 17-20 variety for now
Great review many thanks makes a change that its actually someone from UK and not USA etc. I was thinking about getting a business account but and I didnt see you mention this in you video if you get a few negative comments or strikes against you then your final value percentage can go up and you will have to start paying more to ebay, than if you only had a personnal account. My main question is as a personnal account member I normally get 100 listings with 80% off final value fees every 2 weeks. This is not mentioned in a Business account. Do business account holders get this offer or similar ones. Again Many Thanks
Hi, no this is the downside, you don't get any free listings, they are 30p each I think for fixed price or Auctions. If you get a shop subscription they throw a load in for free and they are doing discounts on the shop subs at the moment, so it's £22.50 per month not £30+ but I don't know how long that will last. Also, that's a discount which you tag on afterwards, I'm not sure it's advertised before you sign up.
Hello James. Your video was interesting and covered everything I needed to know, except, I have a limit as a private seller of 630 but there is a 1000 free listings advertised , would I be Charger my limit that's on my account? I have been selling since 2007 but thinking about a shop because of the amount free listing that would give me.
Hi, great question - I don't think that the free listings / Monthly limits are actually related. If you are selling in a category where there is a reduction in your fees as a business seller then it might be worth making the change, but remember that the shop listings aren't really free, they are just better value ie because you pay £30 for them, where as the personal account listings are actually free. On my personal account I still have a limit of 100 items or £4,000 GBP so I don't know if that would automatically change if I converted it to a business account. In the Overview tab of your 'Selling' area of eBay where the Monthly limits are there should be an option to 'Request to List More' and then you may have to engage with eBay customer services, or it might do it automatically. The last time I tried to do this in anger I got an automatic 'No' without any reason given and with a busy, healthy ebay account doing daily sales with 100% good feedback and ratings. I increased my limits on an older account several years ago up to thousands of listings and £100k+ over several requested increases and some of those were automatic, but I suspect that things have changed since then - given the length of this reply, I probably need to do a video on it ! 😆😁🤩
if you are allowed as a private seller an allowance of £1k profit/yearly without paying tax, then why does ebay charge tax in the 12.8%, is there a way to claim that tax back?
Hi, great question - so eBay charges VAT on the fees they charge you, which is the same as any business or shop would if you were buying a product from them. It's HMRC taxing them, rather than taxing you. I'm not a tax advisor, but I think you are allowed to generate 'incidental income' from hobbies / selling on your possessions, but I think it's up to you to declare it / pay tax on it. I found the £1k limit was set by eBay / Paypal as a threshold for needing to know more information about you, to prevent them 'enabling' tax evasion and to keep themselves on the correct side of the law. Hope this helps. :)
@@JamesDoesThings Thank you for your response! Makes sense. It seems to be allocated £1k allowance per year. And you can choose to deduct from the gross income either the £1k allowance OR the expenses , but not both of them. www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-free-allowances-on-property-and-trading-income
regarding the claiming back of tax, it's VAT, so if you have a VAT registered business then you can claim the VAT like you would from any product or service you buy, if not, then the eBay fee is a business expense. *not a tax advisor btw* hope this helps :)
What's the problem with if I use a private account but I accept return and I pay my taxes, it's the same requirements as a buisness seller but I don't have to pay shop fees?
In theory there's no problem doing it as you said, but what you might find is that once you get to a certain level of income in a 30 day period you might get restricted or asked to move on to a business account - that's what used to happen when it all went via Paypal, but I don't know what the limits are now, if there even are any. Once you get over £1,000 in a year eBay will tell HMRC you are making an income on their platform. I've heard that having a shop will generally get you higher up in the listings that an identical listing on a personal account (this scales with the monthly subscription too apparently) but I agree that having a shop is only worth it if you're going to have hundreds of items or a few very high value items or you particularly need the "prestige" of an eBay shop, paradoxical as that might sound :) Good luck with your selling!
@JamesDoesThings well I would not be worried about hmrc because I would be declaring it anyway the difference is I just don't have a buisness account and not paying for a shop and not missing out on percentage off fees and even zero fees on clothes now, but yea if ebay enforce it nothing I could do
Hi yes, but not on the same account. You can have more than one account, but it either has to be business or personal, so if you want to keep one of each you will need to make a new one.
switched off after 2 mins. Sound level on top setting and too low, especially after unnecesary background "music". Shame it would probably have been informative.
Thanks for the honest feedback, I have stopped adding music to my videos now as you are not the only one who said that. Good luck with your eBay selling :)
James, lovely video but a couple of things. You can't legally operate as a business using a private ebay account, it's nothing to do with tax it's to do with trading standards and consumer rights. For example, if you sell as a business buyers have a legal right to a change of mind return, it's illegal to deny them that right by pretending to be a private seller. A business seller also has to display their contact details on every listing, that's a legal requirement in the UK but impossible to do with a private account as it would breach ebay's terms and conditions. Also you can have a shop as a private seller you just can't be a top rated seller. Hope that helps.
Hi Jonathon, all those things are true and I wouldn't expect anyone running a proper business to operate solely on a private account for the long term, but I think that people who are just getting started can make a start on a private account and then progress to a business account (or give up if it doesn't work). One of the reasons I made the video is that I set up a Limited Company and an eBay business account, an eBay shop and Shopify store waaaaaay to early in my selling journey for my business and it could (and probably should) have stayed as a hobby with occasional selling on my private account. It's something I am going to do a video about and I probably need to clarify the points you brought up, so thank you. 😁
Would a virtual office address work? To display as a public business address on eBay? If one changes their bank information to the virtual office address wouldn’t that work ? As eBay can verify against the bank statement etc Wondering if anyone can help
If you found this video useful, you might find my guide to dealing with difficult sellers handy too : ruclips.net/video/Y385gPrGcGU/видео.html
Let’s go James great advice cheers mate 🤝
You're welcome :)
A lot of valuable information is a short video, great job!
Hey James! Thanks for making this video it was really interesting for someone thats on the edge of thinking of making the business account jump! We're making about just over 1k a month atm (our first month getting back into the swing of things properly) Just wondering if eBay push Business accounts listings more through the algorithm? We currently promote everything at 5% but still not seeing amazing amount of sales come through each day. It's really bipolar atm.
Hi, thanks for sharing, glad you liked it! I think eBay do push people with basic shop / store accounts but I'm not convinced if they do it for vanilla business accounts. I know some people who use dynamic % for the ads, and others who only put the bare minimum 2% - I use ads on some listings but a lot of my items were one-offs or low number items, so it's not always easy to see if you get 2x sales for 2x the ad spend, but I think there is definitely a sweet spot for a lot of items where you can increase the ad spend and the price by X% and you will make more money, but I think it's different for every item! Good luck with your sales :)
Hi James very helpful. Thanks for this insight. Recently Ebay asked me to change my private seller account to a business account. So I had to. My question is i have been selling alot of stuff by getting from a FB market place and selling for profit on Ebay. Will there be any problem? . Ebay might ask for the receipts etc. Thanks
Hi, that's a really interesting point, as there was a prolific ebay seller who has a massive RUclips Channel and he was effectively booted off the platform for not having any / enough receipts.
He was selling $1M+ USD / year though, so I think unless you are doing massive numbers or are involved in high-risk items or have a lot of failed transactions then you should be ok.
Hand written receipts might be a way though? or a picture / video record plus excel as evidence (?). I think it's for tax purposes, so if you keep records of every purchase / sale that might help if they ask for receipts, but I'm not sure tbh.
My best guess would be that if you register as a company / sole trader and then buy some stuff from a wholesaler (or even a bulk lot of something off eBay) and then put that for sale on eBay so that you have a receipt and full traceability for it.
I'm going to have a look at the T's and C's this weekend because I've not checked them for ages. The last time I got asked for receipts by eBay was when I was dropshipping steam keys from a retail PC game site and selling them on eBay (which was breaking at least 2 eBay rules) and they kept being bought by hacked accounts and eBay had to refund the transactions, so naturally they looked for ways to stop it from happening, so they hassled me for things they knew I didn't have.
This was a few years ago, so not sure if they are stricter now.
Good luck :)
@@JamesDoesThings Thanks James for answering. Really helpful.
HI, Thank you for the video. I am a private seller in the UK and thinking of going for a business account.You mentioned the free 100 listings on a business account. Could you tell me whether this is only when I pay for a shop subscription or is there a way of having a basic Ebay business account with the 100 free listings?
Hi, great question - sadly you do have to pay for the shop subscription to get the 'free' 100 listings. Since I started selling again, I'm paying the 36p per listing and just keeping 10 - 20 bigger listings, rather than 100's of smaller ones like I did before. This is mainly because I've got a lot going on at the moment at home and I'm not planning to dedicate a lot of time to it, just a few hours per week. If I knew I would do 2+ hours per day, then I would commit to it and get the subscription again. I think having the shop subscription becomes better value after 65 listings - those 100 are good value, but they aren't really 'free'.
It’s what you said.. buyer will just put not as described only option is to except return or refund buyer without expecting to receive item back
I know, I've had quite a few recently but luckily they were for low value items, but it's very frustrating.
Hi James Thank you for making this video. it really helped me
You are welcome! Thanks for the comment and best of luck with your eBay business :)
Hi, thank you for your video.
I started selling on ebay 6 months ago. I wasn't sure which acount to choose to start my business on ebay so I started with private account. I don't know if I should change my account to business acount would be good or not? As my products are around 17-20 variety for now
Hi, I would only do it if you are planning to make an eBay shop, which is only worth it at 65+ items. good luck!
Great review many thanks makes a change that its actually someone from UK and not USA etc.
I was thinking about getting a business account but and I didnt see you mention this in you video if you get a few negative comments or strikes against you then your final value percentage can go up and you will have to start paying more to ebay, than if you only had a personnal account.
My main question is as a personnal account member I normally get 100 listings with 80% off final value fees every 2 weeks. This is not mentioned in a Business account. Do business account holders get this offer or similar ones.
Again Many Thanks
Hi, no this is the downside, you don't get any free listings, they are 30p each I think for fixed price or Auctions. If you get a shop subscription they throw a load in for free and they are doing discounts on the shop subs at the moment, so it's £22.50 per month not £30+ but I don't know how long that will last. Also, that's a discount which you tag on afterwards, I'm not sure it's advertised before you sign up.
Hello James.
Your video was interesting and covered everything I needed to know, except, I have a limit as a private seller of 630 but there is a 1000 free listings advertised , would I be Charger my limit that's on my account? I have been selling since 2007 but thinking about a shop because of the amount free listing that would give me.
Hi, great question - I don't think that the free listings / Monthly limits are actually related. If you are selling in a category where there is a reduction in your fees as a business seller then it might be worth making the change, but remember that the shop listings aren't really free, they are just better value ie because you pay £30 for them, where as the personal account listings are actually free. On my personal account I still have a limit of 100 items or £4,000 GBP so I don't know if that would automatically change if I converted it to a business account. In the Overview tab of your 'Selling' area of eBay where the Monthly limits are there should be an option to 'Request to List More' and then you may have to engage with eBay customer services, or it might do it automatically. The last time I tried to do this in anger I got an automatic 'No' without any reason given and with a busy, healthy ebay account doing daily sales with 100% good feedback and ratings. I increased my limits on an older account several years ago up to thousands of listings and £100k+ over several requested increases and some of those were automatic, but I suspect that things have changed since then - given the length of this reply, I probably need to do a video on it ! 😆😁🤩
if you are allowed as a private seller an allowance of £1k profit/yearly without paying tax, then why does ebay charge tax in the 12.8%, is there a way to claim that tax back?
Hi, great question - so eBay charges VAT on the fees they charge you, which is the same as any business or shop would if you were buying a product from them. It's HMRC taxing them, rather than taxing you. I'm not a tax advisor, but I think you are allowed to generate 'incidental income' from hobbies / selling on your possessions, but I think it's up to you to declare it / pay tax on it. I found the £1k limit was set by eBay / Paypal as a threshold for needing to know more information about you, to prevent them 'enabling' tax evasion and to keep themselves on the correct side of the law. Hope this helps. :)
@@JamesDoesThings Thank you for your response! Makes sense. It seems to be allocated £1k allowance per year. And you can choose to deduct from the gross income either the £1k allowance OR the expenses , but not both of them.
www.gov.uk/guidance/tax-free-allowances-on-property-and-trading-income
regarding the claiming back of tax, it's VAT, so if you have a VAT registered business then you can claim the VAT like you would from any product or service you buy, if not, then the eBay fee is a business expense. *not a tax advisor btw* hope this helps :)
What's the problem with if I use a private account but I accept return and I pay my taxes, it's the same requirements as a buisness seller but I don't have to pay shop fees?
In theory there's no problem doing it as you said, but what you might find is that once you get to a certain level of income in a 30 day period you might get restricted or asked to move on to a business account - that's what used to happen when it all went via Paypal, but I don't know what the limits are now, if there even are any. Once you get over £1,000 in a year eBay will tell HMRC you are making an income on their platform. I've heard that having a shop will generally get you higher up in the listings that an identical listing on a personal account (this scales with the monthly subscription too apparently) but I agree that having a shop is only worth it if you're going to have hundreds of items or a few very high value items or you particularly need the "prestige" of an eBay shop, paradoxical as that might sound :) Good luck with your selling!
@JamesDoesThings well I would not be worried about hmrc because I would be declaring it anyway the difference is I just don't have a buisness account and not paying for a shop and not missing out on percentage off fees and even zero fees on clothes now, but yea if ebay enforce it nothing I could do
Really useful 🎉
Can i have a personal account and business account at the same time?
Hi yes, but not on the same account. You can have more than one account, but it either has to be business or personal, so if you want to keep one of each you will need to make a new one.
switched off after 2 mins. Sound level on top setting and too low, especially after unnecesary background "music". Shame it would probably have been informative.
Thanks for the honest feedback, I have stopped adding music to my videos now as you are not the only one who said that. Good luck with your eBay selling :)
You must be deaf.
James, lovely video but a couple of things. You can't legally operate as a business using a private ebay account, it's nothing to do with tax it's to do with trading standards and consumer rights. For example, if you sell as a business buyers have a legal right to a change of mind return, it's illegal to deny them that right by pretending to be a private seller. A business seller also has to display their contact details on every listing, that's a legal requirement in the UK but impossible to do with a private account as it would breach ebay's terms and conditions. Also you can have a shop as a private seller you just can't be a top rated seller. Hope that helps.
Hi Jonathon, all those things are true and I wouldn't expect anyone running a proper business to operate solely on a private account for the long term, but I think that people who are just getting started can make a start on a private account and then progress to a business account (or give up if it doesn't work). One of the reasons I made the video is that I set up a Limited Company and an eBay business account, an eBay shop and Shopify store waaaaaay to early in my selling journey for my business and it could (and probably should) have stayed as a hobby with occasional selling on my private account. It's something I am going to do a video about and I probably need to clarify the points you brought up, so thank you. 😁
Would a virtual office address work? To display as a public business address on eBay? If one changes their bank information to the virtual office address wouldn’t that work ? As eBay can verify against the bank statement etc
Wondering if anyone can help