Selling would-be ebay items on your own website - legalities?

GeologyRocks

(I wasn't sure whether to post this on the eBay board or this one...)

I accumulate a lot of stuff, mostly clothes, which I used to sell on eBay a couple of times a year. I haven't done a major clearout for a few years and need to get it out of my house!
I've been put off recently by the influx of non-paying bidders, poor eBay re-designs reducing usability, increased eBay fees and Royal Mail price increases.

As a web developer by day, the logical next step would be to sell my stuff on my own website, to bundle postage costs more easily and get people to actually pay for things when they buy them.

So, my question is, by selling on your own website, do you automatically become a 'trader' rather than a 'personal seller' and therefore have to adhere to distance selling regulations, accepting returns and all that?

I've had a look round hte HMRC website and not managed to get a definitive answer, so would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Cheers!

Buzby

Depends on how successful you are - and the turnover. If a website, there will be an expectation you are a trader - so this would mean your compliance with DSR etc.

GeologyRocks

Turnover would probably be no more than a couple of hundred pounds a year. (If that!)

googler

The only value of selling from your own website is if all or most of the people who would routinely look at eBay (or Gumtree) also look at your own website, otherwise you're not getting the exposure that you would get on eBay.

How would you persuade them to look in the first place?

Once they are at your website, how would you persuade them to buy from you, in preference to buying from someone with (say) 100% positive feedback over 497 items sold on eBay? What would convince them that you are to be trusted?

Sorry, I think it's a non-starter.

StormyWeather_2

To answer your question, if you're selling your personal items you shouldn't be classed as a business. I don't see why HMRC would take into account how you sell your items. It might put you on their radar, in which case you'd have to show that these were items originally bought for personal use. Do you have original receipts or bank/CC statements?

Edited to add: from a tax point of view I don't think you'd be classed as a business. Though you probably wouldn't have to adhere to the DSRs you really should let people return items they aren't happy with.


How would you get visitors to your website?
How would you post items to buyers? Wouldn't you still be dealing with Royal Mail?
If you're willing to take a fixed amount for your items, use the buy it now option with immediate payment.
Take the final value fees into account when you are pricing.
Get your items ready. Take photos, prepare descriptions so you're ready to take advantage of any listing fee promotions they have.
To minimise returns, take lots of photos, note any flaws, include all measurements.
I don't know about the usability issue. If it was that bad, people would stop buying and ebay would fix the problem.

You can also sell labelled clothing to places such as music magpie. You'll get much less for them but it would be easier and you'd get it over in one go.

Another option is to put a job lot listing on ebay, gumtree or similar. Set the price so that whoever is buying can resell and make a profit.

geordie_joe

googler wrote: »

The only value of selling from your own website is if all or most of the people who would routinely look at eBay (or Gumtree) also look at your own website, otherwise you're not getting the exposure that you would get on eBay.

That is complete rubbish. You don't need all, or most of ebay lookers, you just need one who wants to buy what you are selling.

Ebay may have a lot of buyers, but it also has a lot of items for sale. And if you look round, many of the items get very few looks.

googler wrote: »

How would you persuade them to look in the first place?

Google! It is difficult to get on page one of google for generic terms such as "men's shirt", but it's very easy for specific descriptions.

For example, I just did a search for "ben sherman size 17 purple and green stripe" but none of the sites on page one were actually selling one of those. You could get to No 1 on google with a page selling that items without even trying.

You'd never get any visitors who searched for "Ben Sherman Shirt" but you would get visitors who searched for "ben sherman size 17 purple and green stripe" and they would probably be looking to buy one.

googler wrote: »

Once they are at your website, how would you persuade them to buy from you, in preference to buying from someone with (say) 100% positive feedback over 497 items sold on eBay?

Price, for most people that is the only thing they buy on, and they are very willing to take a chance and buy from a web site they have never seen or heard of before.

Just look at the news and read about the thousands who get ripped off buying tickets from scam sites, or holidays from scam sites, or cars, viagra, miracle slimming pills etc. etc.

You might think you are savvy and want a web site to jump through hoops to convince you it is legit, but there are many people who will just look at the price and part with their money.

googler wrote: »

What would convince them that you are to be trusted?

See above, for many people you don't have to convince them you can be trusted.

googler wrote: »

Sorry, I think it's a non-starter.

Good job all the sites out there didn't think the same, isn't it, otherwise they would never have gotten started.

StormyWeather_2

Also, do the sums with the listing fees. Would it be worth paying for 1 month of the basic shop subscription and paying the lower listing fees.

soolin

StormyWeather wrote: »

Also, do the sums with the listing fees. Would it be worth paying for 1 month of the basic shop subscription and paying the lower listing fees.

You would need vast quantities to make that worthwhile as the basic shop is £19.99 and you only save 20p per listing (20p instead of 40p BIN).
Cheaper instead to use free listing weekends and shift it a bit at a time.

GeologyRocks

StormyWeather wrote: »

To answer your question, if you're selling your personal items you shouldn't be classed as a business. I don't see why HMRC would take into account how you sell your items. It might put you on their radar, in which case you'd have to show that these were items originally bought for personal use. Do you have original receipts or bank/CC statements?

Somewhere! Don't reckon I'd fancy digging them out though

StormyWeather wrote: »

Edited to add: from a tax point of view I don't think you'd be classed as a business. Though you probably wouldn't have to adhere to the DSRs you really should let people return items they aren't happy with.

Yeah, it's just the time involved in administrating it I'm trying to avoid, plus those people who wear things then return them.

StormyWeather wrote: »

How would you get visitors to your website?

I'd still put a few things on eBay and try and direct traffic from that (not from the eBay itself, obviously ), Facebook, friends and family, a small Adwords campaign with the money I've saved on listing fees, and so on.

StormyWeather wrote: »

How would you post items to buyers? Wouldn't you still be dealing with Royal Mail?

Yes, but having all my 'stock' easily accesible would encourage multiple purchases more than eBay. I know you can ask and plead with buyers to 'check out your other items!' but how many actually will?
Multiple purchases makes the effective postage cost lower per item, and of course, more items got rid of in one go for me is much better!
On a website, people are far more likely to browse around, I know I do.
I find eBay's combined postage discount system painful to work with and would be much easier to set up on an ecommerce website.

I would probably also use someone like Collect+ for heavier packages (of course, could do this now with eBay anyway - but with most purchases likely to be just 1 item, probably not worth it)

StormyWeather wrote: »

If you're willing to take a fixed amount for your items, use the buy it now option with immediate payment.

I do this occasionaly, and prefer it when it works, but ebay don't do as many free BIN listing days

StormyWeather wrote: »

Take the final value fees into account when you are pricing.
Get your items ready. Take photos, prepare descriptions so you're ready to take advantage of any listing fee promotions they have.
To minimise returns, take lots of photos, note any flaws, include all measurements.

Agreed with all this, I do, but you'll still get people who just don't READ the description. Ebay make it very easy to not read the description at all before buying. Having to click a separate link to even bring up the description on the mobile ebay app, for example.

StormyWeather wrote: »

I don't know about the usability issue. If it was that bad, people would stop buying and ebay would fix the problem.

I think people have to an extent... from private sellers at least. Ebay is all about it's high street outlets these days.

geordie_joe wrote: »

That is complete rubbish. You don't need all, or most of ebay lookers, you just need one who wants to buy what you are selling.

Ebay may have a lot of buyers, but it also has a lot of items for sale. And if you look round, many of the items get very few looks.

Google! It is difficult to get on page one of google for generic terms such as "men's shirt", but it's very easy for specific descriptions.

For example, I just did a search for "ben sherman size 17 purple and green stripe" but none of the sites on page one were actually selling one of those. You could get to No 1 on google with a page selling that items without even trying.

You'd never get any visitors who searched for "Ben Sherman Shirt" but you would get visitors who searched for "ben sherman size 17 purple and green stripe" and they would probably be looking to buy one.

Exactly.

geordie_joe wrote: »

You might think you are savvy and want a web site to jump through hoops to convince you it is legit, but there are many people who will just look at the price and part with their money.

I think a few years ago, people may have been a bit more wary, but now, I think this is correct. Shoppers will generally hope for the best, and if it goes wrong, PayPal/their bank will most likely sort it out.

soolin wrote: »

You would need vast quantities to make that worthwhile as the basic shop is £19.99 and you only save 20p per listing (20p instead of 40p BIN).
Cheaper instead to use free listing weekends and shift it a bit at a time.

This is probably the best tactic, I'm just trying to convince myself otherwise! I used to get a fair bit listed when you could use Turbo Lister to save them up.
I find the online Sell Your Item tool quite tedious (and don't even get me started on the 'simple' version - takes just a long but is missing most of the options - epic fail!). I know you can 'schedule' and item for sometime in the future then change the date if there's a free listing day (if you can still do that!), but having to keep an eye on scheduled auctions ready to relist them all one by is so time consuming, and on occasion I have forgotten about them and had a load of listings go up at midnight on a Wednesday or something like that.

Re: shop. As a private seller, there's not that much in terms of discounts/visibility to be had is there?

patman99

If you have the ability to code a full online retail solution to sell your own stuff, then you could make more money from selling-on customized versions of your site than you ever would by selling your clothes.

GeologyRocks

patman99 wrote: »

If you have the ability to code a full online retail solution to sell your own stuff, then you could make more money from selling-on customized versions of your site than you ever would by selling your clothes.

Doubt it, there are so many systems out there (both free and paid for) that have had thousands of hours of development time put into them so do almost everything you could want, it's not worth building your own! (IMO)