ebay cancelled sales

martindow

soolin said:

martindow said:

dinosaur66 said:

as to taxman to use my simplistic way of doing my ebay accounts

total takings figure for the month 

then total outgoings breakdown of fees 

ie 10% of takings fee / 20%vat  / 36p per sale item fee /shop fee and extra listings /lost post & returns / stationary /postal cost / price paid per item /operating fee/vat / total cost /total profit

so in my own mind i put the refund as an expense for the taxman to pick up .

albeit i then pay the taxman

I don't think this is right.  You have already accounted for your expenses (ie 10% of takings fee / 20%vat  / 36p per sale item fee /shop fee and extra listings /lost post & returns / stationary /postal cost / price paid per item /operating fee/vat / total cost /total profit) which I agree is valid.

The £8 you have refunded includes these expenses plus your profit. 

You shouldn't put the refund in as an expense as well as you are then including all of your expenses again, which you have already accounted for, plus your lost profit which is not a valid expense for a business.

Thank you, I've been running this through in my head and couldn't figure out how it worked.

I too keep simple paper books (I was trained pre computer- I'm that old!) and use the cash accounting system. I have all income recorded, then all expenses separately which on a sale is the usual ebay fees and postage. If an item is lost I can claim from RM for the original item value, for SNAD claims I can't claim anything of course.

So if I refund on a SNAD claim I lose all the 'profit' element as that isn't an allowable expense at all. If I believe a claim to be false, I always pay return postage (which I can claim in my accounts) and insist item is returned- I get very few SNAD claims any more but very often there is nothing wrong with item so I can either appeal to ebay and they often pay me a goodwill payment, or I resell item. If the item is well and truly kaput and I packed it badly or sent the wrong item then at that point depending on cost I will either refund without a return (and not claim anything) or if I sent the wrong item, just get it back to resell and cancel the sale. 

My real sticking point though is the fact you don't get the loss back- only reduce the tax payable on the amount. So if you refund a £20 item and somehow manage to remove that sale from the spreadsheet you are out of pocket for the £20 as all you have saved is tax and NI on the profit. 

You need to separate income from expenses when looking at this.

The £20 is related to income rather than expense.  Imagine you were a shop and I came in and bought something giving you a £20 note.  The next day I return wanting a refund which you agree to, you take £20 from the till and return my money.  It is as if the transaction never occurred.  Your income is back where it was before the 'sale'.

The same transaction via Ebay is different because you have some costs involved which you add to your expenses, but the £20 income arrives and disappears as in the shop example.  You do end up out of pocket with a cancelled sale, but that is part of the costs of doing business and you hope it doesn't happen too often.

winkowinko

I have sold 4 bottles of perfume (auction) in the last 10 days.

1st - I sent a payment reminder to the winning bidder. Received a reply saying that they had bought perfume from ebay recently which didn't arrive. Therefore didn't want to pay for mine.

2nd - paid a few minutes after winning the auction.

3rd - Won auction yesterday, but no payment so I sent them a reminder. Received a reply saying that they are away at the moment, and will pay when they return home tomorrow. Why do they need to be home before making payment?

4th - Won auction yesterday. Payment reminder sent this morning. Received reply saying they are currently in Dubai, and can't pay until the 10th of January!!

dinosaur66

martindow said:

dinosaur66 said:

as to taxman to use my simplistic way of doing my ebay accounts

total takings figure for the month 

then total outgoings breakdown of fees 

ie 10% of takings fee / 20%vat  / 36p per sale item fee /shop fee and extra listings /lost post & returns / stationary /postal cost / price paid per item /operating fee/vat / total cost /total profit

so in my own mind i put the refund as an expense for the taxman to pick up .

albeit i then pay the taxman

I don't think this is right.  You have already accounted for your expenses (ie 10% of takings fee / 20%vat  / 36p per sale item fee /shop fee and extra listings /lost post & returns / stationary /postal cost / price paid per item /operating fee/vat / total cost /total profit) which I agree is valid.

The £8 you have refunded includes these expenses plus your profit. 

You shouldn't put the refund in as an expense as well as you are then including all of your expenses again, which you have already accounted for, plus your lost profit which is not a valid expense for a business.

i did not know you was not allowed to claim on a ebay return from hmrc

albeit ebay would have refunded me all there fees when i refunded the buyer

i have done this method for years so will ammend it from next year in my tax books.

if audited then i will hold my hands up

mind you in the 80s inland revenue used to raid all the london markets all the time / and yet it was the ones that did not run like me they questioned time and again

in the 90s was audited twice in stratford tax office/

now 2024 and retired my guess first people to look at my tax return books will be my relatives clearing out my belongings when i am dead and throwing them into a bin.

soolin

winkowinko said:

I have sold 4 bottles of perfume (auction) in the last 10 days.

1st - I sent a payment reminder to the winning bidder. Received a reply saying that they had bought perfume from ebay recently which didn't arrive. Therefore didn't want to pay for mine.

2nd - paid a few minutes after winning the auction.

3rd - Won auction yesterday, but no payment so I sent them a reminder. Received a reply saying that they are away at the moment, and will pay when they return home tomorrow. Why do they need to be home before making payment?

4th - Won auction yesterday. Payment reminder sent this morning. Received reply saying they are currently in Dubai, and can't pay until the 10th of January!!

I don’t remind people, I have opted for the process of eBay sending the invoice and reminders . I honestly don’t mind people taking a day or two to pay, it’s just one of those things. I also have it set up to automatically cancel the sale on day 4 at which point I block the buyer and just re list.

buyer 1 , unless they request a cancellation I’d just wait out the 4 days close an NPB and  block them. If they request a cancellation then cancel otherwise don’t bother. 

As for your last buyer, I’d wait out the 4 days then cancel the sale and block buyer. I have found in the past that where someone can’t pay for a while they never pay, so unless they have agreed with me before bidding, they still only get the 4 days. 

savergrant

soolin said:

....I’m still continuing my policy of accepting the cancellation and blocking the buyer . 

How do you block a buyer? I've had someone who has bought low value items from me twice and 'they've not arrived'  so I've concluded it's an address I can't deliver to 

soolin

savergrant said:

soolin said:

....I’m still continuing my policy of accepting the cancellation and blocking the buyer . 

How do you block a buyer? I've had someone who has bought low value items from me twice and 'they've not arrived'  so I've concluded it's an address I can't deliver to 

The easiest way to find the link is to go via 'help and contact' at the top of your home page, search for 'block bidder' and then add their user name to your block list.

I don't know if a direct link will work 
Block buyers from your listings | eBay

I block all non payers, all people who cancel and anyone who I think is particularly annoying or likely to be an issue. I think you can have 5000 user names on there so I've a way to go yet. I blocked one the other day under my 'annoying' criteria. Asked loads of questions, all of which were in the listing, including ;can you guarantee this is brand new' when it was listed as used/very good book and my comment was 'read once, then stored, outer DJ is intact and pages tight' (etc). That didn't get buyer blocked, nor did the request to confirm it was hardback and not paperback, (clearly photographed and item specifics filled in). What got them blocked was the request that if their relative already had it that I would pay the return postage after Christmas so it could be sent back. 

RFW

soolin said:

It changed about 15 years ago, before that sellers could leave bad feedback. However as RFW has already said it wasn’t ideal as as soon as a selelr left poor feedback for a buyer, the buyer just left poor feedback back. 

Personally I find it better to look at the feedback that buyers have left for other sellers as that often shows up a bad buyer.

I think it's about that. I was a big Ebay seller back then and went to Ebay Live in the US just after they'd introduced it there. The sellers formed what I can only describe as a mob protesting about it at a Q&A for the Ebay high ups who were there. That was the last Ebay Live they did. It never got violent but it was very loud and came quite close. A lot of sellers saw it as a powerful tool, which was part of the problem. It was quite an eye opener, especially regarding how much better consumer rights are in the UK. I wondered why the US sellers were quite so bothered about it.