Sellers in the UK said eBay sent them notifications telling them they needed to upgrade from a private seller to a business seller – designations eBay does not make in the US. Some sellers said customer service reps told them the emails were sent by mistake, but an eBay moderator said the mailing was legitimate and not a technical issue.
One UK seller told EcommerceBytes that a rep said eBay was working on the issue. However, the seller said the banner displaying in his account shows that if he needed to upgrade, eBay would offer fee-free selling until December 31, 2024, “which is not a bad offer at all,” he said. Sellers must convert their accounts by September 4th to qualify.
A seller writing about the promotion on the eBay UK discussion boards called it “a kick in the teeth” for those sellers who had done things the right way (presumably referring to those who had already registered as a business seller) – “what rewards are those sellers getting,” they asked. Others echoed the sentiment.
One seller shared their theory about the emails, writing in part, “I actually believe this sudden interest in a seller’s account type is due to the EU’s GPSRs which will be enforced from December. All business sellers will be forced to comply but private sales are beyond the scope of these new regulations. As eBay can be held liable for any non-compliant products that enter the EEA/EU/NI and trading under a private account would be an easy way for a business to bypass the new rules I’m guessing eBay realised they had to do something if their hand wasn’t already forced.”
According to the EU website, “The General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) is a new key instrument in the EU product safety legal framework, replacing from 13 December 2024 the current General Product Safety Directive and the Food Imitating Product Directive . It modernises the EU general product safety framework and address the new challenges posed to product safety by the digitalisation of our economies.”
The eBay moderator responded in a thread about the mailings on Wednesday with the following response:
“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.
The official response left sellers as confused as they were before. eBay explains the Business Seller policy on this eBay UK help page.
