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Ebay has removed fees for selling second-hand clothes in a bid to compete with popular apps such as Vinted and Depop.
Starting this week, buying and selling used clothing on the auction site is completely free and will no longer incur a 12.8 percent fee.
The online marketplace said the move was designed to encourage customers to reduce waste and move towards a “circular economy”.
The fee change will also apply to items that were listed on Ebay before April 8, and means it will now be much cheaper to buy and sell clothes on the platform.
Ebay has removed fees for selling unwanted clothing, bringing it in line with other selling sites.
It will compete with secondhand clothing apps like Vinted and Depop, which are particularly popular with Gen Z users. Both have waived seller fees.
Kirsty Keoghan, eBay’s global fashion managing director, said: “The free fashion sale has come at the right time for a nation that owns billions of pounds of unwanted clothing.”
“We know that selling clothes can sometimes feel like a chore, so free selling and new updates like new AI-powered listings will help more people sell clothes easily, putting more cash into the books. pockets”.
What can be sold for free on Ebay?
If you want to sell on Ebay, you can list up to 1000 items for free each month. Once this monthly allocation of free listings is reached, sellers will be charged 35p for each new listing created.
Customers paying £19.99 per month will receive an additional 100 free listings per month, after which the fee will be 35p per listing.
Sellers are charged 12.8 per cent of the total sale amount, as well as a final value fee of 30p per order. Now it’s free for secondhand clothing ads.
When the item is sold, Ebay also charges a regulatory operating fee of 0.42 percent, calculated on the total amount of the sale, including shipping. This also does not apply to second-hand clothing.
Other features such as a reserve price (item will not sell if bids do not meet the amount) and promoted listings will incur a small fee.
Customers looking to sell other fashion items will still face seller fees, although sneakers, watches, handbags and jewelry are not covered by the new policy.
Final value rates for trainers are 8 per cent + 30p when the selling price per item is £100 or more, excluding delivery.
If the total sale amount is more than £5,000 for a single item of clothing that is not second-hand, you will pay 3 per cent on the part of the sale price over £5,000.
What fees do Vinted and Depop charge?
Ebay’s decision to cut costs means it is now competing with other second-hand apps, which have waived seller fees.
Vinted does not charge any fees for listing or selling items, but instead charges buyers a “protection fee” that varies depending on the price of the item.
For orders priced under £500, it ranges from 3 to 8 percent of the purchase price, regardless of shipping costs. Orders, including parcels, over £500 will face a 3 per cent fee.
This means it is cheaper to use Vinted if you are looking to sell items other than just clothing.
Vinted charges a buyer protection fee, rather than a selling fee, on all items
Depop has also waived its seller fees. It previously charged a 10 per cent fee on the total cost of the transaction, including the delivery fee, a 2.9 per cent “standard transaction fee” and a 30p charge.
However, the platform removed all seller fees in March, and sellers will now only face a 2.9 per cent payment processing fee, plus 30p.
From April 15, buyers will incur a fee of up to five per cent of the item plus a flat amount of up to £1, excluding taxes and shipping costs.
What tax is paid for selling second-hand clothes?
HM Revenue and Customs has introduced new rules requiring online marketplaces to collect information on users, in a bid to crack down on online resellers who fail to declare their income.
The new rules, which were introduced on January 1, have caused some confusion over whether this means people who order or sell unwanted gifts will be hit with extra taxes for selling on Ebay and other sites.
As is already the case, sellers will only have to pay taxes if their profits exceed a certain threshold.
HMRC itself says that you could be classed as a “trader” if you regularly sell goods or services through an online marketplace, meaning you would have to pay tax on anything that earns more than £1,000.
However, it is a little more complicated than this. If you sell old clothes several times, you are unlikely to get stung.
It all depends on what you’re selling, why you’re selling it, and whether you’re making a profit.
If you are removing old clothes that you no longer want and for less than it costs to buy them, then you will not be classified as a “dealer.”
Unfortunately, there is no single definition of what constitutes a trade, which is why the new rules caused so much panic.
If you earn more than £1,000 in a year you will need to register for self-assessment, but if you sell unwanted clothing you will not be subject to any tax liability if you don’t make a profit.
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