Second seller account .

[jimmyjoejoe_jnr]

Hi I was wanting some advice fom the experienced multi account holders on here.I would like to open another seller acc as rarely get promotional offers and have a lot of clothes I sell for myself and others.Just wondering about the pros and cons of doing it ,will I only be able to sell a certain amount and are there restrictions,I have had my other acc for many years and this is a hobby but am getting close to retirement so thought I might branch out.Any advise gratefully accepted.

[*tippy*toes*]

I have 3 accounts. When I opened the last 2 they had listing limits of 10 items a month. By linking them to my long term account the limit was raised to 30. You can ring eBay and request a higher limit but I just let them increase on their own.

When I opened the 2nd account it was subject to the PayPal 21 day funds hold. I asked them to lift it and they refused so I lodged a dispute with the FOS and a few days later it was lifted as my main account was in good standing and had never had a dispute opened.

When I started the 3rd account it said the funds would be held when I was listing items but they weren't.  I'm guessing the hold lift worked for all accounts. 

[jimmyjoejoe_jnr]

Thanks Tippy ,how do I link it to my other account  and are they eligible for the free listings or do you have to achieve so many sales first.10 listings a month is hardly worth it really.

[jensmanchester-australia]

If you are looking to expand it could be worthwhile considering opening a basic ebay store as you have fantastic feedback on this account.

It is around $20.00 a month but you get 200 free BIN listings each month which you can list as either 30 day listings or you can use the GTC feature where they are relisted automatically by ebay each month.

Additional BIN listings are only 50c each for 30 days.

The Final Value Fees are also slightly lower if you have a store.

[*tippy*toes*]

I linked them during the increase limit process. Part way down your selling page is a link to increase limit. The first time you do it it asks if you have another account and if you have, it asks for the username. Once the process is done they are linked. Not sure if there's another way.

The other option is as mentioned, a store. It would depend on whether you wanted to run auctions or BINs. Auctions will cost you in a store unless it's the collectable category (might be more but clothing isn't one of them).

Stores also don't get near the promotions that non stores get so something else to consider. You could try a store and if you find it's not for you, you can close it.

[chameleon54]

You say you are getting close to retirement. Will you be accessing a full or part pension ?

If so you need to consider how much you can earn on ebay before affecting your pension entitlement. You appear to be running a business and have fairly reasonable sales.  While you should really be declaring your ebay income anyway, you need to factor in that you would be getting close to the $10,000 figure wherby ebay report your earnings to the ATO and Centrelink. Centrelink will cross reference this data with the information you provide them, regards your income.

If you start another account it may be benificial in the long term to have one in your name and another in a spouse or partners name. This will spread your earnings for pension eligability purposes. If you do this you will need seperate paypal accounts and seperate bank accounts in the same name as the selling ID,s. You may well still be able to link them, to get a higher initial selling limit.

My wife and myself have three selling ID,s. We make a substantial part of our income from ebay and use the different ID,s to legitamately split our income for ATO purposes. This is all fully legal and done under the direction and supervision of a highly experienced accountant.

I know this is all a bit boring, but could be very important if you continue selling on ebay once retired.

[jimmyjoejoe_jnr]

Well I set up another account listed 10 items then it said that was my limit even though it says I have 40 free listings,I went to increase limit it asks for my main acc put that in wants phone number done that Then keeps saying invalid I know my phone number and acc are right,would there be something I am doing wrong.Any help gratefully accepted.

[*tippy*toes*]

Even though you get the 40 free listings, whilever the limit says 10, that's all you can list/sell for that month. Any unsold listings that carry over to the next month go towards next months limit. What that means is, if you sell 5 this month and 5 carry over to next month, you can only list 5 new ones, taking your total to 10. 

I do believe there has been a glitch happening in regards to phone numbers for awhile. Try putting it in a few different ways and see if that helps. For a landline, try 02 12345678, 0212345678, +61212345678 (obviously the 02 stands for the area code, I'm in NSW so used that in the example).

For a mobile, try 0428 123456 0428123456 +61428123456. If none of those combinations work, you'll probably have to ring eBay and get them to manually do it.

[chameleon54]

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@jensmanchester-australia wrote:

If you are looking to expand it could be worthwhile considering opening a basic ebay store as you have fantastic feedback on this account.

It is around $20.00 a month but you get 200 free BIN listings each month which you can list as either 30 day listings or you can use the GTC feature where they are relisted automatically by ebay each month.

Additional BIN listings are only 50c each for 30 days.

The Final Value Fees are also slightly lower if you have a store.

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In Theory this is very good advice and may work for you.

My concern would be that many store holders report that they seem to be affected by the "lights on", "lights off", selling limit effect.

My experience with stores has been similar to many others in that I sell an identical amount each month, regardless of how much or how little time and effort I put into ebay. The stores where initially linked with ebay to get higher initial selling limits. Now the monthly sales figure is linked between stores. If one stores sales fall a bit, the other increases to give me the same regular, preset total sales figure.

Our non store, private account is not affected in this way. I put quite a bit of work into this account this month and sold more on this one little account with the 40 freebies, plus 500 freebies offer than both of the stores combined. ( 117 sales for the non store account  this month )  It has got to the stage that our non store account has become more important to our income than two stores with combined 1600 listings. We will be declaring the income from this account to the ATO along with the stores this year.

To paraphrase a famous quote * On ebay there are knowns and known unknowns "

[thecatspjs]

There are soooo many legitimate business reasons other than the "lights on lights off" theory that can account for sales and turnover plateauing. 

Sure some non-stores may seem to get more freebies, however all stores come with free listings every month, and are currently accessing the doubling of these free listings for several months.

OP depending on the value of the goods you are selling the reduced final value fees for a store can more than make up for having to pay for additional listings - it certainly does for me on all store IDs.