info
Business or Personal?
It’s a thorny, not to say perennial problem. Do you register on a site as business or personal? It becomes particularly tricky if you intend selling both household clearance, and pukka retail stock, and the site discourages dual accounts - as eBid does.
eBid’s stance is: you can only have one account. In practice, in fact, they will allow extras but only if you ask first, and make your case. If they see an alternative solution, they’ll advise you to take that route. Duplicate accounts are discouraged for the protection of buyers (no shill bidding, no hiding behind alternative IDs) and for all-round transparency.
So if you’re going to be selling both your own excess gubbins, and your business items, what do you choose? The decision, of course, is yours. On the face of it there’s two ways to go: open a personal account and clearly mark your business items; open a business account and clearly mark your personal items.
Why does it matter? It matters because in many countries, the UK included, the legal burden on the seller varies if a sale is private or business. Business sellers are expected to perform to a higher standard; expected to know more about their product, provide better guarantees, and generally be (as you’d expect) business-like in their behaviour. Personal sellers can get away with a more relaxed approach, and can put more of the responsibility on to the buyer.
Because a lot of buyers are well aware of this, many will look for business account sellers for preference. They are happier that they have good protection, and appreciate sellers being up-front about being in business. Some buyers will positively avoid anybody they identify as a business seller using a personal account, as this can be seen as trying to weasel out of the legal shackles that constrain business sellers. “If they’d lie about that”, the reasoning goes, “how can I trust them to deal with me honestly?”
As I say, the choice is yours, but if you want my advice (and you are reading my blog after all!) I’d say err on the side of caution - if in doubt, call yourself a business.
How do you do that in eBid? If you didn’t select a business account when you were joining, then it’s not too late to update your information. There’s no extra charges involved, it simply informs your customers of your status, and allows you to put a business address in for use on invoices. VAT and/or Company registration can also be recorded. The information lives on your “my eBid > my Personal Details” page, and can be changed at any time (so if you stop being a business, you can swap back).
Take a look now, and see if your information is up-to-date, and accurately reflects your selling status.
Happy selling!
