eBay seller accounting glossary

A-to-z Guarantee

Not an eBay term. It is Amazon's. The eBay equivalent is the Money Back Guarantee, and the two behave differently, so an article using the wrong one was probably written about the wrong marketplace.

Ad rate

The percentage you agree to pay on a promoted listing when it sells. eBay allows 2 to 100 per cent and most sellers start at 2 to 4. It is charged on the whole sale including postage.

Attributed sale

A sale eBay charges your ad rate on. Since the attribution change, any click on any of your promoted listings makes any purchase from you in the next 30 days attributed. UK sellers reported the share going from roughly a third to over four fifths.

Authenticity Guarantee

eBay's verification step on watches, sneakers, handbags and trading cards. The item goes via an authenticator, which adds days between the sale and the payout without changing the accounting.

Badges of trade

The indicators HMRC weighs to decide whether selling is a business or a clear-out. Nine of them, and where the goods came from carries more weight than the rest together.

Below Standard

The seller level nobody wants. It removes your fee discount, restricts your listings and is triggered by defect and late despatch rates rather than by anything a buyer says publicly.

Best Offer

A listing option letting buyers propose a price. Accepted offers are ordinary sales and carry every fee an ordinary sale carries, calculated on the price actually agreed.

Business seller

An account registered as trading rather than private. Registering as one does not make you a trader for tax and failing to register does not stop you being one. The tax question is decided separately.

Buyer protection

The umbrella term for eBay's Money Back Guarantee and the cases opened under it. Budget for it as a cost of trading rather than treating each case as an anomaly.

Cancelled order

An order stopped before despatch, by you or the buyer. The fees are normally credited back, which is why a fee credit and a refund are different lines and belong in different places.

Cassini

eBay's search engine. Not an accounting matter, and worth knowing by name because seller forums discuss it constantly and nobody explains what it is.

Charity donation

An amount a buyer or seller adds at checkout for a nominated charity. It is collected from you and passed on, so it is never your income and never your donation for tax.

Chattel

A personal possession. A single one sold for more than £6,000 can bring capital gains tax into play even when the sale is not trading. Cars are exempt.

Combined postage

Several items to one buyer in one parcel. The per-order fee applies once rather than per item, which is most of why combining is worth offering on cheap stock.

Contribution

What a listing leaves after everything that varies with the sale: eBay's fees, the item, the postage, the packaging and the ad rate. Not the same as gross margin, and the number that actually pays your overheads.

Cut-off

The line between one accounting period and the next. A sale on the last day of the month belongs in that month even though the payout arrives in the next, and getting this wrong is the commonest reason a set of seller accounts will not tie.

Defect rate

The share of your transactions with a defect, such as a cancellation you caused or a case closed without resolution. It affects your seller level and therefore your fee discounts.

Despatch time

How long you tell buyers you will take to send an item. It is a search ranking input and a defect trigger, so it is a commercial setting rather than an administrative one.

eBay Vault

Storage and authentication for high-value collectables, mostly trading cards. Stock held there is your stock and belongs in your year-end figure like anything else.

Fee credit

A refund of eBay fees, usually following a cancelled order or a successful appeal. It reduces your costs rather than adding to your sales, and putting it in the wrong place overstates turnover.

Feedback

The public rating buyers leave. It affects sales and not your seller level, which is decided by defect and late despatch rates instead. The two get confused constantly.

Final value fee

eBay's main commission, charged on the total the buyer paid, postage included. Category dependent and mostly between 9.9 and 14.9 per cent. It carries VAT, which a registered seller reclaims.

Global accounting

The margin scheme variant for large numbers of low-value items. It works on total purchases and total sales for a period rather than item by item, and excludes anything bought for more than £500.

Gross merchandise value

Everything buyers paid, before any deduction. It is the figure your VAT threshold is measured against, and it is never the figure that reaches your bank.

INR

Item not received. A buyer case opened when a parcel does not arrive. Proof of delivery decides it, which is why tracked postage costs less than it looks.

International fee

An extra charge on sales to buyers outside the UK, sometimes with a currency conversion charge alongside. It comes off the payout rather than appearing on a separate bill.

Item specifics

The structured attributes on a listing. Not an accounting matter, and worth filling in because search ranking depends on them more than most sellers expect.

Late despatch rate

The share of orders you failed to send within your stated despatch time, with evidence. It feeds your seller level and therefore your fee discount, so it has a direct price.

Managed payments

eBay handling the money itself rather than through PayPal. Fees come out before the payout, so the deposit in your bank is never your turnover.

Margin scheme

VAT on your margin rather than on the whole selling price, for second-hand goods. It saves the VAT fraction of what you paid for the item, whatever you sell it for, and requires a twelve-column stock book.

Money Back Guarantee

eBay's buyer protection. It covers items not received and items not as described, and a case decided against you usually costs the sale and the postage both ways.

Multi-quantity listing

One listing selling many identical units. It takes the attribution change worst: a single click on the ad can attach the promoted listings fee to every unit you sell for the next 30 days.

Nudge letter

A letter from HMRC saying it holds information suggesting you may have income to declare, and inviting you to check. It is not an accusation and not a bill, and ignoring one tends to turn it into an enquiry.

Out of stock option

A setting that keeps a listing alive at zero quantity rather than ending it. Useful, and it means your listing count is not a stock count.

Payment dispute

A chargeback raised with the buyer's bank rather than a case opened on eBay. It behaves differently from a return, arrives later, and carries its own fee.

Payout

The money eBay actually transfers to your bank, after fees, refunds, disputes and anything on hold. Business sellers can be paid daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly, and weekly lands on a Tuesday. It settles many transactions and is not a sale, so treating it as turnover understates your sales.

Per-order fee

A flat fee on every order, 30p up to £10 and 40p above it. Negligible on a £200 sale and several per cent on a £5 one, which is what makes cheap listings hard to run.

Platform reporting

The rules requiring eBay and other platforms to report seller data to HMRC once a year. Triggered at 30 sales or about £1,700, which are reporting thresholds for the platform and not tax thresholds for you.

Postage label

Postage bought through eBay and deducted from your payout rather than billed. It is a cost of sale and it is easy to miss entirely, because you never write a cheque for it.

Private seller

An account not registered as a business. It is an eBay setting, not a tax status, and selling privately while buying stock to resell is trading whatever the account says.

Promoted Listings Standard

Advertising charged when a promoted item sells, not per click. That makes it look risk free, and it is not, because it charges you on sales you were going to make anyway.

Regulatory operating fee

A flat 0.35 per cent of the whole transaction, charged on top of everything else. Small, unavoidable, and easy to leave out of a margin calculation.

Reserve

Two different things on eBay. On an auction it is the minimum you will accept. On payments it is money eBay holds back, which is yours and cannot pay a supplier.

Second-hand goods

Goods suitable for further use as they are or after repair. The category the VAT margin scheme was written for, and the reason most eBay sellers should at least look at the scheme.

Seller level

Above Standard, Standard or Below Standard, based on your defect and late despatch rates. It changes the fee discount you get, so it is a pricing input rather than a badge.

SNAD

Significantly not as described. A buyer case alleging the item differed from the listing. On a SNAD you normally pay return postage as well as refunding, which is what makes it worse than an ordinary return.

Stock book

The record VAT Notice 718 requires from anyone using the margin scheme: twelve columns, six for the purchase and six for the sale. Keeping it is a condition of the scheme rather than paperwork that follows from it.

Store subscription

A monthly fee for a shop with better listing allowances and lower final value fees. A fixed cost, so it pays for itself only above a volume you can work out rather than guess.

Suspense

Where an unexplained difference lives until you find it. Keeping one is what stops a reconciliation you cannot finish from quietly inflating your sales instead.

Trading allowance

£1,000 of trading income a year that needs no declaring. Measured on income, not profit, so £3,000 of sales costing £2,800 is over it.

Trading stock

Goods held for sale. Unsold trading stock at your year end is an asset rather than an expense, which is why what you paid for it has to be recorded and evidenced.

Unpaid item

An order a buyer never pays for. Cancel it rather than leaving it, so the fees are credited and the sale does not sit in your figures as revenue you will not receive.