eBay has launched a Pay As You Grow scheme for UK startups and small businesses.

The scheme will remove all fees for first time sellers covering their first 100 sales each month.

Starting on 9 October and running until the end of the year, the offer - which has been inspired by the new government policy of Pay As You Grow loan repayments
for small businesses - is specifically designed to support the rising number of unemployed across Britain, by encouraging them to set up their own online businesses at little to no cost.

Listing fees, or insertion fees as they are known as on eBay, are some of the biggest charges businesses have to pay and can sometimes be a barrier to getting
started selling online. Currently, these fees are non-refundable, even if an item doesn't sell. eBay also normally applies a final value fee, which is a proportion of the final sale.

Under eBay’s new Pay As You Grow scheme, no listing fees or final value fees will be charged for any first-time seller on the site for their first 100 sales each month, followed by discounted fees thereafter.

Businesses will only have to pay as their sales start to grow. Fees will be halved for the next 100 sales for first-time sellers and reduced by a quarter for
the 100 sales following that each month.

This new scheme is intended to serve as a cashflow boost at a time when small businesses and entrepreneurs need it most, and as hundreds of thousands of people across the country face unemployment and need to seek new ways to earn a living.

It builds on eBay’s continued efforts to create new economic opportunities right across Britain, following a wide range of seller support policies brought in since the start of the pandemic.

Andrew Goodacre, chief executive of the British Independent Retailers Association, said: “We have been saying for months that more support is needed to help independent retailers survive this crisis.

"We welcome eBay’s efforts to help small businesses and high street retailers to expand their business online at little cost, and we hope this will go some way in sustaining independent retailers and keeping people employed as the end of furlough approaches.”

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