eBay Live Expands To Hard Goods, Health & Beauty, Art & Antiques In Bid To Catch Livestream Competition
Just two months after sellers left eBay Open 2025 frustrated by being left on the livestreaming sidelines, eBay Live is racing to catch up with competition by expanding to include Hard Goods, Health and Beauty, and Art and Antiques categories while streamlining eligibility requirements.
eBay Live launched over 3 years ago in the US and has been live for over a year in the UK as well, but sellers have been frustrated with the slow pace of rollout and restrictive category, social media presence, and annual sales requirements that blocked many from participating - driving many into the arms of competing platforms like Whatnot, Poshmark and Tik Tok.
Liz Morton
As recently as August 2025, the eBay Live application form required sellers to provide details about their other live selling experience, average selling prices, and annual sales, as well as social media presence and audience size.
At that time, eBay Live was also limited to the following categories:
- Breaks
- Sports Trading Cards - Breaks
- Sports Trading Cards - Singles
- Sports Memorabilia
- Coins & Bullion
- Comics
- CCG
- Fashion - Handbags
- Fashion - Jewelry
- Fashion - Watches
- Fashion - Apparel
- Fashion - Sneakers
- Fashion - Streetwear
- Toys
But it appears since then, the seller application form has undergone significant changes.
Sellers are now asked if they are a registered business (and if so to provide their business name and contact info) - and while they're still asked to select which other platforms they sell on, the choices have been narrowed and don't appear to be asking for as much in depth detail about seller business operations.
The list of category has also expanded to officially included Coins and Bullion as well as Art and Antiques, Health and Beauty, and Hard Goods like Appliances, Electronics, and Equipment.
- Art & Antiques
- Coins & Bullion
- Collectible Card Games
- Comics
- Fashion - Apparel, Sneakers, or Streetwear
- Fashion - Handbags, Jewelry, or Watches
- Hard Goods - Appliances, Electronics, or Equipment
- Health & Beauty
- Sports Memorabilia
- Sports Trading Cards
- Toys
- Other
Looks at currently active and upcoming Live events also shows a wider selection of sellers and items available, including stores like WorldsBestDeals offering $1 starts on a variety of generic department store items that loosely fit within a holiday theme.
During the eBay Open Live Seller Panel titled Thriving in Real-Time Commerce, General Manager eBay Live Caroline Pougnier responded to questions about plans to onboard sellers more quickly into livestream selling.
Okay, so the next question is when is eBay live going to be open for more Sellers and more categories? And what's required to be eligible?
So our vision of course is to have eBay live be open to all trusted sellers on the platform. We're really keen on building a platform that has the best sellers who are very trusted because a lot can go wrong if you've got a not great or not very ethical seller.
At the moment though the technology is still in its earliest stages and so we're partnering with those who have existing livestreaming experience so that they can help us build the platform and make it ready for a broader audience. We're going to be opening up little by little as the platform gets more mature.
At the moment in order to join, you should have existing livestreaming experience and/or a very active social media community, in addition, of course to fantastic access to inventory.
Even more mind-blowing, when a small seller in the live audience asked how she could get into live selling if she didn't qualify for eBay Live, Pougnier explicitly told the seller she should start by practicing livestreaming and building an audience on other social media sites - an idea the seller had not previously considered before today!
Seller: my question is related to what you were just talking about. So I am a smaller seller. I am dying to get on to the Live platform and as I was applying I realized that I don't have any of the qualifications that you're looking for.
I have 998 followers on Tik Tok and a very small Instagram. So, what would you recommend for platforms for us that want to get into this business but cannot quite yet get onto eBay?
Caroline: Yeah. So it sounds like you're already doing the work of building a social media following, have you practiced going live on those platforms?
Seller: I have not and I really didn't think about that.
Caroline: I think that's a really good first step because first of all, you get used to being in front of the camera, moderating an audience, you get used how the chat goes. And also you'll find that you're following will grow much faster as you start live on social media platforms.
eBay has a long history of blundering into telling their customers to spend more time on competitor sites over the last few years which has raised many questions about whether CEO Jamie Iannone realizes Meta is a direct competitor for both buyers and sellers with Facebook Marketplace.
Liz Morton
As @unsuckEBAY so presciently explained in 2021, continuing to funnel users to Facebook for support, engagement and live shopping seemed like a bad move, especially in light of how StockX took a big bite out of eBay's sneaker business in 2019.
Earlier this year, eBay did in fact make a deal with Meta, announcing a partnership which allows eBay items to be listed on Facebook Marketplace - but it's important to note that the integration directs the buyer from Facebook to eBay to complete the transaction, so in theory it should be a net gain for eBay rather than a risk of losing existing users to a competitor.
Liz Morton
Pougnier's comments at Open raised eyebrows and it appears eBay may now be pivoting to try to put a more welcoming and inclusive face on Live - though it will likely still be a long time before eBay loosens the reins to allow most sellers on the platform to access livestream selling capabilities.
Have you recently applied for eBay Live selling? I've love to hear about your experience - leave a comment below or contact VAR!
