eBay Open 2025 Day Three: eBay Live, Shipping, Ads, AI Tools, Financing & More
eBay kicked off Day 3 of their annual seller conference, eBay Open 2025 with another full day of workshops, seller panels, Q&A and feedback sessions.
Full replays will be available from eBay after the event, but here are a few highlights from the virtual sessions Value Added Resource attended today.
eBay Live Seller Panel: Thriving in Real-Time Commerce
Again it seems very odd for eBay to be hyping up eBay Live livestream selling considering it is still an extremely limited feature that is only available to select approved sellers and 90%+ of the sellers in the room and watching online probably wouldn't be approved if they applied.
During the panel with the eBay Live sellers, I wondered what would happen if a seller in attendance gets excited from hearing about the feature but doesn't qualify for livestreaming on eBay - would they simply go to competing sites like Whatnot, Poshmark, TikTok, Instagram, or other social media sites?
Shockingly, not only does it seem that's likely going to be the result - General Manager eBay Live Caroline Pougnier actually even explicitly encouraged it!
First, Pougnier inexplicably claimed that eBay Live is still in its "earliest stages" despite the fact that it launched over 3 years ago - in June 2022 - in the US and has been live for over a year in the UK as well, even though eBay continues to stretch the truth about that too.
Liz Morton
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
That being said, it is absolutely wild to me that the General Manager of eBay Live is now actively encouraging sellers who are apparently too small for eBay to care about to go pay their dues (quite literally in the form of selling fees) and hone their live selling skills elsewhere.
If that small seller follows Pougnier's advice and becomes successful with live selling by growing a sizeable following on TikTok or Instagram, why in the world would she want to come back groveling for a chance to be let into eBay Live?
That just seems monumentally short-sighted to me.
Liz Morton
Workshop: 10 Shipping Myths
Unsurprisingly, one of the top issues brought up about Shipping was the end of the de minimis exemption & tariff updates.
Liz Morton
The shipping team was also asked about if there are plans to open more hubs for eBay International Shipping which currently only has one location in Illinois after the previous LA location was discontinued due to not being cost effective.
While they did not mention anything about it, it's notable that eBay recently opened a new authentication center in Louisville, KY which is a massive area for logistics hubs - so it will be interesting to see if that plays into EIS plans in the future as well.
Liz Morton
Workshop: Unlock Your Advertising Potential
Senior Manager SMB Strategic Accounts Dallen Mckee once again provided a great overview of the various Promoted Listings advertising options and when/how sellers may want to use each type of ads on the platform, but for experienced users there wasn't much new here except the announcement that Promoted Listings General ads can now be more easily managed in the eBay app.
UPDATE: Promoted On The Go is live in the eBay app, but sellers say it's full of data discrepancies and wonder if it may be responsible for a glitch causing Promoted impressions from August 10-11 not to be reported properly.
Liz Morton
Questions about if/when the controversial ad attribution changes which have rolled out in Germany, UK, Australia, Italy, France, and Spain will be coming to the US were once again ignored.
Liz Morton
Workshop: Fueling Seller Success: Empowerment Through Financial Solutions
eBay is expanding Express Payouts to be able to be sent directly to a bank account instead of only through a debit card.
But watch out, any Express Payout will still incur a $2 fee for each and every transfer.
Liz Morton
In addition to the Open Banking feature announced yesterday, eBay is also beta testing an AI-powered Finances Copilot with select sellers, giving enhanced insights into financial reporting, earnings, and more.
Seller Advocacy Feedback Session: AI Tools
Product Marketing Manager and Seller Advocate Chuck Van Pelt and Product Marketing Manager Jonathan Chard were back for another feedback session, this time about AI Tools.
Thankfully, they took more time today for direct Q&A - including answering one of my questions about what protections sellers have against not as described claims with eBay's increasing insertion of AI-created summaries both offsite, like in their Facebook Marketplace partnership, and onsite in item pages and search results.
Liz Morton
Importantly, unlike the AI description tool in the listing form or the new AI messaging tool which allow the seller to review the AI generated content and decide whether or not to use it, these eBay AI summaries and item detail highlights are created by eBay and inserted into various places with no control or input from the seller - in fact, the seller may not even be aware that eBay is displaying this AI generated content to their buyers.
Chuck didn't have a specific response but acknowledged eBay will likely need to have an official policy for this in the future if it becomes an issue and for now, sellers who believe they are experiencing negative impacts from eBay AI summaries should reach out to support with details of the specific situation.
I don't know what our official policy is on these AI descriptions and whether they're accurate or not...what I would suggest is if you have a dispute, follow the channels that we have in Seller Help to engage with us and explain the problem.
It's not been my experience, I've not heard from a lot of sellers that it's been a problem. If it becomes a bigger issue and we see it more, I think we'll probably have to come out with some official statement and the reason I'm hesitant to answer is because I just don't have an official answer for you and I don't want to speak out of turn.
Unfortunately, putting the onus on sellers to reach out and report problems is not likely to address the issue, since many sellers may not even be aware that eBay is showing AI generated summaries or feature highlights instead of or in higher visibility areas than the verbatim, word for word seller-provided item information.
That means sellers may not be able to make a direct connection between any particular not as described claim or negative feedback or provide proof to eBay that the eBay AI generated content was incorrect - unless they just happen to get lucky and catch it themselves on their own listings or the buyer is able and willing to provide confirmation that the information they were looking at said it was generated by eBay AI.
If eBay wants sellers to believe the company takes their commitments to AI Responsibility seriously, they need to provide transparent guidelines for how to report errors in eBay AI content, proactive protections for when eBay AI gets it wrong when there is no direct seller involvement, and a clear and easy way for sellers to opt out of having these AI features applied to their listings - or better yet, make them opted out by default and require sellers to give explicit affirmative consent before they are enabled.
Liz Morton
I also asked about Senior Manager eBay Advertising, Alan Feder, saying that eBay is working on how to use AI to remove seller watermarks to provide a clean image to Google while maintaining the image with watermarks for on eBay search in a session yesterday, but unfortunately didn't get an answer.
Throughout eBay Open I also saw many sellers asking where to find the AI-powered Magical Listing tool referred to in many sessions.
For desktop users, the only option currently available is the Bulk Magical Listing tool.
Some sellers may have access to the single item image based Magical Listing experience in the eBay app, but that is only available to personal account sellers who still use the My eBay experience, not to those who use Seller Hub - which would probably be the vast majority of sellers at eBay Open.
If you don't have access to Magical Listing and want to see how it works, check out my full breakdown and review from April:
Liz Morton
Closing Keynote
The final Keynote presentation featured segments on seller-hosted meetups which have been rebranded to Seller Circles, eBay for Charity, Up and Running Grant winners, and eBay Government Relations lobbying efforts on key issues like getting the 1099-K threshold lifted back up to $20,000 and 200 items for 2025.
Liz Morton
Sellers were happy to see Jim "Griff" Griffith back in a public facing role for a minute, leading an emotional trip down eBay history memory lane before announcing his retirement to close out the festivities.
And that's it for the Value Added Resource eBay Open 2025 Day 3 recap! I'll be updating once replays of other sessions are available and don't miss recaps from Day 1 and Day 2.
What was your favorite part of eBay Open 2025? Let us know in the comments below!
