Is eBay Going To Launch Fee Free Selling In The US At eBay Open?

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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UPDATE 9-30-24

The mystery has been solved with UK media letting the cat out of the bag early - fee-free private selling in the UK will be expanding to all categories except Motors.

eBay UK Drops Selling Fees For Private Sellers Across All Categories Except Motors
eBay appears to be expanding fee free selling in UK to all categories (except Motors) as competition for consumer to consumer sellers heats up.

UPDATE 9-26-24

Day 1 of eBay Open is in the books but no exciting new fee announcements were made.

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UK sellers who say the message attempted to get more information in their weekly community chat - but all eBay staff would say is....they had nothing to say.

Re: Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 25.09.24 @2pm
wrote: Hello. Can you tell us anything about the “It’s free to sell” (with no details) pop ups that many people have received in past 24 hours? Hi At the moment, I don’t have additional information on this. As soon as there are any updates, we will get them posted. Thanks, Dave

Hello. Can you tell us anything about the "It's free to sell" (with no details) pop ups that many people have received in past 24 hours?

Dave@eBay responded:

At the moment, I don't have additional information on this. As soon as there are any updates, we will get them posted.

Then Kat@eBay also responded:

Currently, we do not have additional information on this . Rest assured, should there be any updates,we will inform all of our users.

Whether that's because they truly don't know the answer or the information is being held back for a Fall Update presumably "coming soon" is still anyone's guess at this point.

That being said, if it had simply been a technical error, it would seem easy enough to confirm that, apologize for the confusion, and move on.

No matter how this eventually turns out, it's an excellent example of how eBay's lack of direct, transparent communication erodes seller trust and confidence in the platform - something that hopefully new Chief Communications Officer Gigi Ganatra Duff will remedy.

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UPDATE:

Sellers in the UK are also reporting seeing this popup in their Seller Hub, adding to the confusion about what exactly it could mean.

Confused by “It’s now free to sell” popup
Just now I got a popup saying “It’s now free to sell”. It didn’t really give any info, only stating “excludes motors”, and the link just takes you to a standard page: https://pages.ebay.co.uk/selling-on-ebay/ which only mentions about selling clothes being free. Everything seems the same. I tried ma…

eBay often releases a Fall Seller Update around the same time as eBay Open, and those updates typically impact all the various eBay sites (with some slight difference in some countries), so it's entirely possible there could be something bigger brewing.

It's also possible eBay could have shown it to US users in error or those reporting it to Justin Resells could be UK based even though he himself is in the US - in which case it could simply be an expansion of fee free selling for private sellers in the UK to all categories (excluding Motors) instead of the current limitation to clothing sellers only.

That would make a lot more sense than fee free selling in the US - though US sellers will likely be disappointed if that is the case.

And it would also explain why eBay put a hold on the regular 70-80% off Final Value Fees promo sellers in the UK usually receive fortnightly.

eBay UK Suspends Regular Fee Discount Promo For September 20-22 2024
eBay UK sellers are disappointed as regular 70-80% off Final Value Fee promotion appears to be suspended for the weekend of September 20-22.

Rumors are swirling that eBay could be set to make a big announcement at their annual seller conference tomorrow, with some sellers reporting seeing a very odd message in Seller Hub today indicating fee-free selling could be coming to the US very soon!

Youtuber JustinResells says he's been fielding reports from sellers who say this message popped up in Seller Hub today, but when they clicked the link it apparently just went back to Seller Hub with no additional information provided.

eBay has made similar moves in Germany across all categories and in the UK for clothing - with the important distinction in both countries that it only applies to private (non-business) sellers.

eBay Goes Permanently Fee Free On Pre-Loved Clothing From Private Sellers In UK
Private eBay UK sellers will no longer pay listing, final value or regulatory fees on sales of pre-owned clothing as C2C strategy shift continues.

This apparent premature launch in Seller Hub for US sellers is missing some context, but if it is real - there will likely be limiting factors as well including possibly being restricted to personal rather than business accounts, only certain categories (the screenshot shows an exclusion for Motors), a certain order or dollar volume or some combination of criteria.

Several eBay competitors have also recently ditched selling fees - but unlike eBay's efforts in the UK and Germany, those competitors have shifted most or all of the fee burden to buyers instead.

Etsy-owned Depop initially shifted fees in the UK before expanding the new fee structure to the US in July.

Depop Expands No Selling Fees To US Market As Pre-Loved Clothing Competition Heats Up
Etsy-owned Depop is going full speed ahead with new fee structure, expanding no selling fees to US after similar changes in UK earlier this year.

And Mercari similarly shook up their fee structure in March - though so far results have been mixed with US CEO John Lagerling having to admit the new fee structure had not resulted in the GMV performance they had hoped when internally announcing a layoff of ~45% of US staff in June.

Mercari Shifts Fees From Sellers To Buyers, Adds 3 Day Returns For Any Reason
Mercari drops selling fees, passes payment processing & service fees on to buyers but there’s a catch - items can now be returned for any reason!

I don't believe eBay is in a position to simply eat the fee loss across most sales on their main US marketplace, and I don't believe eBay buyers would react positively to the introduction of a buyer fee, as evidenced by the mixed results from Mercari.

That leads me to say the most likely scenario is that if eBay does introduce fee free selling to the US, it will still be in a limited capacity rather than sitewide with the exception of Motors - but of course anything could happen!

I've reached out to eBay for comment but have not received a response as of time of publishing.

Stay tuned for updates from eBay Open September 25-26 and if you saw this strange announcement in your Seller Hub today, let us know in the comments below!

eBayFees & Payments

Liz Morton Twitter Facebook LinkedIn

Liz Morton is a seasoned ecommerce pro with 17 years of online marketplace sales experience, providing commentary, analysis & news about eBay, Etsy, Amazon, Shopify & more at Value Added Resource!


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