Is it still worth trading on eBay as a business?
Summary: mottos-spieleecke raises concerns about the disadvantages for commercial sellers on eBay, questioning the viability of conducting business there due to various fees and obligations not faced by private sellers. petersmodellbahnstuebchen suggests caution in switching to private sales due to the risk of legal actions from competitors. Other participants agree, criticizing eBay's policy and support system, which they claim favors private sellers and allows abuse by 'pseudo-private' sellers. Suggestions are made for changes in eBay’s criteria to better distinguish between private and commercial sellers. miriam@ebay from eBay addresses the issue, mentioning ongoing improvements in detection and management of improper activities, although skepticism remains among other participants who share concerns about the effectiveness and motivations of eBay's measures. Discussions also touch on varying international fee structures and unfair practices that affect both private and commercial sellers.
A hello to the community,
is it still worth trading commercially on Ebay?
As a commercial seller, you're only at a disadvantage, no matter how you look at it.
I know it's up to everyone to decide for themselves, but I wonder if it still brings anything?
Commercial sellers pay selling fees, shipping fees (which is absolutely insane), shop fees, advertising fees just to be seen among all the private-commercial sellers, packaging licenses DE, PPWR licenses EU, have to grant cancellation and return rights, etc., etc.
As a private seller you don't need any of that at all. eBay can't do anything about PPWR, but the rest is so double-track and so many shops have closed that I used to like visiting. I'm still around there, but now they all basically sell only privately, which is legitimate and understandable, or what do you think about it?
mmstore74
·10 hours ago@fonobox ,I can sing a tune about that too, this was the result of an auction.
Ebay " earned " €0.41 more from it than I did, and that doesn't even include the item value (purchase price).
I know Ebay can't help it that only one person bid, but with amounts like these it should be calculated differently.
1 suggestion would be, for an item value under €10, to remove the fixed sales commission of €0.35 and also the fees on shipping costs, which at stated shipping costs of €6.99 alone add up to €0.95 incl. VAT
bixtron
·6 hours ago · EditedShipping via eBay = calculation of the transaction fees AFTER the purchase and use of the label. The shipping costs are then not taken into account. Boom, the shipping costs are passed through 1:1, without eBay also taking a cut from the sale of the label on top of the commission and needlessly manipulating prices upward too.
By the way, that also ties even more customers to buying labels through eBay.
That would be one of many possible solutions. The increase from €0.35 to €0.45 and other things prove, IMO, that this is not a fee for the order, but a fixed, yet variable sales commission that eBay can more easily retain. A justification for this increase remains absent forever...
fonobox
·yesterday at 3:33 PMI just sold an LP for 2.22 euros - the ebay fees charged to me amount to 1.68 euros = 75%: speechless.
bixtron
·6 hours agoAnd especially something small/cheap could go so well here...
tosh586
·2 days agoI’m a private seller, and eBay really isn’t worth it for private sellers anymore, especially if you want to sell internationally. The fees are now almost 20%. What I find particularly cheeky is that eBay also charges fees on shipping costs and any VAT, and I don’t get anything out of that.
Then there’s the forced payment system with a terrible exchange rate, so I end up paying extra again. Then there are all these time-waster buyers you can’t even leave negative feedback for. So yeah, I’m definitely out, I’ve ended my last listings.
voli-maus
·2 days agoYour article location is Thailand, @tosh586 .
tosh586
·Oct 5, 2026 at 6:39 PMYeah, and? The fees are still what they are: simply way too high. Ebay always boasts about being able to trade worldwide.
voli-maus
·Oct 5, 2026 at 6:44 PMeBay.com is responsible for your request.
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·Oct 5, 2026 at 11:34 PMJust to be clear:
You're Swiss and import goods from Thailand to Germany or to the DACH countries or worldwide?
tosh586
·yesterday at 12:34 AMNo, I’m Swiss and currently living in Thailand.
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·yesterday at 1:11 AMThat means that in Thailand private sellers still have to pay fees?
In Germany, after all, eBay has for quite some time not only been completely free of charge for private sellers, eBay even sponsors them on top of that (e.g. via cashback).
tosh586
·yesterday at 2:09 AMThat’s exactly how it is, by the way that also applies to sellers in Switzerland. Ebay is only for sales within the eurozone and Sweden without a fee.
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·yesterday at 2:49 AMThe UK is now also fee-free for private users.
I’m really curious when Ebay will be forced to counteract this because of collapsing revenues from commercial sellers leaving or switching to pseudo-private accounts.
molfish
·2 days agoI always demand that everyone on Ebay pays a reasonable percentage for their sales, then the whole topic here would be obsolete.
But nobody listens to me anyway😁
mmstore74
·2 days ago · EditedGood morning @steininsel-hamburg-21107
I've also been closely watching the clientele in my area since 2023, and I can tell you one thing: I can now tell with 99.9% certainty when someone gives up on their account at 29 sales and under €2000 and then, whoosh, creates a new one......
....and that is only a small part, kind of strange how many new accounts there are, right?
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·2 days agoBut then every account would have to run under a different identity/tax number, because eBay has to report per tax number, right? Or am I getting that wrong?
perfect-sally
·2 days agoYou only have 1 tax number per person! And if these users just stop at 29 items or at €1999, then this account still won’t be reported.
And if someone has multiple accounts, they still won’t escape reporting because all accounts are reported together under the same tax number if they exceed the limit.
mmstore74
·2 days agoMaybe if you delete the account and make a new one, would you then possibly be listed as a completely new eBay member? 🤔
perfect-sally
·2 days agoAnd you still have the same tax number. eBay probably isn’t so stupid as not to cross-check that 😉
mmstore74
·2 days agoWell, I won't say anything about that 😁
But what's the point behind some people doing it like that then?
If eBay, according to you, isn't so .... for making the comparison, why has eBay been waiving hundreds of millions in fees since 2023 then?🤔🤔
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·4 days ago · EditedI once went to the trouble of finding pseudo-private sellers who are listed on my potential ads. There are thousands of them, many of whom have hundreds of high-priced new goods items that they sell regularly in large quantities.
My personal conclusion: Selling on eBay only pays off as a private individual or pseudo-private seller (i.e. registered as a business, but on eBay as private).
If eBay should get in touch about this, pseudo-private sellers can simply open a new private account. eBay doesn’t care and doesn’t crack down on it. Apparently, the bonus payments of the responsible managers are determined solely on the basis of abstract metrics (number of listings, number of sales, revenue) - regardless of actual profits and losses.
They have gone from one extreme (maximum milking of private sellers) to the other extreme (maximum laissez-faire toward pseudo-private commercial sellers).
Economically, that makes absolutely no sense, since the pseudo-private sellers are only offering what commercial sellers also carry in their assortment; only commercial sellers/offers are being pushed out and replaced by pseudo-private sellers/offers, which simply causes eBay to lose fees, while the pseudo-private sellers are merely using eBay as a free sales platform.
What Andreas Häntsch says about the topic in the Händlerbund interview from 17/06/24 is in parts completely absurd and devoid of any economic or business logic - alternative facts 2.0, so to speak.
eBay has definitely thrown the baby out with the bathwater here.
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·2 days ago · EditedWhat makes eBay’s business model even more absurd, by the way:
eBay grants cashback — and not just for purchases from private and pseudo-private sellers. That means eBay not only loses out on the commission, but also actively puts money on the table to subsidize the sales of pseudo-private sellers. These prevent commercial sales, push commercial providers off the platform, or give them an incentive to switch to pseudo-private accounts themselves.
Example:
A customer buys new goods for €100 (3% cashback). The seller receives €100, the customer pays €100. eBay pays the customer €3 and the cashback company another €3 — €6 in total. Balance: –€6.
In addition, eBay misses out on a sales commission of €12.45.
This means the direct losses are already –€18.45. This doesn’t even include the costs for infrastructure, payment processing fees, or the ongoing opportunity costs from the permanent loss of commercial sellers.
A pseudo-private seller with “29 sales / €1,999 revenue per year” not only displaces commercial providers, but often also genuine private listings, since they use up their pseudo-private budget for new goods.
I can’t see any business rationale in that. Apparently, individual, isolated metrics (number of listings from “private” providers, number of private sales, revenue from private sales) have become an end in themselves — independent of and detached from the permanently negative effects on eBay’s profit and market position.
mmstore74
·5 days ago · EditedGood morning @miriam@ebay
about your further developed automated detection and review mechanisms.
Every time, it's a slap in the face.
If it's private and sells an item for two figures, everything is fine. What puzzles me is this
The USA are the undisputed global AI market leader and Ebay is a US company.
But Ebay's AI is so bad that it can't tell the difference between a slice of toast and a drill, or at least that's how it seems to me.
Sorry for saying it so bluntly, but if the AI doesn't recognize something like that🤔
Wishing everyone a nice weekend
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·6 days agoThe answer can’t be answered that generally and depends on exactly what you’re listing. But in general, it’s currently recommended to switch to other platforms if possible when you’re on eBay in direct competition with pseudo-private sellers, since higher margins are usually possible there because they don’t disadvantage commercial sellers nearly as much and/or don’t let pseudo-private sellers get away with everything.
Which is actually a shame, since eBay - if it weren’t for the pseudo-private sellers - definitely offers added value that, compared with other platforms, would easily justify the sometimes significantly higher fees.
miriam@ebay
Hi everyone,
just a quick note on the topic of supposedly private sellers: we’re continuously working to better identify such activities and have also further developed our automated detection and review mechanisms over the last few months for this purpose.
We also see your reports and forward accounts for further review when there are corresponding indications. However, it’s not possible to make a classification based solely on the number or type of items offered, which is why each case has to be reviewed individually.
Best regards
Miriam
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·6 days agoHello Miriam,
thank you very much for your friendly explanations.
The problem is that there are sometimes seemingly private sellers with hundreds (!) of listings, all new goods, which they also regularly sell in large quantities.
Even after a report, eBay often just lets it keep running (not just for a few weeks, but months!).
How can that be? For me, despite all understanding, it’s no longer comprehensible, because with the tolerance of such completely obviously seemingly private accounts, eBay is shooting itself in the foot (lost fees, price dumping, commercial sellers leaving, etc.).
In my case, it is only a small amount of fees that you are losing as a result (my company is merely foregoing eBay revenue in the low six-figure range), but in total this must be massively damaging to you.
Best regards
Frederic
bixtron
·6 days agoHello,
Those are standard replies and not the truth. You won’t get any answers.
bixtron
·6 days agoHi @miriam@ebay ,
if you're really doing something, then please support me with the next issue:
Private-looking seller/buyer with over 3,000 items wants his money back because he did not pick up the item at the post office.
If, after clarification, I see that the seller/buyer no longer has any listings online or is registered as a business, that would confirm your statement.
The post is still being reviewed and hopefully will appear later under "Members help members"....
miriam@ebay
Hello @bixtron - I have now seen your other post and have responded to the specific case there.
A high number of offers alone is not enough for a commercial classification. The overall picture is decisive, and users may also be able to provide proof of a private activity if necessary. For the decision in your request regarding an item not received, this classification is also not decisive.
Best regards
Miriam
mmstore74
·1 week ago · Edited@bixtron with the "stamp collection" it would be difficult, only I can’t understand it when someone writes, I’m liquidating my collection, but then has brand-new models that were only delivered 1-2 ago and then 10-20 pieces of them right away, that’s the kind of specialist I mean.
Privately, take a look
https://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?item=327370738723&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m145687.l2562&_ssn=seriousmetalfrombolton
They should hire some "specialists" to sift through stuff like that.
bixtron
·1 week agoRight. But this is exactly where manual review is needed. Sales limits do absolutely nothing there.
mmstore74
·1 week ago@bixtron Ebay could introduce many very simple measures to get rid of fake private sellers once and for all, or even make sure they can’t list a single item as a fake private seller.
I’m with you there and have 2 suggestions.
1.Private sellers must not sell new and in original packaging.
2.Private sellers may only sell a max of 20 - 30 items per month, which would already be quite a lot
bixtron
·1 week ago · EditedHey,
the private seller has a new bike listed for €2,500 and wants to get rid of it - that's valid.
Another person wants to sell their stamp collection of 300 pieces - that's valid.
So it'll be difficult...
More like:
Manual review after the seller has been reported at least 3 times with the then-restored report reason "Fake private seller". But that obviously can't be someone who doesn't get it - that wouldn't help at all.
(Automated) checking of frequencies. How often and how much is the seller listing? Sales are irrelevant; it's the offer that counts.
(Automated) checking of listing content. Are there any signs of commercial activity, such as "our team/shop", "customer service" or other statements.
And for the commercial sellers who don't include legal texts, you can put up very simple blockers that, for example, make it impossible to reject returns in the relevant categories - so the seller automatically accepts 14-day returns and can't get around that.
steininsel-hamburg-21107
·6 days agoThere are pseudo-private sellers on eBay who regularly list hundreds (!) of high-priced new items from the LEGO category and sell the same goods over and over again in large quantities.
eBay is apparently ignoring this completely - by now I even get the impression that eBay actually prefers it when people use the platform (pseudo-)privately and not commercially. Maybe they’re friends and acquaintances of the responsible managers?
Perhaps a moderator can explain in more detail why eBay is trying to get rid of commercial sellers?
bixtron
·1 week agoHello,
if eBay would ever reinvent itself, fix the errors, clean up the truly miserable support and its so-called "specialist departments" behind it, and adjust the fees (lower them this time ;)) I would praise eBay - like back then - in the biggest terms.
I've only been selling commercially for a few years, and I have to say: I feel sorry for every new seller who has chosen eBay. The cost/benefit ratio is so far in the basement that you're basically just paying here... I don't want to start on eBay's rather shady dealings either, like the credit stuff, but the overall picture can now be easily seen by anyone...
The support can't form a proper German sentence, let alone have any clue about its own rules or laws. At the same time, though, it hassles you with sanctions that not even it itself carries out, but mostly its watchdog, the eBay AI... Then you're accused of shipping too late, lying to customers, doing this & that...
Private sellers are hardly an issue for me anymore. It has become so extreme, and eBay does nothing about it, that there are already forums where the abuse of eBay's behavior is discussed and encouraged... People sell through other platforms and use eBay as an advertising platform - pretty outrageous, and doing nothing about it, and even sanctioning those who report such users.
As far as I can see, there are basically no technical errors anymore here - either this is intentional or responsibilities have already been exceeded. So these aren't errors, it's the quality of eBay. Because for over 3 months now, alongside other sellers, I've been waiting for massive problems to be fixed, problems that have already demonstrably caused damage. Nothing, zero, comes of it. BUT new spam notifications in the app that hasn't worked since rollout (no wonder eBay has no customers anymore, they're all holding their phones and want to shop through them) are no problem. New buttons, new loans, changes here & there, but in one browser you see it like this, in another you see nothing, and the 3rd sees elves - I have no idea how you're supposed to understand that anymore...
So the platform is no longer taken seriously, and therefore its sellers will sooner or later no longer be taken seriously either. Ebay advertises falsehoods in our name and scares off potential buyers - the topic of delivery times is a prime example. Here eBay gives incorrect information, which they even admit (variable and not tied to real delivery times, plus the wording is wrong). But we are the ones being held responsible... Oh, and if the item reaches the customer later than eBay showed them, that is a reason for "item not as described".
For 2 days now we all have to comply with the new guidelines regarding labels - what does eBay do? Right, it goes into the "we don't care about anything" mode, slaps some sheet of paper there, it still doesn't work, and there's still no legally compliant implementation. Enough people have pointed this out - nothing is happening.
I can say that as a private seller I easily generated 3x as much turnover as I did as a commercial seller... Here you only stick your neck out for eBay and pay up. Anyone who doesn't recognize that will also accept 30% commissions.
My future is not on eBay; if anything, then only as a private seller...
mottos-spieleecke
OP1 week agoMoin @petersmodellbahnstuebchen
you often read here that warnings wouldn’t even be worth it if there’s nothing to get from the person, and then you end up footing the costs yourself.
I think eBay, above all, needs to do its homework and take much stricter action against sellers like that, because eBay also loses money / fees through this, or is eBay these days only about turnover from stock markets?
Of course, eBay has house rules and can make its rules however suits eBay, but you can’t just let one side pay for everything and have the other side get off scot-free.
Although 🤔, yes, that does work, you can see it in our politics. No, but seriously, balance has to be restored again, because no one can really keep up with the pricing policy anymore unless you’re happy with €1 profit per item, then everything would be fine.
bixtron
·1 week agoWith debt collection proceedings, you could get an enforcement order. Otherwise, once you’ve received the warning, you can just put all your money into goods, e.g. Waren.. It’s not that easy to get out of it! But to do that, you need to know what the seller actually has. Then it gets seized and auctioned off.
Ebay could introduce many very simple measures to get rid of fake private sellers once and for all, or even ensure that they can’t list a single item as fake private sellers. But that just won’t happen...
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·1 week agoHi @mottos-spieleecke
whether it's worth selling on eBay, every commercial seller has to decide for themselves. That certainly depends on what product range they offer and what’s left for them at the end of the day.
And ending commercial sales here and then only selling privately is certainly tempting. But it can also get very expensive if former competitors notice and the first cease-and-desist letters start landing on your doorstep.
Best wishes from the Baltic Sea
Peter