eBay

eBay Review:

eBay is one of the oldest and largest sites to sell anything from camping equipment to cosmetics. The site pulls more than 750 million customers to its site each month, ranking as the second-largest online retailer in the country. (Amazon is #1.) The wealth of customers and the ease of using this site make it the top choice for selling anything you’ve got, from used clothing to jewelry.

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How it works

If you want to sell on eBay, it’s as simple as listing your item and telling the site how to find and pay you. During the listing process, the site will even make suggestions on how you can be more specific about your description to help your listing stand out.

Make sure you describe your item carefully, noting its condition. If it has wear or stains, mention them and provide photographs in the listing. This helps buyers, but it also helps you. You want to be able to establish that your listing was accurate and complete, just in case the buyer claims your item was misrepresented.

Listing is generally free. (If you list more than 250 items in a month, you’ll pay a 35 cent insertion fee.) But you’ll pay a commission on the sale that’s usually between 10% and 15% of the sales price. You can find eBay’s full commission schedule here.

Selling locally — or globally

eBay also provides discounted shipping labels with all the major carriers — the U.S. Post Office, UPS and Federal Express. By using eBay labels, you get tracking services too. So you know when your buyer gets the goods.

It’s important to use eBay shipping because the site can see when you shipped things. And if you get a complaint about a late delivery that was caused by weather or something else that was outside of your control, eBay will actually remove complaints about that late delivery from your profile.

Getting paid

eBay pays sellers by direct deposit as soon as the sale has cleared.

Seller protections

Another benefit of selling on this site is that eBay is committed to banning abusive buyers. As any regular reseller can tell you, dishonest buyers are the biggest risk you have when selling online. Dishonest buyers, for instance, might receive your goods and then claim that they either didn’t show up, were defective or poor quality in a bid to get a refund or a discount.

If the buyer is sincere, he or she would be willing to return the product and would be covered by eBay’s satisfaction guarantee. But dishonest buyers don’t want to return the perfectly good product; they want to use bad reviews as a way of extorting concessions, ranging from discounts to free goods, from sellers.

Blocking bad buyers

Most sites do little about this. eBay is the exception. The company has a written “abusive buyer” policy that bans buyers from using feedback or seller ratings in an attempt to force a seller into providing goods or services that weren’t included in the original item’s description. If a buyer threatens you, you report the buyer.

Sellers maintain that eBay investigates and supports its sellers. You, as a seller, also have the ability to block bad buyers or those not willing to pay on your terms.

Recommendations

Add this nice feature to eBay’s 750 million monthly shoppers and the fact that the site also gets you discounts on shipping, and you can see why we give eBay our top Husl$core. In fact, the only problem sellers have when using eBay is they can get lost in the shuffle because there is so much for sale here.

As a result, if you’re a regular seller of clothing, shoes and accessories, you may also want to check out Poshmark. This site encourages sellers to create a “closet” that they can share on social media. It can help you build a following of people who like your stuff and look for your goods specifically.

If you want to sell only to local buyers, our top recommendation is OfferUp. (But only for local delivery. If you need to ship, use eBay. Read our OfferUp review to understand why.)

Got something to sell?

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What their users say: (From SiteJabber)

“Except for Amazon, Ebay is still better than the others that have popped up. I read the reviews for Posh, I tried Swap, and some other sites to sell on. Just getting up and running is too complicated. They want your contacts information; they want this and that. I do well – not fantastic – on Ebay and though it’s going through some dramatic changes, I appreciate that it’s around for 3P like me.”

“I’ve been selling on eBay for some years and had my first experience of someone who bought an item but didn’t pay for it, so I wasn’t able to relist it. I called eBay and they sorted it out for me in a few minutes, I was very impressed, thank you.”

If you decide to sell on eBay make sure you add as much description as possible, answer questions and document what you sent in mail. That way when a dishonest buyer claims you sent a defective item you have proof you didn’t.

Updated 2/7/2023