r/eBaySellerAdvice

I’m currently selling on ebay, poshmark, mercari, and facebook marketplace full time. I buy storage units and flip the contents inside as well as flipping items from yard sales and estate sales. I’ve been doing this since January and it’s been very fun & I love it but there are obviously highs and lows.. I haven’t even thought about taxes yet. I’ve made about $5,000 net since starting and I know I haven’t been doing it long but I just feel so discouraged.

I just started a youtube channel and that gives me a little hope that I can actually scale this the way I imagine. I guess my main question to everyone is, do you think this is something that can become an actual career or pay the bills one day?

I talked to a very wealthy colleague of mine and he says he doesn’t honestly see the marketplace being a scalable business but doubling down on content and youtube can definitely be the best scaled thing I can do and become “successful” from it.

Hello friends, I have been selling on ebay for quite some time now but it was always casual. I have moved into trying to sell items more as a business and figured I should do some ads to help with that since the category is a bit oversaturated. I tried the general ad type first but didn't really see any success, so last night I changed it to priority at $3 daily limit (just to try it out and see first) and within about 8 hours or so it reached the max limit and is now not being promoted despite only getting 42 clicks and 2 watchers with no sales. The math of clicks and everything ads up but now I owe $12 for the ads and the item only gets me $5 in profit per sale so that's not really sustainable at the moment. I would appreciate any advice on what to do to be able to keep my listing in the promoted section while not going in debt for it lol

https://preview.redd.it/4r1ln30bq52h1.png?width=1655&format=png&auto=webp&s=8452f1e7be8641141f8d06f54bd70aa328e6b4d0

https://preview.redd.it/c9wvd30bq52h1.png?width=1597&format=png&auto=webp&s=8690994debf3e5db8099a0db26c5ba1a880739bc

https://preview.redd.it/xf61440bq52h1.png?width=1539&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4c300f56576bff700d2e8d4068aa1ba9257089c

Here I am again, stuck with a nonsense return from a buyer who asked "is this new" on an item listed as used. From this point forward if they message me at all before buying its an instant block!

I was doing great last year but this year seems to be completely dead for me. I know I am listing way less but my quality of items is much higher. I've been mostly listing golf and golf adjacent brands Greyson, Birddogs, Redvanly, Vineyard Vines, FootJoy, and of course Peter Millar. Alongside them I also list brands like Barbour, Faherty, Tommy Bahama, Johnnie-O, Bonobos, Lululemon, and Ralph Lauren. I get that the greater economy isn't doing too hot but surely these upper middle class buyers I'm targeting are doing fine. Have trends changed? Am I being "punished" by eBay for no longer listing and selling 50 items a week? How are you guys doing? Let me know!

In case you missed it. Effective today.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/USPS-Rate-Update/ba-p/35617599

USPS has announced a temporary price update for some Ground Advantage shipments effective May 18th, 2026 to June 7th, 2026. These changes apply to USPS Ground Advantage rates when you purchase labels through eBay Labels. 

Rate update highlights:

Overall, this update lowers costs for many 2–5 lb shipments, though changes vary by weight and zone.

• 2 lb packages: Rates increasing for Zones 1 and 5–8 by up to $0.87, and decreasing for Zones 2–4 by up to $0.12
• 3–5 lb packages: Rates decreasing for Zones 1–8 by up to $1.39

Realizing there are many different product categories which come with their buyer demographic, I’m asking in general if the quality of buyers on the platform has dropped.

As an example I used to get mostly honest buyers that knew what they wanted and came to eBay to get it cheaper and were grateful when it met their expectations. Now it seems I’m having to worry more about indecisive or immoral buyers pulling some crap after they receive the item. They typically communicate very poorly, if at all, and aren’t willing to work to a solution. This tells me they’re just wanting something free, be it having the seller pay to return an item they never wanted to begin with or keep the item and try to get a refund.

I still get plenty of honest buyers and good transactions - the majority, but the scum seems to be rising these days and it creates a lot of uneasiness and more profit loss. For context I’m not selling in a high scam/shady buyer product category so I can only imagine what those sellers are experiencing.

Am I just having bad luck with buyers lately or is anyone else feeling this way.

eBay will begin hiding Apparel & Footwear listings beginning in July unless they conform to its size requirements. eBay informed developers of the change, calling it a Size Standardization.

Update: "Apparel & Footwear listings with non-standard, missing, or incomplete size information may be blocked or hidden starting July 2026. Normalization begins in June."

eBay said the size standardization for Apparel & Footwear listings on eBay was a step toward improving listing quality, buyer trust, and overall marketplace performance, and said the update would apply to listings created via APIs, File Exchange, and third-party tools. Presumably, eBay will require sellers who create their listings manually to also conform to the new standards.

"Starting from June 2026, eBay will begin automatically normalizing existing listings with high-confidence size values (e.g., "Small" → "S") and flagging low-confidence or invalid entries (e.g., "See description" or "N/A").

"Starting from July 2026, all new and existing listings with non-standard, missing size values, and/or condition values will be blocked from the site or placed on hold."

eBay said it would handle normalization of high-confidence values automatically, and flag low-confidence or invalid entries. "Starting from July 2026, all new and existing listings with non-standard, missing size values, and/or condition values will be blocked from the site or placed on hold."

See the eBay announcement at:

https://developer.ebay.com/updates/blog/size-standardization

{PS: This post content is from an eCommerce Bytes story. (Google them) They provide some good eBay-related content, and we often suggest our users sign up for their free alerts. I'm a subscriber, myself. We know you guys are members here. Please consider this as a one-time free plug.}

So im relatively new to ebay selling and have been doing it full time for about 5 months now and just ran into one of my first major international shipping problems and wanted opinions on whether I handled this badly or not.

A buyer from Israel bought a pretty large item from me around 3 months ago and I shipped it out immediately through USPS Priority Mail Express International using shippo. About a week after I shipped it, USPS suspended shipments to Israel because of the conflict over there, but I didnt know that at the time. The tracking then got stuck for about 2 months saying “Processed Through USPS Facility” in Jamaica ny before eventually updating to “Returned to Sender.” I finally got the package back at my house in California on May 6. The tracking still to this day says "Returned to Sender in Jamaica, ny" btw and im in california .

During the entire process I stayed in communication with the buyer and once the package came back to me I offered him a full refund multiple times. The buyer kept declining the refund though and instead kept insisting that i resend it through FedEx.

The issue is fedex shipping for this item is extremely expensive, more than what the buyer originally paid, and im also still trying to get refunded by usps for the original shipping cost which was about $140. On top of that I honestly dont feel comfortable shipping to Israel again right now because I dont want the same issue happening again with another carrier.

I explained all this to the buyer and told him I understand why hes frustrated because after 3 months he still doesnt have the item, but at the same time I also feel like this situation wasnt really my fault since the shipment got caught in the middle of USPS suspending service to Israel. After that he started threatening negative feedback and saying stuff like hes going to get ebay involved and "ive waited for 3 months and got nothing! how would you feel if you were me!?" and i understand where hes coming from 100% but i dont think he understands where im coming from as the seller and doesnt understand that i didnt have control over the outcome of this situation. It was just bad timing. I really dont want negative feedback over this because i actually did everything i could and communicated through the entire process.

I guess my main question is where did I go wrong here as a seller? Should I have just refunded him immediately and fully ended the transaction once the package came back instead of trying to work with him on reshipping options? What would you guys do/have done?

I am selling some cheaper lots, most are 2-6 cards. Getting asked to lower the price of shipping but I charge a flat rate $4.99 for USPS ground and cover the rest out of pocket. I know eBay has a trading card kit that can hold up to 24 cards and still ship ESE, but right now I’m using the same sturdier envelope as them but not the insert they customized. Do you go over 2 cards for an eBay Standard Envelope (ESE)? If you use or have used eBay Standard Envelope trading card kit to ship eBay Standard Envelope is it worth that ~$2 per kit cost to be able to ship eBay Standard Envelope?

Thanks for your help. Was shutting the store down, now have too much loose product to do so yet, so any advice so I can move the rest of my listings would be great!