Ebay is crushing its sellers from multiple angles.
First they want to try and push us into using the EIS which will objectively double or triple BOTH shipping prices and shipping times and if we refuse to sign onto this new shipping program they post a big blue banner on our listings scaring away customers with false information insisting USA buyers HAVE TO pay tariffs which isnt the case at all on CUSMA items and in general it is policy for many shippers to pre-pay tariffs on non-CUSMA stuff unless they use UPS or Fedex but if you want to be competitive you likely arent using UPS or fedex.
So from what I gather about that the only shipping methods that exist in the universe in ebays eyes are EIS, UPS and Fedex. --- Chitchats, Stallion Express, Swiftpost, and Canada Post with Zonos etc. all dont exist at all in the eyes of ebay.
To add insult to injury starting in January apparently if you use promoted listings if someone views your promoted listing ad and you sell it to someone completely different who may have found it organically youre on the hook for the promoted listing ad regardless! I knew something was up when they forced the minimum ad% from 1% to 2%. At minimum they are essentially increasing their fees by 2% but then you always get red box warnings about listing with a 9-15% ad rate on top of the standard 11-15% base selling fee rate so really ebay wants practically 1/3 of a cut from your sale if they have it their way and at the very bare minimum they want at LEAST 15% but preferably in th 20-30% range. They also encourage you to offer free shipping (eat the cost) and then you have to figure in the cost to produce or source the item you are selling. Just how much of a bottom line are sellers supposed to settle for?
I have a theory that to make up for less sales by quantity perhaps ebay wants to make it up in raising fees from sellers primarily but also from buyers who choose to buy using EIS.
These new changes are making it harder and harder to make ebay any sort of full time or serious income and I fear it might slip into just a few big fish and then a bunch of smaller hobby sellers. Perhaps this will become a new trend in ecommerce.
I am not liking the direction ebay is going right now. It is bad enough for Canadian small businesses to have to deal with trumps constant rhetoric on canada and bad policies for small businesses globally and the constant Canada Post strikes. Right now what we need is a platform to do everything in their power to keep sellers above water and its feeling pretty rough right now on ebay.
I opted out of EIS.
I will stop using promoted listings entirely.
If these programs were bringing in big views and sales to justify the big price tags I wouldn't be upset about it but my views/ impressions/ sales for Aug-Oct. 2025 vs same period 2024 are all roughly HALF and thats with me running more sale events than I did last year, listing way more prodcuts etc. So literally double the work for half of the return.
I am going to be testing Etsy out and seeing if I can start gaining some traction there so that if ebay continues sinking and turning into an expensive hobby seller platform I will at least have somewhere else to stand if it gets too bad here.
Would love to hear your thoughts and what you guys are doing in light of all of these disastorous new trade and ebay policies that keep on being hurled at us Canadian e commerce sellers.
