eBay

rdemaree · ‎12-24-2025

Now that we are approaching 2026 how does your 2025 compare with prior years?

Between trumps tariffs, Canada Post protests, inflation, and EBay’s blue banner warning and EIS/ promoted listings cash grabs it’s been a pretty hostile environment to do business in.

As a full time seller since late 2019 this year has been my worst year for sales to date, in June I only sold just under $200 worth of stuff (my worst month as a seller of all time) and this December is shaping up to be my worst December on record. Usually it’s my best or 2nd best month of the year.

For context I offered a different sale event (or sometimes 2!) every month of this year, optimized my listing photos and descriptions, offered more products, offered entry level products, got all of my items CUSMA approved and went out of my way to inform customers my items have no tariffs and I’m STILL on track for roughly 35-40% less in sales this year vs last year.

It’s pretty depressing being a small business e commerce seller in Canada right now. The environment is very hostile from all directions.

Share your wins and losses. I’m trying to get a feel for the environment by reading other sellers 2025 experience given all of the hostile things thrown our way this year.

(Part of me wonders whether separating my item and shipping cost instead of offering free shipping and migrating from .com/ USD to .ca/CAD both earlier this year when trump went haywire on Canada earlier this year has had any dramatic effect on my sales performance this year. If you have any data to share for your own experience I’d love to hear it!)

byto253 · ‎12-29-2025

I have very mixed resutls with free shipping. For me it is best for items that I can ship cheaply and buyers likely assume shipping is that amount or more.

For other items the sticker price with shipping included seems to surpress sales and it has often happened that I drop the free shipping and relist it with shipping added and it sells after free shipping failed. One thing I will do is used a hybrid where some shipping is in the price and most is added - the idea is to have a shipping rate that is in line with the competition if there is any.

ricarmic · ‎12-29-2025

IMO the "loss" of buyers who don't look at the whole picture (ie the total price of a free shipping vs item+shipping) is more than offset by the increased views ebay bestows upon me because I offer free domestic shipping.

Now for any that may be inclined to mention that I sell "wee stamps" also need to remember my free shipping is included on everything up to bankers boxes full of stuff. Having said this because the value of my items vs relative shipping weight is good, sneaking free shipping in doesn't cause as big a problem as an item listed for $10 with $13 shipping. Ie a bankers box can hold up to 100,000 stamps depending on what kind of lot it is.

I am surprised about the number of non domestic sales I have where what I would call inordinate shipping charges are acceptable to the buyer. Today sent out an item $10 with $13 shipping charge and another $11 with $9 shipping charge. Again to my mind folks are seeing it moreso because ebay is favouring it because of the free domestic shipping.

I haven't run any non-free shipping items in a long time so it is possible I am wrong, but that's my thinking.

dinomitesales · ‎12-30-2025

@reallynicestamps wrote:
@rdemaree eBay won’t separate USA from international categories
Look more closely at the Shipping section of your Selling Form for "Destination"
You can choose "USA" or "North and South America".
Don't choose North and South America, it includes the USA but also more troubled destinations.
You can also choose, with another shipping cost, Europe , UK, France, Germany. Although the latter three are also included in Europe.
And, of course, you can pay a fee to appear on the UK site, but you also appear there by choosing UK as a destination at no charge.

We want the ability to offer Flat Rate Shipping to the USA but have Calculated Shipping to all other international destinations. It's ridiculous that this isn't an option. For most people shipping to the States, it's a known flat rate anywhere in the country, so it's easy to offer Flat Rate Shipping. But If I want to offer Flat Rate Shipping to the States I'm also forced to offer Flat Rate Shipping to every other country I choose to ship to. The rates can vary widely between all of those other countries. I just want to be able to use Calculated Shipping to take care of those non-US international sales because they're so infrequent that it's not worth the time and energy to come up with a flat rate that encompasses all non-US international locations.

Sure I can set it up so that both US and International use Calculated Shipping, but that doesn't work right now for a couple reasons: (1) I can't add the tariff/duty cost to my US shipping rate unless I set it to use Flat Rate Shipping; and (2) eBay's Calculated Shipping rates on Tracked Packet are way off because they're still reflecting an eBay discount that we can't even use.

blueberrylanenorth · ‎12-30-2025

This a key point - ebay please listen - and easy to do.

"-Reword the tariff warning on listings that don’t use the EIS. 80% of my items are CUSMA compliant and go into the USA tariff free. Saying my customers have to pay additional import fees is a lie and causing me and many others to lose business in an already challenging time."

Another option would be to allow us to tick off whether there are tarriffs on items going to USA. eg. Tariffs included / tariff free.

mrdutch1001 · ‎12-30-2025

"Another option would be to allow us to tick off whether there are tarriffs on items going to USA."

Therein lies a problem... many sellers do not have the knowledge nor the expertise to have 100 percentage accuracy on that criteria...allowing for that wee chance that the buyer gets a surprise, a surprise that the buyer is not willing to accept....

flipistics · ‎12-30-2025

@mrdutch1001 wrote:
"Another option would be to allow us to tick off whether there are tarriffs on items going to USA."
Therein lies a problem... many sellers do not have the knowledge nor the expertise to have 100 percentage accuracy on that criteria...allowing for that wee chance that the buyer gets a surprise, a surprise that the buyer is not willing to accept....

They could just have something the seller checks off that says they will only ship that item DDP.

mrdutch1001 · ‎12-30-2025

there is no easy solution...There is no easy way for eBay to express a blanket statement; just as there is no easy way for a seller to state any specific statement that will be 100% accurate> DT set the rules; DT saw to it that shipping to the USA would be as difficult as possible!

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎12-30-2025

@flipistics wrote:
@mrdutch1001 wrote:
"Another option would be to allow us to tick off whether there are tarriffs on items going to USA."
Therein lies a problem... many sellers do not have the knowledge nor the expertise to have 100 percentage accuracy on that criteria...allowing for that wee chance that the buyer gets a surprise, a surprise that the buyer is not willing to accept....
They could just have something the seller checks off that says they will only ship that item DDP.

@flipistics

With Shippo there was access (option) to long form for the customs invoice that included those choices along with a updatable section for notes like VAT paid or special handling. I was using shippo up until the point they changed payment requirements and the eBay label rates were much better than Shippo's. No reason they couldn't have included that form with eBay labels. Guess they figured dummy it down for us or some other silliness. That's how couriers customs forms have been for years. It also included the dispose/return option.

Sample included is UPS. Same form is accessible with CP/Fedex and all the other couriers they are compatible with. (Strangely there is a limit to number of uploads. Document includes DDP etc, RTS and wb #/shipment # ports when label gets created.

https://support.goshippo.com/hc/article_attachments/23752761132827

byto253 · ‎12-30-2025

Heck, eBay is struggling with this as well so we get a lot of goods just excluded from EIS as they err on the side of caution.

byto253 · ‎12-30-2025

Definately more applicable to "wee items", and those are the type of items I am most likely to use and have success with free shipping. And as you noted, where the shipping relative to value is marginal, including free shipping is not to hard as the margin is still very healthy.

I sell a much larger variety of items ranging in size and valule and for most of the items the possible extra views from free shipping does not translate into sales. I have given it a good try, and the experience is getting the base price down is much for effective for getting sales than free shipping for most of my items. e.g. A really nice and desirable vintage Lego Castle set sat for 6 months without moving but when I took out the free shipping and got the basic price point down it went within 2 weeks.

I think there is some human psychology in this. Let's say the set went for about $80 US and shipping was around $17US, can't recall the exact amount but in this ballpark. If the free shipping price is $97 in their head they don't know the actual shipping price and if asked will say something like $95 with shipping, or maybe knock $10 off of it since buyers think shipping is a magical thing sellers conjure up and it must be dirt cheap if offered free. Talking with their Lego buddies, it will sound like they didn't get a super deal. But when someone buys for $79 +$18 in shipping, in their head they got it for $79, and will tell others they got it for $79. Humans have a great capacity to ignore things to feel better.

Where it makes sense I will use free shipping. For me it is is just another arrow in the quiver and does not fit for everything. Each seller has to experiment and see what works for their type of inventory of course.

greenmangoes · ‎01-15-2026

Sales have been virtually nonexistent for me since the the tariffs 😞

You only fail when you don't try!

mrdutch1001 · ‎01-15-2026

I have listed nothing on eBay since November, as I have concentrated all efforts on my other selling site where shipping within Canada only, has worked well...It is quite quiet over there for me right now and that is near normal; although I do usually get some sales throughout January ...but again the loss of those USA customers will be affecting sales on that site as well. I plan to give it a go here again on eBay end of January with one of the categories that is most likely to garner interest, and will see how it goes...