eBay Delays Fee Change for Multi-Category Listings

eBay now wants to discourage sellers from listing a single item in multiple categories, and in February, the company announced a fee change as part of that effort. Under the “Inventory Optimization” section of the Spring Seller Update, eBay advised sellers to list items in one “best fit” category.

Currently Final Value Fees are based on the primary listing category. As of May, eBay was going to change that policy to the following:

Listing in two categories
We encourage you to list your items in one “best fit” category rather than multiple categories to ensure that the most accurate and helpful search results are returned in buyers’ searches on eBay. Starting May 1, 2018, when you list an item in two or more categories and there is a difference in final value fees between the categories, the highest final value fee will apply when your item sells.

This week, eBay announced it would delay the fee change by two months until July.

Announcement follows:

We announced in the Spring Seller Update that beginning this May, when sellers list an item in two or more categories and there is a difference in final value fees between the categories, the highest final value fee would apply when the item sells.

We are now announcing that this change will go into effect July 1.

We want sellers to be as prepared as possible, so coming mid-June, we will release a new feature which allows them to easily adjust categories for existing listings.

Sellers should wait until this feature is released before removing categories from listings. We will notify sellers when it is available.

SOURCE: eBay Announcement (April 17)

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.