eBay shook up the aquatics hobby last week when it informed sellers it would no longer allow the sale of tropical fish and certain other animals. On Monday, it reversed course and abandoned the changes to its Live Animals policy.
eBay had informed sellers through a February 19th email that they would have 30 days before they’d be required to comply with the new Live Animals policy. On February 24, it sent sellers in the category another email informing them it was dumping the new policy, and it reverted the policy page to its former state.
Great news for sellers and buyers
Dear Seller,
After listening to the feedback from our community of buyers and sellers, we hear your passion for being able to buy and sell live fish and certain other live animals on eBay. Although we had shared plans to discontinue this category in March 2025, we have decided based on this feedback that we will not be changing our policy and will continue to allow approved live fishes, bait, bees, crickets, and ladybugs when shipped in compliance with shipping carrier requirements or restrictions. For a full list of live animals we allow, you can review our Live Animals Policy on our Help page.
The incident may serve as a wakeup call to sellers to ensure they fully understand and comply with government and shipping-carrier requirements and restrictions – including individual state laws.
It also served as a reminder of how many fish-breeders and other suppliers are dependent on a single marketplace – many sellers debated whether there were viable alternatives to eBay, as we reported on the EcommerceBytes Blog on Sunday. As we had also noted, eBay updated the policy page but did not post news of the policy change on its Seller Announcement Board.
