Avoiding eBay fees

Not allowed

• Listing an item and then being paid outside of eBay.

• Listing an item and then offering additional identical items for sale outside of eBay

• Offering related items for sale outside of eBay

• Including contact information within Best Offers, email messages or other communications to an eBay member

Restricted

• You can include links to eBay Stores and listings, as long as they're not URL redirects.

Not allowed

• You can't refer to or promote your personal website (including links to home page web addresses that promote websites outside of eBay), sales outside of eBay, or other businesses.

Allowed

• Charging actual postage and packaging costs

• Including the cost of packaging materials, insurance costs, and delivery

• Including delivery confirmation or similar extra services in the handling cost

Not allowed

• Excessive P&P charges

• Charging more than the maximum P&P costs in categories with postage caps

• Charging a separate fee for insurance

• Charging for business-related fees such as employee wages or mileage

• Including contradictory or confusing shipping terms in your listing

Not allowed

You can't offer or require the buyer to:

• Make an additional purchase

• Purchase additional items or quantities from a listing

• Pay an amount beyond the final price and a reasonable P&P cost

• Sign up for a service with the purchase

• Take any unrelated action (such as pay for a hotel room) as a condition for receiving the item or its benefit (such as free or discounted airfare)

Allowed

• Listings with variations can offer a choice of size, colour, scent, quantity or material as long as the items are otherwise the same.

Restricted

• If all of the items in your listing have the same item condition, you can have variations for minor condition differences such as the same book in Acceptable condition where one has a torn cover and one is an old library copy.

• You can offer parts of a set if all of the individual components are correctly categorised and your title applies to all of the variations.

• You can offer minor variations to customise an item, such as a computer with different memory options.

Not allowed

• Selling different brands or models of an item in a single listing

• Offering a choice between 2 different items, such as a watch or pair of shoes

• Selling items that would have different item conditions, such as a new and a refurbished laptop, in the same listing

Restricted

• Listing contact information (including home page web addresses that promote websites outside of eBay) in the title, subtitle, item location, or images is only allowed when the item for sale is a domain name.

Allowed

• Selling old or collectible catalogues from which you can no longer place an order (such as a Sears catalog from 1931)

Not allowed

• Listing catalogues from which buyers can currently order directly, which could result in sales being completed outside of eBay

Allowed

• Using the reserve price option or setting the starting price at a minimum to avoid selling below a certain price

Not allowed

• Cancelling bids and ending a listing early because the desired sale price hasn't been met

Not allowed

• Listing items, such as homes and vehicles, that belong in a flat fee category outside of the appropriate category

Allowed

• On rare occasions (such as the result of a site outage), we may extend the duration of a listing

Not allowed

• Extension of the listing duration by the seller, either manually or using automated tools, more than 2 hours after submitting the listing

Restricted

• You can offer an optional warranty or service (such as installation) to provide better service for the buyer, as long as it:

  • directly relates to the item and doesn't significantly alter the value

  • isn't an additional item

  • isn't excessive in price

  • doesn't make the listing price artificially low

• Items valued at more than £15 that offer a written warranty or service contract need one of the following in the description:

  • full text of the written warranty

  • a statement explaining how a free copy of the written warranty can be obtained upon request

  • a link that takes members to the warranty details