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I feel your pain on those acceptance scans—it’s incredibly stressful when that initial tracking doesn’t update. We are lucky to have what we consider the world’s best post office here; they scan everything promptly for us if we just leave it on the counter, which usually keeps things moving smoothly.
Even with that, I recently had an item get completely lost deep in the system. My buyer reached out to me first, and since I had an identical replacement in stock, I shipped it out promptly. The buyer was so happy they left great feedback!
I filed the USPS insurance claim online right away, and it was approved in just 2 or 3 days. Now I’m just awaiting the check. It’s a great reminder that even when the system fails, a quick recovery can still result in a win.
@IndySales: The address that eBay gives your buyers depends on your settings. It might be more information than what is on your shipping labels. See my second post for details and details about how to get to the settings including a link you can click to get there.
THE POTENTIAL PRIVACY PROBLEM: the federal INFORM Consumers Act
eBay is required to share the name and full physical address of high-volume sellers—those exceeding $20,000 in annual revenue—directly with buyers. By default, eBay uses your primary registered address for these disclosures, which is the same address they have verified against your banking information for payouts and tax reporting.
If you have not opted out or requested a formal exception, your home residence could be sent to every customer in their order confirmation emails and displayed online in their order details. Because your home address is tied to your payout verification, simply having a separate business shipping address is not enough to protect your privacy.
To see the “worst-case” address that eBay currently has on file to send to buyers, go to ‘Account Settings’, click ‘Personal Information’, and look for the ‘Owner name, address’ details in the ‘Personal Info’ section.
SOLUTION: Double-lock your residential privacy with these two steps.
First, set a separate business address for product returns. Under the law, if you provide a specific physical address for returns, eBay is permitted to display that address instead of your registered home address. You can update this by going to ‘Account Settings’ and selecting ‘Addresses’ to ensure your return address is a business location or PO Box.
Second, you must proactively request a formal exception to hide your residential street address entirely. To do this, login to your eBay account and visit the eBay INFORM Consumers Act resource page and scroll well down the page to find and click the link to ‘request an exception’. By certifying that you operate from a primary residence, you trigger a provision that allows eBay to only disclose your state and country to the buyer, rather than your full street address.
Compliance is an ongoing responsibility. Federal law requires you to electronically re-certify that your information is still accurate at least once every 12 months. eBay will send a notification for this review, and you must respond within 10 days to avoid account holds or suspension of your selling activity.
@ChristineR: Thanks for posting. Some of us are still reading.
Great find on those Costco racks. Professional pickers know that the best deals don’t just land in your lap; you have to put in the time and sort through a lot of junk to find the real winners.
@ChristineR: Your store looks awesome. Thanks for sharing the link. There are no specific improvements to recommend. If you have changes in mind, you can try to schedule time periodically to keep it fresh. Perhaps a quarterly review after that since you have seasonal items.
As to my store: eBay is pushing visitors there so my intent is to make sure they have a better chance to find an item to purchase.
I followed your lead and knocked out some store category updates, switching the whole storefront over to my custom categories. I also took the time to refresh the billboard image, my About me statement, and the marketing banner along with all the category images. I decided to skip the video for now too. So, it is still a work in progress, but the plan is to jump back in and review everything periodically to keep it from getting stale.
Paraphrasing: eBay recommends regularly updating store content for relevance and search visibility, even if the core brand story remains consistent. This includes refreshing branding and descriptive elements such as seasonal store descriptions to reflect current inventory or promotions. Reviewing the About tab and the first 160 characters of the store description periodically ensures the use of current keywords, as this content is indexed by Google. Updating the billboard and logo is also suggested if they no longer align with the brand or current items being sold.
Hey forum! I decided to pause my store with Time Away for the weekend due to the messy weather here in the southeast—I’m worried about getting those Monday scans on time and don’t want to risk my shipping metrics.
I’m making the most of the downtime by creating new custom categories to give my store front a more curated feel. My stats showed 50 visitors on Friday, and I need to take advantage of this traffic and turn those views into sales. It’s definitely time to take things up a notch!
Has anyone else found that better category organization helped boost your sales?
This is near the end of the email message that I received from email from eBay:
“We believe in fairness and accuracy when it comes to feedback, and we understand how important that is to sellers. That’s why we automatically remove certain feedback for you within 72 hours. But we’re here for you—if you ever think something was missed, don’t hesitate to reach out.”
I discovered a new neutral feedback on my profile this morning from a buyer who never contacted me regarding any issues.
The feedback comment read: ‘Arrived early class on time as described’—which doesn’t make much sense.
Good news:
I used the reporting link I shared previously to flag the feedback to eBay, noting that it appeared to be an error and would be confusing to potential customers. eBay removed it within an hour and sent an email confirming that the comment ‘doesn’t follow our feedback policy.’@ChristineR: Thanks for the store info
To check your store traffic, go to ‘My eBay’, find ‘Store’ at the top, and select ‘Traffic’ from the dropdown.
A quick look at my traffic report showed some surprisingly good numbers—about 50+ views per week. It’s a bit of a bummer that the history only goes back 31 days; hopefully, eBay improves that and offers more history soon.
With those numbers in mind, it might be time to put some work into the storefront instead of just doing the bare minimum. Switching from standard eBay categories to custom store categories would make sense too. I wonder how many categories we can use that way?
Does anyone have a link or a name for a fantastic-looking store? Some high-quality examples would be great to review for inspiration.
Following up on my previous post about the link for removing feedback—has anyone here used it successfully yet?
I also found an eBay seller-help link where sellers can specifically ask for the removal of defects. It allows you to submit requests for things like transaction defects and/or late shipments.
Here is the link: https://www.ebay.com/sellerhelp/defect
Should be worth a try if you have any defects.
@ChristineR: I almost forgot how much grief my post office is saving me with their good service. Sorry not all post office locations are this good. We are way past due to drop off some treats or donuts.
It seems that eBay has cycles and we seem to be in a grumpy buyer cycle right now.
One other thing that I do promptly for each order is send a ‘ship notification email’ thru eBay that has the tracking number. My Sixbit software (highly recommended) makes this very easy. This cuts way down the number of buyer inquiries about shipping, etc. Yes, I know eBay sends buyers some emails about this activity too.
@Sharon: As far as the ‘self-service’ scan, I would definitely try that as well. It seems that I heard somewhere that the scan is not as good as an ‘acceptance’ scan and that not all seller platforms consider it to be such. So it depends if eBay likes it or not. In any case, it should help with the grumpy buyers.It’s frustrating when post office issues add stress to running your business. Based on our similar experience, we found a great solution: try dropping your packages off at a different, nearby post office branch.
The post office for our specific zip code had (and still has) this problem, with items not showing scans until the next day, even when the packages are left on the counter area designated for drop-offs.
Beginning durng the pandemic, we started taking all our packages to a different post office location that is still close by for us. We typically ship six days a week and average three or four packages per day.
This much friendlier post office does a remarkable job with prompt scans of packages left on the counter and has friendly clerks who accept and scan items right away when there is no line. You might find a much better experience if you check out some of your other closer post office branches. You can use the official USPS Location Finder to view other branches near you.
I hope there is another branch convenient for you. And even better, you may find some new thrifting locations near it.
Unfortunately, it seems that eBay US will move to the European model for promoted listings after the holidays. This means that if you have a promoted listing, eBay will almost certainly collect promoted listing fees, no matter who buys your item.
“Starting January 13, 2026, for items listed on ebay.com, ebay.ca, and cafr.ebay.ca (and currently for items listed on ebay.co.uk, ebay.de, ebay.com.au, ebay.fr, ebay.it, and ebay.es): eBay will report an Attributed sale from a general campaign when a buyer purchases the same item that was featured in the ad that was clicked on by any buyer in the most recent 30 days.
“The ad fee is charged when a buyer purchases the promoted item from a general ad that any buyer clicked on in the most recent 30 days. The item must be promoted at the time of click and the time of sale. The ad fee is based on the ad rate in effect at the time of the sale.”
Read the stealth announcement.
Since Jan 1, 2025, I sold a half-dozen baseball caps offered since early 2020 and 2019. Seems that all were for sale over 5 years. The hats have been canceled and relisted/sell similar numerous times with prices changes.
Vintage Tin Can Navy Patch Baseball Ball Adjustable Snapback Cap Hat Navy Blue,
Prestonwood Country Club Titleist 2015 Fall Gray Golf cap Baseball hat Polyester,
Roma Italia Rome Italy Souvenir Baseball Hat Cap Red Adjustable Embroidered,
Pitt University of Pittsburg Adjustable Embroidered Baseball Cap Cotton hat Tan,
Distressed Denver Broncos NFL Adjustable Baseball Dad Cap Hat Khaki Beige Cotton,
and one other.Most hats sold for $23 plus shipping. One was $15 plus shipping.
@mycottage: My eBay store focuses on used computer parts, with most items just a few years old and about 10% or so considered vintage—over 20 years old. There are nearly 900 active listings. The large majority of my listings are fixed price without best offer, etc., and no auctions. I end and relist approximately 90% of the inventory every 30 days – typically with no changes made. SixBit software helps me with this.
I promote very few listings: only 8 listings, that are Good-til-Canceled and are my loss-leaders and/or feedback builders.
There is not really any chance of an item having gone viral. I don’t use any social media. The eBay report shows increased impressions across most of my items. Further examination is underway to see what triggered this.
