Ebay scraps seller fees for clothing in the UK

Resale marketplace Ebay has announced that it is scrapping fees for individual sellers of pre-owned clothing in a bid to encourage more circular shopping across the UK.

The feature, which excludes the sale of sneakers, watches, handbags and jewellery, will be applied to all clothing items currently listed, including ones available prior to the news.

It follows a similar move by resale rival Depop, which earlier in the year also revealed it would be removing selling fees for the UK market, instead applying a “small” marketplace fee for buyers in the region.

For Ebay, however, the abolishment of the seller fee is just one of the new additions to the platform.

Next to the introduction of a new AI-generated item description feature to cut down listing time and more personalised feeds and searches for shoppers, the platform further announced the launch of Ebay Live.

The interactive livestream shopping experience will be piloted in the UK through select sellers, and will allow shoppers to attend live auctions of certain goods and buy in real time.

It follows what the company reported was a “successful” initial launch in the US, where Ebay Live had debuted in 2022.

In a release, Kirsty Keoghan, general manager of global fashion, said that the new features hope to help shoppers sell clothes more quickly.

Keoghan added: “By encouraging more people to buy and sell pre-loved clothing, we’ll keep more clothes out of landfill as we collectively enable a circular economy for fashion.”