To promote a safe, fair, and enjoyable trading experience, eBay has established a set of rules and policies for item listings. These restrictions involve how certain items are described, and practices that would provide an unfair advantage or result in a negative buyer experience.
Learning about eBay's listing policies before you list an item will help you to avoid unintentionally breaking rules.
Violations of these policies may result in a range of actions, including:
Limits on account privileges
Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings
Loss of PowerSeller status.
When policy violations occur, eBay sends an email to the seller, as well as bidders, to let them know that a listing has been ended.
In addition to the rules for listings, you should also review the rules for Prohibited and Restricted Items and the Rules about Intellectual Property to check if your type of item is allowed or has additional restrictions that would affect your listing.
The following are the rules for listing with links to the specific policy pages that have examples, any exceptions, and a link that you can use to report a violation of that policy.
Listings must not misrepresent items.
Sellers need to make sure that their listings accurately represent the item being sold. When sellers use unfair methods to divert buyers to their listing, it's called search and browse manipulation.
Except as noted in the specific policy as exceptions, sellers cannot:
List items in inappropriate categories.
Include brand names or other inappropriate keywords in a title or description.
Have misleading titles that do not accurately describe the item for sale.
List items with product details from our catalog, but then describe a different item in the description.
Listings cannot use techniques to avoid or circumvent eBay fees.
Except as noted in the specific policy as exceptions, sellers cannot:
Allow buyers a choice of significantly different items
Offer the opportunity through eBay to purchase the item or other merchandise outside of eBay.
Use their About Me page to promote outside-of-eBay sales or prohibited items.
Listings must promote a fair and level playing field, and provide an enjoyable and safe experience for buyers.
Except as noted in the specific policy as exceptions, sellers cannot:
Solicit buyers to mail cash or use other payment methods not specifically permitted by eBay as accepted payment methods.
Communicate to buyers that they accept, or will not accept, specific forms of PayPal payment.
Use certain types of HTML and JavaScript in item listings, Stores pages, About Me pages, or Want It Now ads.
Create test listings except in the Everything Else > Test Auctions category.
Use profanity in a listing, except as allowed in the Adult Only category and in media titles.
Listings that involve the following situations or types of item, must conform to limitations specified in the policy:
To learn more, you can take the tutorials on Fee Circumvention and Search and Browse Manipulation.
Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
