eBay UK abolishes seller's fee for fashion to boost resale market

eBay UK has announced it has abolished seller's fees for fashion items in a bid to boost the resale market as it estimates there is £16.3 billion worth of unworn items in UK wardrobes.

The abolition of the seller's fee, which comes into effect today and is also applied to all fashion items already listed, is just one of the ways the global resale platform is aiming to encourage circular fashion consumption. New features such as AI-powered listings and "eBay Live" are also to be introduced.

A survey for the online marketplace, carried out during March, found that 70% of Britons wear half or less than half of their wardrobe on a day-to-day basis, while 92% of consumers have more than one item of clothing they have not worn in the last 12 months. However just 25% sell their unwanted clothes, with the average consumer holding on to more than £400 worth of clothing that they do not wear, the poll suggests.

The new AI search feature suggests “attention-grabbing” item descriptions, cutting down the time it takes to list an item. Meanwhile, eBay Live, an interactive livestream shopping experience, will be piloted in the UK with select sellers in the coming weeks.

The feature allows users to attend live auctions, shop for exclusive deals and buy in real time. It has been successful in the US since launching in 2022. eBay said encouraging more people to buy and sell pre-owned clothing was essential for creating a circular economy for fashion.

It claims that it saved more than 1,600,000 kg of waste going to landfill through sales of second-hand clothing last year.

Kirsty Keoghan, general manager of global fashion for eBay, said: “Free fashion selling has come at the right time for a nation sitting on billions of pounds worth of unwanted clothes.

“We know selling clothes can sometimes feel like a chore, so free selling and new updates like new AI-powered listings will help more of us to sell clothes easily, putting more cash in pockets.

“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.”

eBay UK has been at the forefront of pushing circular fashion practice, in particular to Gen Z consumers. It is a sponsor of ITV series Love Island and Love Island All Stars (main image), for which it dresses all the competitors in pre-owned fashion sourced on its platform. eBay also collaborates with the British Fashion Council on the Circular Fashion Innovators Fund, offering £15,000 to a selection of small businesses in the sector and a further £10,000 to the overall winner.

Its decision to abolish the seller's fee follows the news that pre-owned fashion platform Depop is to do the same. Depop revealed last month that it was dropping its 10% seller's fee and plans to introduce a small marketplace fee for UK buyers from 15 April.