Retail Standards
Offer a great delivery experience and boost your business.
What are Retail Standards?
Retail Standards are a set of guidelines key to selling successfully on eBay. They help you provide a great delivery experience for your buyers throughout the entire customer journey.
Based on what buyers expect when they shop online as well as wider industry practices, Retail Standards can help to enhance the competitiveness of your listings and elevate your business performance.
Our Retail Standards and why they're important
Free delivery
Free delivery can make your items more appealing to buyers. Already, buyers get free delivery on the vast majority of items sold on eBay,* so it’s essential for growing your business. Free delivery will also help you qualify for eBay Premium Service, which boosts your listings’ visibility and offers a 10% discount on final value fees. Learn more
Fast delivery
Fast delivery is one of the first things buyers look for in your listings. Customers love fast delivery and long lead times can often result in abandoned baskets. Offering 1-3 day delivery can see your sales increase by as much as 7%.** Also, fast delivery could help you qualify for the ‘Free in 1-3 day’ badge, making your listings and delivery times more visible to buyers. Learn more
Tracked delivery
By offering a tracked delivery service, you provide buyers with more confidence that their item will reach them and a better overall buying experience. Also, sellers see a 50% decrease in buyer complaints and queries when using tracked delivery.** When you purchase labels using eBay Delivery, tracking is uploaded automatically in My eBay and Seller Hub for both you and the buyer. Learn more
Click & Collect
By offering Click & Collect you can make your listings more attractive by giving buyers the freedom to collect their items from over 3500 collection points across the UK. Learn more
Returns in 30+ days
Returns are an important consideration for buyers. By adjusting your return policies to a 30-day or 60-day duration, you’ll enable your buyers to make more confident purchase decisions while you benefit from more seller protection. Learn more
Offering delivery within 3 days can result in your sales increasing by as much as
7%**
Things to note
Buyer engagement increases after 2pm on eBay. Extend your same day cut off-time to reach more buyers.
We actively monitor and manage any external circumstances, so sellers don’t have to worry about it.
Listing the delivery services that you do, and doing what you list builds buyer trust.
Make sure to
- Set an accurate dispatch time that you can consistently meet.
- List with the carrier service you’re using where possible.
- Ensure your working days are correctly set. We only use the working days you have selected when calculating buyer-facing estimated delivery days.
- Use the ‘Time Away’ setting to take a break from your eBay business should you need to.
* eBay internal data 2023, sold item free shipping share.
**eBay internal data based on a test run between 21/3/23 and 11/4/23, derived from a sample covering more than 70% of bought items on eBay UK. Results may not necessarily be representative of all sellers.
***eBay internal data from 2023, percentage decrease between INR rate for tracked transactions compared to untracked transactions.