Is eBay set up to favour the buyers? Can small sellers survive? | Seller Central

speedyshipzales · 2026-03-31T17:58:01.330000Z

Hi all, I am fairly new to selling on eBay, only started in November last year. I had some issues with buyers claiming their new item wasn't received. After a few Google searches, I feel like it's really unsafe to sell on eBay but please correct me if I am wrong. 1. I sell items as cheap as £1 but if I don't pay for tracked postage it is very unlikely I will win any cases vs a buyer. But paying for tracked postage, basically means I am paying the buyer to take my item 2. It is extremely hard/unlikely to get any money from Royal Mail for lost untracked letters, despite RM advertising untracked letters legible for compensation up to £20 (standard 2nd class letter & also standard international). I have been waiting weeks for this on a couple of refunds I have already made to buyers and I am losing hope 3. If a seller doesn't refund a buyer within the time window started as soon as they raise an issue with item not received, and eBay has to intervene, this will have a negative effect on the seller's rating and their items might not show as often on people's search results. I feel like I need to refund the buyer ASAP no matter what. There's probably no point to get eBay involved anyway? 4. Even if I were to pay for tracked postage on all my sells, if a buyer claims the package was damaged in transit and/or no items were found inside, the seller still needs to refund the buyer. It is then the seller's responsibility to ask Royal Mail for a refund 5. There is no safe way for a seller to refuse selling an item to any given buyer. I.e. if I see a buyer with a new eBay account (say only 1 or 2 reviews against their profile), I am not supposed to refuse selling to them as this will lower my seller's rating. I cannot pick and choose who I feel comfortable selling my items to As a result, I feel very uneasy selling on eBay now. I have stopped listing items above £20 as I might just lose that money if it goes to a dishonest buyer. There's very little to no seller protection, but a very robust buyer protection on eBay. Am I wrong, am I missing something? More than anything, I am just looking for peace of mind and reasons to make me believe eBay is a safe enough place to sell my stuff. Thank you all in advance for your input.

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Is eBay set up to favour the buyers? Can small sellers survive? | Seller Central | eBay UK