Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team - 22.04.26 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible.

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

This week, our eBay Community Team is made up of kat@ebay, dave@ebay and marco@ebay. Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, Fulfilment, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. We understand that certain topics, such as concerns about businesses possibly using private accounts, can be frustrating and important to you. Please refrain from asking the same question repeatedly in our weekly live chats. We assure you that we carefully review all posts in the forum and ensure that your concerns are communicated to the relevant teams for appropriate action.
To maintain a constructive and community environment, posts that repeatedly breach this guideline may be removed. Continued violations could result in further action against your community account. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in helping us keep our community focused and respectful.

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order and will quote the original question in each answer.

Please note that any reply without a question to the community team or discussion replies may be removed from the chat. We want to keep on track to get through as many questions as possible. We welcome all discussion to be moved to the discussion boards.

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat!

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[fribblecollectables]

I was wondering how eBay is enforcing its rules on homemade food sales, because at present the position looks unclear.

Alcohol listings appear to be tightly controlled, with seller eligibility requirements and age-related safeguards.

Yet homemade cakes, meat pies and similar foods often seem to be listed very freely by sellers using private accounts, even though eBay’s own policies say that, before selling food items, the seller must register the business with the UK local authority, and that anyone making items in order to sell them should be registered as an eBay business seller.

Properly registered business sellers are likely selling food within the rules. However, many listings appear to come from private sellers, and it is not at all clear how eBay is verifying that those sellers have met the minimum legal requirements before being allowed to list.

If eBay states that a seller must register with the local authority before selling food, is eBay verifying that before listings go live, or is the rule only acted on after a report is made, or not even then?

The same applies to the practical side of sending food through the post. A shelf-stable cake may be one thing, but a homemade meat pie or other perishable item is quite another. Is eBay checking whether private sellers are meeting the minimum requirements for allergen information, safe packaging, and, where relevant, proper temperature-controlled delivery?

So can eBay explain whether homemade food sellers on private accounts are being proactively checked for compliance with the minimum legal and policy requirements on registration, account status, allergen compliance, packaging and delivery, or whether these listings are effectively allowed until another user happens to report them?

As things stand, it appears that I could buy a cake mix from a shop, bake it at home, and list the result on my private account without any obvious prior check by eBay that the minimum legal requirements have been met.

[kat@ebay]

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@fribblecollectables wrote:

I was wondering how eBay is enforcing its rules on homemade food sales, because at present the position looks unclear.

Alcohol listings appear to be tightly controlled, with seller eligibility requirements and age-related safeguards.

Yet homemade cakes, meat pies and similar foods often seem to be listed very freely by sellers using private accounts, even though eBay’s own policies say that, before selling food items, the seller must register the business with the UK local authority, and that anyone making items in order to sell them should be registered as an eBay business seller.

Properly registered business sellers are likely selling food within the rules. However, many listings appear to come from private sellers, and it is not at all clear how eBay is verifying that those sellers have met the minimum legal requirements before being allowed to list.

If eBay states that a seller must register with the local authority before selling food, is eBay verifying that before listings go live, or is the rule only acted on after a report is made, or not even then?

The same applies to the practical side of sending food through the post. A shelf-stable cake may be one thing, but a homemade meat pie or other perishable item is quite another. Is eBay checking whether private sellers are meeting the minimum requirements for allergen information, safe packaging, and, where relevant, proper temperature-controlled delivery?

So can eBay explain whether homemade food sellers on private accounts are being proactively checked for compliance with the minimum legal and policy requirements on registration, account status, allergen compliance, packaging and delivery, or whether these listings are effectively allowed until another user happens to report them?

As things stand, it appears that I could buy a cake mix from a shop, bake it at home, and list the result on my private account without any obvious prior check by eBay that the minimum legal requirements have been met.

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Hi @fribblecollectables ,

Ebay do require that sellers register their business with the UK local authority before selling food items. In the background there are regular reviews on listings and accounts taking place and this results in various actions being taken such as removing listings,  issuing warnings, restricting activity or account suspension. We understand there will be still be active listings on site as with eBay being such a large platform it can take time to get through flagged listings and reports.

We would advise to continue to report through the correct channels and in the meantime we will share your points raised today for the food policy with the relevant team to have it reviewed for improvements.

Thank you,

Kat