Every business must expand and scale, but new businesses need to do so gradually. eBay is no exception, thus new sellers must cautiously work their way above the selling limit as they progress.

Basically, eBay selling limits are made to make sure you can manage the growth of your business while still providing the highest level of customer service. eBay will increase your selling limitations as you become more confident in meeting buyers’ expectations.

On eBay, there are specific selling restrictions that apply to all new sellers and outline the maximum number of items they are permitted to sell each month. So, sellers must sell the products in a number that stays within eBay’s limitations. However, there is a way that will increase eBay’s selling limits.

In this article we will work through the following details:

Why eBay puts limits on selling
Where to check your selling limit
How does this limit calculate
How can you increase your limit
Some important tips
Category Limit

Why there is a limit on your selling?

To increase the selling limit on eBay, you first need to know why eBay puts a selling limit. There must be a reason to have the limit. This limit actually helpful for you and eBay buyers as well to maintain your business in a manageable way and to ensure you can give your buyers great service.

eBay doesn’t want any new sellers to come and start selling lots of different items to saturate the market without selling products. And most cases, these types of new sellers failed to gain customers’ expectations.

Also, a new seller can create an account and after selling an expensive item they may quit eBay without delivering the product to the customer. So eBay protects their buyer from these types of new sellers.

On the other hand, eBay also protects new sellers from scammers by restricting a seller to sell expensive items.

Having a limit on sales for new sellers, eBay wants to keep the marketplace trusted. So that you can trust eBay as a safe marketplace.

Where to check your limit?

To check your eBay selling limit,

Go to My eBay Selling Overview. And then scroll down and find the Monthly selling limits.

Or,

From the Overview tab, scroll down and find the Monthly limits section.

If you don’t find this option then you need to customize the interface and make sure to check the Monthly Limit option.

How does eBay Selling Limit calculate?

For every seller, in the beginning, your store will be limited to 10 items that are valued at no more than 500$ or it can be changed by the time you are reading the article. For UK sellers, the initial limit is 5-10 listings and £300 to £500. You can list 10 items only throughout the first month. Whether you choose to list one product with a quantity of 10 units, 10 different products each with only 1 unit, or 1 item with 10 variations and each variation with 1 unit. In every case, the limit is 10.

On the other hand, if you list just 1 item that is worth $500, your eBay store limit will be reached as well and you won’t be able to list more items, even though you listed just one.

Furthermore, if you listed 10 items valued at $500 and 1 of them was sold worth $50, your monthly limits will reduce from 10 to 9, and your value from $500 to $450.

That means, including the total sold and unsold quantity, the limit is 10 units and $500 for a month. So, your total number of active listings and the number of listings that you sold already count toward your monthly limit.

And you have limitations from both the quantity of 10 units and the worth of $500 which reaches first.

eBay will review your account at the beginning of every month and adjust the limits automatically based on your sales volume and the feedback you’ve received from buyers.

By the end of the month, all the active listings you have will be taken into account in the selling limit for the next month.

Please Note: Good Til Canceled listings count toward your selling limits; these won’t renew automatically if you’ve reached the maximum amount you can list.

If you have reached your selling limit per calendar month, you will not be able to create additional listings, raise prices, or add items to your listing till one of the active listings ends, or till the first day of the next calendar month.

If you still want to create a new listing on eBay, then please end some dry listings which are not selling anymore, or reduce the quantity of any existing listing to make extra space for new listings. Let me give you an example.

Suppose, you have a 10000 quantity limit and you have already used all of them. Now, let’s say you have a listing that has 100 quantities and you can update the quantity of that particular item with 10. For now, this way you will get space for an extra 90 quantities.

This technique can be applied automatically for entire eBay listings from inventory management software easily by limiting the maximum available quantity at a time from the software.

And one of the best inventory management software is Linnworks. Please check the following article and video if you want to know more about how to limit your eBay selling quantity with Linnworks.

Blogpost: Details on Max Listed, End When, Stock Percentage in Linnworks

YouTube: Linnnworks Inventory Management

How can you increase your limit?

There are a few ways to increase selling limits:

Automatic Process:

eBay will increase the selling limit automatically based on the account performance by sending an email.

Request for Limit Increase:

If the automatic process does not work then you need to request eBay to increase your limit if you’ve reached your monthly selling limit.

eBay will send you a message to let you know when you get close to your monthly limit. You can request a limit increase directly from within that message.

Please remember: You can request for limit increase only once a month.

To request a limit increase:

In my eBay,

Go to My eBay Selling Overview.
Scroll down and find the Monthly selling limits.
Click the link Request an allowance increase

In Seller Hub:

Go to the Overview tab.
Scroll down and find the Monthly limits.
Click on the link Request to list more

eBay Chat:
You can contact eBay from the live chat option. To do this:

Click on Help & contact
Select Contact
Select the option Account
Select Seller Level and Performance Standards

Then start chatting with an eBay agent and explain to them the details that why you need to increase your selling limit. They might ask you about your goal, how much quantity you planned to list, and other information.

Phone Call:

On top of all, you can directly request eBay to call you and then talk with an eBay agent directly, explaining to them your business model, business plan, and why you need to increase the selling limit.

If your explanation can make them convinced then they will increase your selling limit. And this is the most efficient way to increase the selling limit. Because with a phone call you can easily make them convinced about your selling plan rather than the messaging.

Important Tips to Increase Limits:

There are a few things to know before requesting a higher selling limit

Please do contact eBay at the end of the month because eBay generally reviews your selling limit at the beginning of the month.

So if you contact eBay then they will find that you have sold so many items throughout the month which may help to increase your limit faster.

To increase your limit, at first make sure you sold a good number of items and complete the delivery in time without any defects to earn customers satisfaction.

Do not have any open cases, do not have open returns or replacements, do not have any open cancellations while requesting to increase selling limits. Otherwise, the eBay representative maybe not respond to your request properly and will tell you to request again next month as this is not the right time for you to increase your selling limit. And they will not even let you know the exact reason, but now you know what are the reasons behind it.

eBay will basically review your selling performance and sales metrics. If the selling performance is strong then you can easily able to have your limits increased. Overall selling performance, seller level standard, orders, shipment, policy violations, how you are managing your buyers everything is important.

One of the most important things is the sales rate. Sales rate means, the total number of sold items out of the total active listings you have since the last selling limit increment.

eBay suggests having a sale rate between 50-70%. That means if you have 100 active listings, make sure you have at least sold 50 items since your last increment. No worries if you can not calculate the sale rates. You can ask eBay by live chatting, they have the tool to determine sales rate.

You can end all the listings that are not selling anymore or at least for a long period. This way the ratio of good-selling items to bad-selling items will be increased. It will really help you to increase the limit. So make sure to end some bad-performing listings before requesting selling limits.

Make sure almost every item is in stock. If you have a significantly big number of out-of-stock items, eBay may not consider your account to increase selling limits. So, check your variation listings and try to have stock for as many variations.

To increase your selling limit, your seller level has to be in a good position. You should be top-rated or at least Above the Standard level at least. You can not request more limits if you are Below the Standard level. If your seller level falls are in Below Standard, then your selling limit will be decreased as well. Also, you can not even request more limits if you are Below the Standard level.

Category limits

If you’re new to selling in a particular category, eBay might limit how much you can sell. This helps you manage your inventory more efficiently and allows you time to understand any rules that may apply in that category.

When you’re comfortable fulfilling your orders, have a good track record with customers, and with following eBay policies, most specific category limits will automatically be removed.

But please remember, don’t list items in the wrong category if you’ve reached your monthly selling limit for a certain category. It violates eBay’s Search manipulation policy.

The key difference between category limit and selling limit is- The selling limit is an account-based limit that refers to the total number or value of items listed and sold per month. Whereas category limits refer to the number of listed and sold items in certain categories

If you fall under any category limit, please make sure:

Your account is at least 90 days old
You have sold some items successfully under that category by maintaining the eBay policy
You have sold in this category for over a year
And make sure to earn a high seller reputation, deliver outstanding customer service, meet buyers’ expectations and follow eBay Selling Rules and Policy.

Then category limits will be automatically get removed.

To conclude,

To get a higher selling limit on eBay, you basically need to have overall good performance for sales and your eBay account. We hope that you get an overall idea about eBay’s selling limits and category limits. Also, knowing about how you can increase the selling limits.

If you have more questions, you can leave a comment. Our eBay specialists are always there for you to answer your questions. Also, you can reach out to us by the following email address info@ecomclips.com

If you want to learn more about eBay please check our other eBay blog post. Also, you can check our YouTube videos related to eBay:

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