eBay Seller Pain Points in 2025 and the Smarter Tools to Beat Them

If you sell on eBay, you already know the truth: great tools help, but real growth comes from consistent, disciplined workflows. We have been selling on eBay for over 20 years and have managed hundreds of seller accounts in the last decade. This year, we spent three intense days at eBay Open 2025 in Las Vegas, speaking with sellers from every category and volume tier. Our team at MyListerHub sponsored the event, streamed much of it live on our YouTube channel, and interviewed close to 1,000 attendees on the expo floor. We met side hustlers listing from their phones, multi-account power sellers with millions of live SKUs, and category specialists who obsess over fitment tables, stone grades, or release numbers.

Between the sessions and the hallway conversations, a pattern emerged. eBay announced welcome updates, but many day-to-day pain points sellers live with were only partially addressed. Below, I will quickly recap the biggest eBay Open announcements, map them to the real challenges sellers told us about, and show where MyListerHub fills the gaps with practical, seller-tested workflows.

Quick recap: what eBay announced at Open 2025

Here are the main updates eBay rolled out during Open 2025:

• AI assistant for answering buyer messages and negotiating offers inside Messages
• New “Your Cost” field in the listing flow to track profitability
• Inventory Mapping API for bulk AI-generated titles, specifics, and descriptions
• Stronger seller protections for late “Item Not Received” claims and automatic positive feedback
• Expanded AI listing tools, including bulk photo-to-draft and background enhancement
• Continued push for eBay Live selling, though access is still limited

Want the full details? Check out our deep-dive here:
eBay Open 2025 Recap: What Happened, What’s New, and How MyListerHub Powers Ahead
 

Reality check: What those updates do fix, what they still do not, and where MyListerHub comes in…
 

From our floor interviews, here are the top 10 pain points sellers identified in 2025, along with how the eBay Open announcements align with them.

1. Low or inconsistent sales and weak visibility

You create new listings with high-quality photos, keyword-rich titles, and competitive prices, and those items sell. But on the other side of your store sit hundreds, maybe thousands of stale listings, untouched and invisible. As long as you keep creating new listings, sales trickle in. The moment you stop, sales dry up.

eBay didn’t address this problem at all. And to be fair, it’s not “eBay’s problem”, it’s a funnel problem. Stale listings are what slowly starve sellers. Some try ending and relisting, others revise titles and photos, and many simply give up after months of guessing.

MyListerHub platform identifies stale listings, then applies smart rules to end-and-relist them with fresh IDs and slightly updated prices. This injects new velocity into old inventory every day, keeping your store alive in search results. For listings that don’t need a reset but just a refresh, MyListerHub lets you bulk-optimize item specifics and even enhance them with AI in seconds.

2. Time-consuming to create new listings

Listing from scratch takes time; taking photos, writing descriptions, researching prices, filling in item specifics, and selecting categories. Many sellers told us they spend more time creating listings than sourcing or shipping.

At OPEN25, CEO Jamie Iannone introduced eBay’s AI image-to-listing tool, noting that over 10 million sellers have already used it to create more than 200 million listings. While impressive, sellers we spoke with say they prefer using ChatGPT or other AI tools because they produce more accurate titles and descriptions. The problem? They still have to copy-paste results into eBay, research pricing separately, and manually choose categories.

During the convention, we launched Cavio AI, a tool that takes the process further. You can upload photos in bulk from your phone, desktop, or cloud drive, group them into listings, and generate everything at once. It not only creates listings from images but also optimizes existing ones, drawing on your inventory history to produce more accurate results. No copy-pasting, no wasted clicks.

3. Bulk upload is just too difficult

For sellers working with spreadsheets, manually reformatting to match eBay’s templates is painful. Hours disappear into Excel formulas and column matching, when you’d rather be sourcing new products, talking with customers, or waking up to fresh sales.

Nostalgia for Turbo Lister still runs deep, and while it isn’t coming back, eBay’s new Inventory Mapping API offers some relief. But it’s aimed squarely at high-volume sellers and developers with catalogs full of clean identifiers. For everyone else, it’s still clunky.

Our intelligent mapping system lets you upload any spreadsheet, no matter how messy, and map fields once. After that, imports are seamless. It eliminates repetitive remapping, saves hours, and reduces costly data entry errors. Sellers finally get the bulk speed they need without fighting Excel.

4. Errors, duplicates, and missing details in listings

Sellers lose buyers over simple mistakes, missing item specifics, duplicate listings, or mismatched categories. Fixing these errors one by one is slow and painful, especially if eBay suddenly makes a field mandatory, removes a category, or changes the value of an item's specifics.

eBay continues to push AI-assisted listing tools and bulk edit options, but they don’t fully prevent duplicates across multiple accounts or keep sellers compliant when new item specifics roll out. Many sellers still find themselves chasing error flags.

MyListerHub automatically detects duplicate listings across multiple stores, flags errors, and gives you bulk-edit tools to fix specifics, categories, or titles at scale. You can even add custom attributes for better SEO, ensuring your listings not only comply but also stand out.

5. Relisting old/stale inventory

Good ’Til Cancelled feels safe, but listings that sit untouched for months fade out of search. Some sellers keep listings live for sentimental reasons, even though they haven’t had a view, offer, or sale in six months. Multi-quantity items can benefit from longer runs, but single items quickly go stale.

eBay didn’t deliver a direct stale-listing solution. Sellers are still left to guess whether to “Revise” or “Sell Similar.”

MyListerHub’s automated stale-listing refresh ends and relists items with a fresh ID and slight price adjustment. You can schedule waves of relists so your catalog never looks abandoned. For aged listings that just need a tune-up, bulk AI optimization updates titles, and item specifics in seconds.

6. Pricing research and repricing

Prices on eBay move fast. Sellers either burn hours checking comps or undercut competitors by pennies, sparking a race to the bottom. Both waste time and profits.

eBay hinted at more AI-driven pricing insights in the future, but didn’t release a full repricing solution in 2025.

Our Dynamic Pricing rules adjust automatically every cycle you define. Randomized tweaks prevent predictable patterns and let you test buyer willingness without gutting margins. Instead of chasing competitors, your prices stay competitive, consistent, and profitable.

7. Managing offers

Offers bring buyers closer to checkout, but reviewing and responding manually drains time. Some sellers, tired of endless lowball offers, even disable Best Offer entirely, which means they also miss out on serious buyers willing to pay close to asking price. Ignoring offers costs time and sales.

eBay introduced Offers inside Messages, making it easier to negotiate within conversations, plus AI suggestions for replies. This improves convenience but still requires seller input and action.

MyListerHub automates the offer process. You can set thresholds for auto-accepts, counters, and rejects, while escalation rules manage timing. On top of that, our system automatically sends a polite message to lowball buyers, opening a dialogue. This method has proven to convert cold leads into paying customers, keeping Best Offer active without overwhelming sellers.

8. Content consistency (templates, specifics, categories)

Maintaining consistent branding and descriptions across thousands of listings is a constant battle. Many sellers are stuck with old HTML templates because updating them feels like a massive, risky project. At the same time, missing or outdated item specifics and categories directly hurt visibility in search.

eBay rolled out AI-generated descriptions to help with SEO, but left HTML templates untouched. Sellers still need to manage their branding, design, and formatting on their own. 

MyListerHub gives you professional HTML templates and bulk-editing tools to modernize your entire catalog without starting over. You can refresh item specifics in bulk, apply category-level presets, and add custom attributes for SEO. This lets you keep your branding consistent while staying compliant with eBay’s ever-changing requirements.

9. Car Parts Fitment Management

Auto-parts sellers live and die by fitment accuracy. Missing a trim detail, or copying incomplete interchange data can trigger costly returns. Not to mention the nightmare of manually updating thousands of listings every model year or correcting mistakes repeatedly.

eBay Motors continues improving catalog data and fitment tools, but coverage remains patchy. Many sellers still spend hours manually updating listings when new model years launch and correcting mistakes.

MyListerHub is currently testing its own fitment management solution. It will allow sellers to bulk update interchange data, add new years across large catalogs, and maintain a central fitment table for all SKUs. Updates can be applied in bulk, reducing fitment-related returns and preventing oversights. Our system will also automatically message every buyer of a car part, confirming the year, make, and model that item fits. This extra step reduces returns and open cases. The solution will be fully compliant for all car-part industries, including new parts, salvage, and aftermarket, and we’re planning to launch it at the upcoming AAPEX show in Las Vegas this November. Stay tuned.

10. Accounting and profit tracking

eBay statements and PayPal downloads show sales but don’t reflect fees, shipping, or cost of goods. Without real-time visibility, it’s easy to think you’re profitable when you’re actually losing money. Sellers also need clear receipts for bookkeeping and tax filings.

In 2025, eBay introduced the “Your Cost” field, allowing sellers to enter their cost of goods sold (COGS). While useful, many sellers we spoke with are worried eBay could share their item costs and profit margins with the government, adding another layer of anxiety.

MyListerHub takes cost and profit tracking further and keeps it private. You can log costs, track true profit and loss in real time, and generate branded receipts for customers. Unlike eBay, your cost data stays secure and confidential. With MyListerHub, sellers get the financial visibility they need without risking exposure.

What we saw and did at Open 2025

We were proud to sponsor eBay Open 2025 in Las Vegas and streamed much of the event live on YouTube and Facebook. Throughout the three days, we engaged in discussions with nearly a thousand sellers, interviewed eBay’s very first employee, and shared his story with the community.

On the fun side, we ran a raffle with two winners ($1,000 cash and a new iPad), handed out look-alike casino chips with QR codes for entry, and even got an autograph from Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys. The eBay AI team also tried to list our iconic white blazer jacket with the MyListerHub and eBay logos using their new AI tools, which sparked some lively conversations about how far automation has come.

We also demonstrated live, in front of hundreds of sellers, how MyListerHub can refresh thousands of stale listings in under 60 seconds, a demo that stopped people in their tracks because it showed just how much time can be saved with the right system.

Of course, we announced our own Cavio AI, and yes, like everyone else, we made sure to walk through the famous clapping tunnel.

One thing is clear: the biggest challenges aren’t unsolvable, they’re just waiting for the right systems. From stale listings to fitment headaches to profit tracking, sellers who automate and stay proactive win more visibility, protect their margins, and free up time to grow. You don’t have to keep guessing, grinding, or settling for slow sales.

Ready to see how MyListerHub works?
Book a 1-on-1 demo with one of our eBay experts Today!