Selling handmade on eBay has been quite the adventure, a steep learning curve that keeps continuing. Let’s be honest, when thinking of beautiful handmade creations/artisan products, eBay is not exactly the first sales platform that comes to mind. So why give it a try?
Why I Chose to Open an eBay Store for My Handmade Products.
If you have read my previous posts, you are aware that I started selling my handmade treasures through a creative hub named “Owl Hour Creative Studio,” which used Shopify as its platform. The general idea was fantastic, but getting traffic there — and turning the rare browser into a buyer — was next to nonexistent. The owner of the creative hub decided to switch platforms and start from scratch on the design. After four months of no online sales and now being placed in limbo, I needed to find a new marketplace option.
With my experience dealing with the “no traffic” dilemma, and having spent way too many hours on marketing instead of creating, I knew I needed a sales platform that already has built-in traffic and offers promotion options.
That left me with only three options: Etsy, Amazon Handmade, or eBay.
No matter which I chose, it would end up costing me fairly high fees.
After doing some research, eBay came out the winner. With 250 free listings and no listing fees, this was one less cost to worry about. Trust me — as you’ll find out soon — fees add up quickly, and I needed to find at least one area where I wasn’t paying through the nose.
Selling Handmade on eBay in the Beginning Is a Serious Uphill Climb!
A platform or e-commerce marketplace can have billions of browsers and potential customers, but that doesn’t mean they’ll discover you — or trust you — when you are brand new.
Starting my brand new eBay store, I had zero sales and zero feedback. That means two things happen simultaneously:
With so many scammers on the internet, consumers are understandably scared to trust a brand-new seller. They won’t even click on your listing, or they expect to pay 99 cents for a product that took hours to create — and that’s not even factoring in material costs. It’s a real catch-22: you need sales and feedback to make sales, and you need sales to get the feedback rating.
Cassini, their AI-powered search program, doesn’t trust a new seller coming in and pretty much throttles your traffic for the first 60 to 90 days. Even when paying for promoted listings, it often places you next to listings that are either priced far lower than yours — resells, pre-owned, mass-produced, or overseas sellers — or right next to sellers with over 1,000 feedback ratings.
New Store — Selling Handmade on eBay: Auctions or Buy It Now with Best Offer?
My first instinct was to do a combination of both. Some listings I set as auctions, while others I listed as Buy It Now with Best Offer. That is what I did for the first 17 days, and I noticed that the Buy It Now options were slowly getting more clicks than the auction listings.
Auctions are great for many product categories, but if you are selling handmade on eBay, you will learn very quickly that staying competitive means setting price points that can actually put you in the negative. Ironically, it also appears that in 2026, consumers have simply lost interest in auctions altogether. If they are ready to buy, they want it right then and there — not after waiting seven days.
On top of that, having to monitor bids, check for watchers, and keep relisting becomes far more time-consuming than it is worth.
By day 17, after relisting several listings again, I made the switch and moved everything over to Buy It Now with Best Offer. A word of warning: do NOT use the auto-relist feature — Cassini will bury your listings under everything else. With Buy It Now, unless I want to revise a listing, I don’t need to touch it for 28 days. That alone was worth the switch.
A Little Common Sense Doesn’t Just Go a Long Way — It Is Required!
If you think I didn’t do my due diligence in research, reviews, and policy reading, you don’t know me. I spent HOURS on it. There are a lot of angry reviews from sellers who had their stores closed, their money frozen, and worse. Which sounds terrifying — until you realize that in about 90% of those cases, the reason was simple: they thought the rules didn’t apply to them, or that they wouldn’t get caught breaking them.
The eBay of 15 years ago is not the eBay of 2026. With AI tools doing a lot of the heavy lifting, rule-breaking gets flagged very quickly. I know it is tempting to try to bolster your sales and feedback ratings, but don’t do it. As an example, I live in the same household as one of my daughters, and she was more than willing to make a few purchases from me to help get things started. The problem? We share the same IP address, which eBay would have flagged as fraudulent activity.
Buying traffic through platforms like Fiverr or other cheap online marketing services won’t help you either — unless you are working with a legitimate advertising agency, which will cost you thousands. The budget options send “pay-to-click” traffic or bots. Cassini registers that as unusual traffic, and you can get into serious trouble. On top of that, a high number of impressions with no resulting sales will lower your conversion score, pushing you even further down in the rankings.
If you do want to promote your store, stick to eBay’s own options. The general promoted listings charge a percentage of the sale only when the item sells. Off-site promotion starts at $5.00 a day and goes up from there.
I currently have a few of my handmade items on the general promoted listings option to help with visibility. One important thing to keep in mind — impressions are what you are paying for, and impressions do not equal sales. Use it carefully.
After 21 Days of Nothing — Finally My First 3 Sales! But Here Is a Bit of Transparency.
It took 21 days before I finally made my first sales — two orders, one for two products and one for a single item. Here is where my transparency comes in: both orders came from people within my circle of friends.
The first was for two sets of beautiful earrings that my friend asked me to list on eBay specifically so she could purchase them.
The second came from reaching out to someone I have known for many years — someone who has always been genuinely supportive of my creativity.
In both cases, these were people already well acquainted with my level of craftsmanship who already owned pieces I had made. The trust was established on both sides before a single transaction took place.
Why does this matter? Because it didn’t break any rules. This was direct marketing to existing supporters — not feedback manipulation. There is a difference, and it is an important one.
The first order resulted in my very first 100% positive feedback rating and a 2-sale milestone. The second order was placed just last night, which means that piece is already on its way to its new owner.
These are the three items I have sold so far!
What I Am Currently Learning and Working On in My Handmade eBay Journey:
With my first 3 sales and my first 100% positive feedback accomplished, it is time to focus on attracting buyers who don’t already know me. I was genuinely fortunate that those two supporters stepped up the way they did — but the truth is that over 90% of friends, family, and coworkers rarely do, even when they mean well.
Which means I need to reach a level of excellence in my titles, descriptions, product photography, pricing, category placement, and both social media and search-based marketing — all working together to attract new customers.
My impression numbers are actually quite good, and my view counts are reasonable for a brand new eBay store. But none of that matters until I see my conversion rate rising. That is the big one. Sales.
Everything I am doing is still in its early stages — think less than one year of actively building visibility, marketing, and reach. As a one-woman operation with no team behind me, that is a significant amount of work.
I am digging heavily into SEO, keywords, and leveling up my presentation. I am also paying close attention to where my time is best spent on marketing — and for me, Facebook is not it.
But I am not just building an eBay store. I am building a brand. One I hope will be recognizable within the next five to seven years. Yes, it really does take that long — and then some.
When I first started adding listings — I currently have 41 active, all handmade, across a wide variety of products — I used to put “unbranded” in the brand field. I stopped doing that. Now every listing reads: ReginaCreates™. This isn’t vanity. It is foresight.
I recently ordered a custom stamp with my logo on it, along with jewelry tags bearing my brand name — because “Made with Love” alone is not enough anymore. I also had new business cards made featuring my banner, the URL to this blog, my eBay store link, both QR codes, and my name as it appears across all my branding: Artisan Regina L.
My current goals are to reach a minimum of 25 orders per month — which is production-achievable — maintain 100% positive feedback, and generate a net profit of at least $800 per month within the next six months.
This post is already getting long, so I am going to stop here and continue in Part 2 in a few days. There is still so much to share.
Before I go…
If you enjoyed this post and my others, please bookmark my blog. If you would like to support a woman-owned handmade business, consider browsing my eBay listings — place an order, get acquainted with my craftsmanship and originality, and become part of my story. I would love nothing more than to have you invested in this journey alongside me.
One more thing — you may notice something special on some of my listings. I am a firm believer in giving back, so select listings include a charity donation of 10–15% of the sale, going to causes I believe in deeply. It will vary by listing, so keep an eye out.
Thank you for your time and your interest.
Artisan Regina L.