eBay INFORM Act: How To Apply For Address Exception For Home Business

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


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UPDATE 6-8-2023

Some sellers are reporting after going through the exception process and confirming only state and country will be shown, their account reverted back to showing the full address.

If you've already completed this process, it's recommended to double check your "address shared with buyers after purchase" at https://accountsettings.ebay.com/profile


If you're an eBay seller with a home-based business, here's what you need to know about exemptions to upcoming INFORM Act business detail requirements.

The INFORM Act was passed as part of the 2023 Omnibus bill and requires online marketplaces to verify seller identity and contact information and, in some cases, provide that contact information to buyers in an effort to clamp down on internet fraud and protect consumers.

This requirements apply to "high volume sellers" and are set to take effect June 27, 2023.

What Ecommerce Sellers Need To Know About INFORM Consumers Act
The INFORM Consumers act requires marketplaces to verify & in some cases disclose seller info - here’s what you need to know!

There are important exceptions to help protect the privacy of sellers whose businesses are based out of their homes and eBay has finally enabled the process for qualifying sellers to take advantage of those exceptions.

The INFORM Consumers Act | Seller Center
The INFORM Consumers Act requires online marketplaces like eBay to collect, verify, and disclose certain information about high-volume sellers to their buyers.

Here’s what you need to know:
The INFORM Consumers Act aims to create a safe and transparent online buying process and requires marketplaces like eBay to collect, verify, and disclose certain high-volume seller information.

A high-volume seller is someone who has sold 200 or more new items totaling more than $5,000 in a 12-consecutive-month period over the last 24 months on our US site.

If you meet that criteria, we’ll need to collect and verify some identification and contact information.

High-volume sellers will need to keep their information up to date and we’ll ask you to review it annually.

If you reach an annual total revenue of $20,000, we’re required to include your name (or company name) and full physical address in purchase confirmation emails and order details.

There are some exceptions that allow us to share a partial address with buyers. The exceptions to sharing your full physical address for the INFORM Consumers Act are:

  • If your address is your residential address, only your state and country will be shown.
  • If you use a different address for product returns, then that return address will be displayed.

Here's how the exception process works:

First, you'll need to click the "request an exception" link on eBay's INFORM Act information page and log in.

The first page will display you current full business address that is attached to your eBay account.

Click "request an exception" (you may be asked to log in again).

The second page requires you to select the reason you are requesting an exception.

If your address is a residential address, eBay will only share your state and country with buyers.

If you select the option that you use a different address for product returns, eBay will share the return address with buyers.

It's not entirely clear which address they will use if you have multiple returns addresses listed in your account, but presumably it would pick the default return address.

Once you click "confirm", you'll see a confirmation page that shows how the address will display to buyers.

The INFORM Act also requires marketplaces to annually certify high volume seller details and update them if they have change, but hopefully after this first year for most sellers that will be a simply box checking exercise and not require a full verification process or submitting ID documents every year.

Etsy is also warning sellers to be prepared for requests to verify business information required to comply with INFORM and other worldwide regulations.

Etsy Prepares For Upcoming INFORM Act Requirements
Etsy tells sellers to prepare for business information requests ahead of impending INFORM Act start date.

And the compliance process has not gone smoothly for Amazon with glitches in the verification process and warnings about account deactivation that sent sellers into a panic.

Amazon INFORM Act Glitch Causes Account Deactivation Panic
Amazon sellers panic as INFORM Act verification goes awry, putting accounts at risk for deactivation.

Let us know in the comments below if you have problems with marketplace verification procedures or concerns about how the INFORM Act will impact your online business!

eBaySeller UpdatesLegal

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Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.

3 comments
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marla chandlerbarton
I applied for an exception because of my address being residential and was accepted. So, yes, in a sale it will say my full name and the State I live & the country. This is to reduce scammers from selling on eBay, but there are ways around it if the scammer is really savvy. I am okay with it at this point.
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lessthanthreerecords
I just signed up for the exemption as a seller using a residential address. It looks like the request was accepted, however, when I selected the residential option (as you picture here), it said only my state and country would be listed. However, once I submitted the request, it showed my state, country, AND name (full personal name, not eBay user name). This is a bit of a concern because some of the businesses I source inventory from do not approve of reselling. Legally, the reselling is protected under the first sale doctrine, but some of these businesses will cancel orders from known resellers. From the sounds of it, it seems like only buyers will get that information, not merely people who click on the active listing and view it. That's definitely a plus, but does that mean someone that fully completes a transaction (meaning the payment too), or just makes a "commitment" to purchase? I would be concerned that some of these businesses may make multiple accounts to make phantom "purchases" to get the names of resellers. Definitely an invasion of privacy in my opinion. Marketplaces already have sellers' details. If a buyer has a legitimate problem, there is a process to get a replacement, refund, etc. If something sold is illegal, it would simply need to be reported to the proper authorities and they could get a court order for the seller's information to be released to them. No need to give private information to anyone and everyone who clicks a button.
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Liz Morton
Unfortunately the law does require the seller name or business name to be provided and there isn't an exemption for that, so eBay and other marketplaces have to comply.

But the law also gives marketplaces the option to either display the required info publicly on the listing or in order confirmation messages and the consumer’s account transaction history.

Every marketplace I've looked into, including eBay, is opting for the order confirmation option.

To your point about completing payment, I would assume it's going to be when they make the commitment to purchase, as eBay will send a confirmation/show it in the buyer's account with a reminder to pay at that point.

If you are really concerned about that, you could do BIN with immediate payment required for all items to force it to be a paid sale to get that info but that could have other risks/downsides.

Recent Comments
Avatar PlaceholderConcerned13 hours ago
It is Slowwwwwww and is more expensive to the buyer. In the past items I have ordered will sit at the hub for around 2 weeks. I avoid ebay unless I cannot get it elsewhere.
Avatar Placeholdermarks304717 hours ago
Hi, I have a friend who had an interesting experience recently that fell under this issue. They sold an item, packed and dispatched to the UK Ebay hub, this was midway through the period as the pause occurred. They then received a message from the buyer that they had checked tracking and discovered that the item had disappeared on ebay, no advice. It then turned out that the tracking had been fudged and the package was with them but not forwarded on to the USA. A few hours of to and fro to get the answer that it was due to the tariff dilemma. NO fault of the buyer(who had paid) or the seller ((who had been paid) and a strange response that the item could not be delivered. The buyer would be refunded in full, the seller would keep payment and the item would not be returned. Strange, Ebay must be hurting paying our both sides of the deal+
Avatar PlaceholdercwiYesterday
  1. Start building out the brand and promoting the heck out of Canadian sellers to our domestic market. Work with Federal/Provincial level governments in the push to build a strong presence here in Canada.

  2. Add other calculated shipping options than Canada Post UPS/FedEx for domestic shipping - partner with couriers nationwide, leverage agreements and software integrations with courier reseller platforms such as Stallion Express. Build out a crowd sourced network using national/regional retail locations as drop points for rural regions, leveraging transport networks to move packages to courier pickup points, akin to the UK courier model but adapted to the Canadian realities.

  3. Create a centralized international shipping clearing house to aide micro businesses with affordable shipping rates and customs clearance to avoid pitfalls and complexities (akin to US eIS).

  4. Bring features forward to the platform from other localizations, such as prepaid best offer acceptance, etc.