Big Changes To eBay Pre-Owned Fashion Conditions Coming In 2025
UPDATE 2-20-25
eBay is finally rolling out changes to pre-owned fashion categories, but sellers say the update is causing glitches and eBay has not provided proper tools to update listings efficiently.
The new pre-loved clothing conditions rolled out to my account, along with a million and one bugs. My account is broken on every angle. I cannot list, cannot update, cannot do ANYTHING. WHY CAN'T EBAY LEAVE THINGS ALONE. Not one sale today, buyers can't pay. FIX IT EBAY!!!!
I have more than 4500 active on of listings. There are no tools for me and many similar sellers on how to quickly go through our listings and update them.
Why? You had months if not years to make sure the transitions will be easy, but again NO.Yes, you can see the condition description in the bulk update tool, but like only first 4 words...
Really? 4words? There is so much space to make it more, but no someone decided that the design is more important than functionality.
PLEASE, UPDATE THE BULK UPDATE TOOL.
Also make a new CSV (Excel) report where I can download all my listings "Condition" and "Condition description"
Its the only way to make correct and quick changes.
ITS IMPORTANT for your sellers! Not just changes, but tools to make the transition easy for them not harder. Because if I will not update my listings quick enough it can result in many SNADs defects which you, I am sure, not help me and remove...
UPDATE 2-4-25
It's official - eBay has postponed pre-owned clothing condition updates until "mid-February."
seller_news_team
UPDATE 2-4-25
Today is the day and, unsurprisingly it appears eBay is not ready to launch the new pre-loved fashion conditions.
doldei_0
Can someone help me with updating my listings with the condition change policy? I have revised and ended listings and still shows the same condition. Today started the new condition policy and im having problems updating. thankyou
just tried a new listing...still has the old conditions...devon@ebay kyle@ebay elizabeth@ebay any news?
I've tried it as well across multiple sub-categories under clothing and can confirm - there are no new options for the different pre-loved conditions.
And as usual - eBay support appears to be clueless about the issue.
Hello! This update should be live, if you're facing any issues with the update not reflecting please send us a DM so we can further investigate. We have also posted a helpful article with a full breakdown of the changes: https://t.co/1gwKACJb8J . ~Crystal
— Ask eBay (@AskeBay) February 4, 2025
UPDATE 1-27-25
eBay has confirmed these changes to pre-loved clothing conditions are in fact going global on February 4th with announcements for Germany, Canada, Ireland , UK and the US.
seller_news_team
UPDATE 12-24-24
eBay's Q4 Developers Program newsletter confirms these condition changes for pre-owned clothing will go global in February, advising eBay APIs will be updated to support the new condition fields.
To enhance transparency in our rapidly growing Pre-loved Apparel vertical, and to help prevent SNAD (Significantly Not As Described) returns, a total of 222 Pre-Loved apparel leaf categories will be enhanced in early 2025 with two additional Pre-owned item conditions...
...These new conditions are expected to be supported by the Trading API and Inventory API by late January 2025 on eBay Australia, and then are expected to roll out globally in early February 2025. Please monitor release notes for these APIs to see when these conditions become available.
Fashion sellers will need to contend with a more complex listing structure in 2025 as eBay expands condition grading requirements to include pre-owned fair, good, and excellent.
Australian sellers received an announcement that new policies will go into effect January 23, 2025, requiring them to update pre-owned items in fashion categories to comply with the new condition structure.
au_news_team
To enhance transparency in our rapidly growing Pre-loved Fashion category, and to help reduce returns for “Item not as described”, we are launching new “pre-owned” conditions for clothing categories.
Instead of one generic “Pre-owned” item condition, sellers will have the option of three “Pre-owned” conditions to better describe their item.
From 23 January 2025, we'll replace the current "Pre-owned" condition with:
- Pre-owned - Fair
- Pre-owned - Good
- Pre-owned - Excellent
You don't need to do anything yet, but starting on 23 January, you'll need to use these new conditions and descriptors when updating or listing pre-loved clothing.
When the new conditions become available, all existing listings under the 'Pre-owned' condition will be automatically converted to 'Pre-owned - Good' and you'll need to review and update your listings using the new conditions to ensure that you represent your items accurately.
The announcement went on to advise the new condition requirements will apply to the following categories:
- Women's clothing (category ID: 15724)
- Men's clothing (category ID: 1059)
- Kids' clothing (category ID: 171146)
- Unisex Kids' Clothing (category ID: 155198)
- Baby & Toddler (category ID: 260019)
- Women's Vintage Clothing (category ID: 182047)
- Men's Vintage Clothing (category ID: 182044)
- Children's Vintage Clothing (category ID: 182025)
- Specialty clothing (category ID: 260033)
- Fancy Dress & Period Costume (category ID: 163147)
- Wedding & Formal Occasion (category ID: 3259)
- World & Traditional Clothing (category ID: 155240)
The full seller help page on the new Pre-Loved Fashion (PLF) Condition grading Guidelines also provides a handy chart with examples of how the values should be applied.
For example, pre-owned excellent may have been previously worn but has minimal signs of wear or flaws, while pre-owned fair may have significant visible imperfections and signs of wear.
eBay has also supplied a list of common issues an item may have - like broken or missing fasteners, discoloration, wear, stains, pet hair or odor - and how to grade the item to determine the best condition to select when listing.
That announcement applies only to eBay Australia and I have not seen any official public notices posted about similar changes for the US, UK or other markets - yet.
However, I have seen sellers outside of Australia discussing receiving email notices from eBay that these pre-loved fashion condition changes will be coming to the rest of the sites in Q1 2025 as well.
On a recent video, YouTuber and reseller Technsports showed screenshots of emails he says were received by several sellers he's spoken to, indicating the change will be effective January 23 for Australia and February 4, 2025 globally.
eBay has not responded to request for comment to confirm that information as of time of publishing.
These changes for pre-loved fashion items mirror similar updates launched in trading card categories last year, dropping the "used" condition and using "graded" or "ungraded" instead.
Liz Morton
Some sellers have raised concerns that the new pre-loved fashion conditions are less clear and provide more gray areas for differences of opinion that could lead to an increase in "not as described" claims being filed.
Others still have bad memories of glitches and extra work due to eBay's category and item specifics changes that caused chaos in years past, and are worried something similar could happen when this condition update rolls out.
What do you think of the new eBay pre-loved fashion conditions - do they add more transparency or just an INAD waiting to happen? Let us know in the comments below!
