Looking to sell your stuff online but don’t want to pay the fees eBay is asking for? You need these best eBay alternatives for UK sellers!
Online marketplaces are a great place to sell stuff you have decluttered from your wardrobes and loft, sell things you’ve made or resell items you’ve bought to make a profit.
You may be looking for a different selling platform to eBay because of the fees – which are 12.8% of the total final sale amount (plus there’s a listing fee of 35p after you’ve used up your free 1000 listings per month).
Whereas I used to always defer to eBay as the place to sell my stuff back in my teens, there are now so many other options. And lots of them don’t charge any fees for your listing or your sales!
Some are way trendier, such as Vinted, and some are specialist, such as Sell My Mobile.
You may also like: How to sell old clothes
Best alternatives to eBay for selling UK
These are my top picks of the sites that work in a similar way to eBay, but most are likely to work out cheaper!
- Vinted – the best for selling clothes
- Amazon
- Facebook Marketplace
- eBUYgumm
- Etsy
- Gumtree
- Preloved
- Shpock
- Music Magpie
- Stuff U Sell
Best UK alternatives to eBay
Which of these websites works best for your specific items you want to sell can depend on what it is you are selling.
If you’re selling a range of handmade items then Etsy may be your best place to find a wide audience.
Trying to sell unwanted stuff after decluttering your home? eBUYgumm has no selling fees and gets amazing reviews!
Let’s look at the best eBay alternatives and others in more detail.
Facebook Marketplace
It is estimated there are 44.8million people active on Facebook in the UK.
So Facebook Marketplace offers you access to a huge number of potential customers who are active every single day on the platform.
I’ve used Facebook to sell things like toys, furniture and toys. It’s great because there are no seller fees.
And because you can choose to advertise items in local Facebook selling groups only, you can also avoid the hassle of having to post or ship items and instead ask people to collect them.
I often leave the item outside the house and people just post cash in through the letterbox, or transfer it via PayPal.
The biggest downsides with using Facebook to sell your stuff is that you get a lot of time wasters. Sometimes you’ll be lucky and sell an item with zero issues, but I’ve had people not turn up or had others trying to haggle, or ask me to pay their petrol to collect the item.
There’s also no protection for you unlike with other selling platforms.
If there are any issues, there’s no buyer protection or refund from Facebook, and you’ll have to deal with the person you are selling to yourself.
eBUYgumm
This is a relatively new online marketplace place and eBUYgumm is growing fast in the UK. https://ebuygumm.co.uk
There are no fees and the reviews are good, with a 4.7 star TrustPilot rating.
Postage is paid for by the buyer.
You can sell a huge variety of different types of items, such as clothes, health and beauty products, furniture, DIY gadgets, toys, cars and more.
Amazon
Anyone can become a seller on Amazon, and it gives you access to a huge audience, with data suggesting almost 90% of UK shoppers use Amazon!
Some people use Amazon as a place to base their own online store, however you can also use it to sell used items.
There’s a huge market for secondhand books on Amazon, as well as refurbished gadgets and DVDs.
For individual sellers who will sell fewer than 35 items per month you will be charged 75p per item sold, plus an additional selling fee.
The size of this fee depends on the item. As an example, you will be charged 5.1% for books selling for less than £5 each.
Vinted
Vinted is another seller platform for pre-loved clothes and other items that does not charge any fees for sellers!
Postage is paid for by the person buying your item, so all you need to worry about is writing your listing and getting the item posted.
I’ve had great success with Vinted with picking up great bargains and selling my unwanted clothes. You can also sell toys and some other items on there, but there are limits to what you are allowed to sell on the app.
Check out my full Vinted guide here.
Etsy
The Etsy marketplace is for handmade items and has nearly 100millon active buyers. It’s the 12th largest online marketplace in the world.
So this isn’t a place to sell your unwanted stuff, but it is a great place to use to sell your own products you have made.
This could be jewellery hand crafted by yourself, or digital printable products, or clothing that you have customised with designs on the front.
Etsy will charge a transaction fee of 6.5% of the price you display for each listing. There’s also a fee per listing of 0.20 USD.
Gumtree
Gumtree is a British-based online classifieds site that is likely to be familiar to you. It’s been around since 2000.
You can sell a wide variety of secondhand and unwanted household stuff, and cars, on this site.
Putting up a listing is free for private sellers, although you will pay fees if you want certain extras such as ads to boost your listings.
Preloved
Preloved is a well established UK classifieds site through which you can sell everything from pets to property and clothes to cots.
You won’t be charged any fees for listings. The company does charge users for access to additional services such as unlimited photos on listings, costing £5 for the year.
There’s also a premium membership which gives sellers access to priority placements in searches, costing £15 a year.
Depop
There are 30million users on the fashion-focused Depop platform.
This online marketplace features beauty products, menswear, womenswear and more.
The platform charges a 10% sellers fee, which is why it didn’t make it into our best eBay alternatives list.
Shpock
Shpock is another site that is very similar to eBay but will not charge you fees for listing an item for sale.
However you will have to pay extra to use certain features that will help sell your item, such as adding more photos and promoting your listings.
Music Magpie
This site is perfect for selling your unwanted CDs, DVDs, games, old consoles and old mobile phones, and other gadgets.
Unlike most of the other websites on this list, which are online auction and marketplaces, Music Magpie gives you a quote for the item you want to sell. You then decide if you want to accept that offer, and post it to them.
They promise same day payment, but it is worth noting that you should always do your research to see if you could get a better price elsewhere.
Stuff U Sell
Can’t be bothered with the hassle of dealing with potential buyers and handling the logistics of a sale?
If you’re not worried about sacrificing a large chunk of your profit then you can use Stuff U Sell.
It works in a similar way to Music Magpie, as it’s not connecting you with buyers like at an online car boot sale, it’s doing the selling for you.
Instead you tell them what you want to sell, they will assess the item and handle the sale. If it sells then you pay Stuff U Sell 35% commission and transaction fees.
They won’t take large items or items worth less than £25. They will accept things like sports gear, designer clothes, appliances, tech and antiques.
Sell My Mobile
Let’s get a little specific now and talk about the best place to sell your mobile.
There are tons of platforms, such as Music Magpie, that will give you cash for old phones and deal with other stuff too.
Sell My Mobile is a good choice if you are just looking to sell old mobiles because it offers such competitive prices.
And if you’re quoted a better price elsewhere within 24 hours then they will refund the difference.
OnBuy
The online marketplace OnBuy launched in 2016 and is incredibly similar to eBay.
However it’s not really a great platform if you’ll be selling the odd item when you’ve been decluttering your home. That’s because in order to become a seller you need to pay monthly account fees starting at £19.
If you plan to sell a range of products then OnBuy may be a good place to for you to investigate as a platform.
Final thoughts on eBay alternatives
The best eBay alternatives for selling your secondhand stuff are Facebook Marketplace, Vinted and eBUYgumm.
None of these will charge you fees for your listings.
If you want to set up your own online shop to sell your products you have made then Etsy or Amazon are the way to go.
If you’re still not sure about how to sell your stuff, then maybe consider finding a local car boot sale and trying your luck at in-person selling.
Alternatively if you are making your own products, or sourcing your own products, then why not set up your own website and build an audience to sell your products from there.
Building an audience may involve creating a website that gets a lot of search engine traffic – in which case you’ll need to write lots of content in a blog related to your products in order to get people on the site.
For example, if you make custom wood furniture then your website may feature lots of articles on how to style modern wood furniture, or the best places to put wood shelves in a kitchen. Once people arrive on your informational articles, you also direct them to check out your products.
Another option is to build a following on social media and refer your followers to your website to check out your products.
This has worked really well for small clothing sellers, who built up a cult following for their designs on platforms like Instagram.
Best of luck with selling your stuff!
