Reselling News
Reselling News: USPS Holiday Rates Rise October 4 and eBay Sends Fashion Buyers to Depop
USPS filed peak season rate increases running October 4 to January 17, eBay is promoting Depop on its own homepage, and standalone airbags are banned.
Q4 is the quarter where a lot of small sellers finally make real money, and it is also the quarter where postage quietly eats the margin they thought they earned. Three developments landed this week that change the arithmetic.
USPS filed its peak season increase, and it stacks on top of the April surcharge
The Postal Service filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission on August 25 for a temporary price change covering Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select. Pending PRC review, the rates take effect at 12 a.m. CT on October 4 and run until 12 a.m. CT on January 17, 2027.
Here is what it costs on commercial Ground Advantage, which is the rate most of us actually pay through eBay or a label service:
| Weight | Zones 1 to 4 | Zones 5 to 9 |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 3 lbs | plus $0.40 | plus $0.55 |
| 4 to 10 lbs | plus $0.65 | plus $1.05 |
| 11 to 25 lbs | plus $1.05 | plus $1.75 |
| 26 to 70 lbs | plus $3.15 | plus $7.70 |
The part that gets missed is that this is not the only temporary increase running. The 8 percent transportation-related surcharge USPS put in place on April 26 covers the same four services and expires on the same day, January 17, 2027. From October 4 you are paying both at once.
What to do about it: reprice anything heavy before October 4, not after. A sub-3-pound item in a near zone absorbs 40 cents without much complaint. A 30-pound item going coast to coast picks up $7.70 on top of a base rate that is already carrying 8 percent. If you sell bulky goods with free shipping baked into the price, that listing needs new math or a new shipping setup this month.
eBay is now pointing its own fashion shoppers at Depop
eBay closed its purchase of Depop from Etsy on July 30 for roughly $1.4 billion, per eBay's own announcement. Less than a month later, Value Added Resource reported on August 24 that a large Depop banner is running above the fold on the eBay homepage with the line "There's more to love on Depop," and that Depop is also being promoted at the top of fashion search results on desktop and in the app.
That top-of-search real estate is the same space eBay rents to sellers through Promoted Listings and Promoted Stores. Sellers pay for those clicks. eBay is using the equivalent placement to move its own buyers to a different website.
What to do about it: if apparel is your category, this is the nudge to stop treating Depop as optional. The buyers eBay is redirecting are going somewhere, and a closet on the receiving end of that traffic is better than a closet that only exists on the site sending it away. Cross-listing is a numbers game before it is a platform loyalty question.
Standalone airbags come off eBay on September 24
eBay is banning standalone airbags, airbag inflators, gas generators, and steering wheel airbag covers effective September 24, with roughly 30 days for sellers to pull affected listings before eBay removes them, according to Value Added Resource. The move follows an NHTSA investigation into replacement inflators that ruptured on deployment.
This is a narrow category, but it is the kind of thing that catches estate sale and garage lot buyers by surprise. If you buy mixed auto parts lots, check what is in the box before you list it.
The through line
None of this is a crisis. It is the ordinary work of running numbers that move. Shipping cost is a variable, not a constant, and the sellers who stay profitable in Q4 are the ones who reprice on the calendar instead of after the payout looks wrong.
If you want the full system for pricing an item so it survives a fee change and a postage change without you redoing the whole listing, that is what we build inside The Income Lab. The blog covers what changed. The course covers what to do with it every single time.
