Selling lots on eBay: how to list a lot, price it from sold comps, and split what you paid across the items.

This guide has no citable data on whether lots sell better than single items, so it makes no claim either way. Compare sold results for both before you decide. Our suggestions, not eBay rules, for when a lot may be worth considering:

• The items are low in value individually, so a single listing for each would take more of your time than the item is worth.
• The items belong together, such as a set, a run of one series or several pieces for one use.
• Sold comps show that lots of this kind of thing are what buyers actually purchase.

Separate listings may suit items that are worth a lot individually, or that buyers search for one at a time. If one piece in the pile is worth much more than the rest, check its sold price on its own first. The guide to finding sold prices shows how.

eBay's developer documentation says lots refers to offers for multiple quantities of a given product, with a set of four car tires as its example.¹ For a lot, it says you set the quantity of the lot through a lot size field, and that if you are selling a single-pack product with a quantity of 4, you set that value to 4.¹ That is a field in eBay's selling APIs. We did not find it described as a screen option on the listing form.

The same page covers seller-created bundles. It says you indicate that a listing is a bundle through item specifics, by adding Bundle Listing with the value Yes.¹ A lot, then, is about a quantity of one product, and a bundle is something you put together yourself.

eBay's help page on multi-quantity listings says that with fixed-price listings you can add multiple identical items to the same listing, and that you can enter how many you are selling and eBay keeps track of the quantity as they sell.² That page does not mention lots. In this guide, a lot means one listing that one buyer purchases as a single group, which is a different thing from a listing with a quantity.

On the create-listing form we checked, the whole listing takes one condition, so a lot has to be described with a single condition. The Pricing section has a Quantity field that defaults to 1, and you can add custom item specifics with a free-text name and value. The form also shows an optional Your cost field that buyers cannot see.³

Our suggestions for the listing itself:

• Because there is one condition, sort the pile first. If part of it is new and part is worn, consider whether it is really one lot, or two.
• Describe each item in the description, one line each, with its flaws. Buyers cannot ask about what is not written down.
• Photograph everything that is included, laid out so each piece is visible, plus close-ups of any flaws. Leave out anything you are not sending.
• Put the count in the title and the description, and state it the same way in both.
• Use item specifics where they fit, and a custom one where they do not. The item specifics guide covers the basics.
• Decide the quantity before you publish. A lot is usually a quantity of 1 for the whole group.

Regular sold search covers 90 days, requires you to sign in, and does not display the price a Best Offer was accepted at.⁴ Terapeak (Product Research) in Seller Hub covers up to 3 years.⁵ Keep the Best Offer gap in mind: a listing that shows a price above what the buyer paid may have sold for less.

Our suggestions, not eBay rules:

• Search sold listings for lots of a similar size and mix. A lot of 8 mixed items is not a comp for a lot of 30 matching ones.
• Divide each sold price by the item count to get a price per item, and compare that figure across comps.
• Ignore asking prices. Only completed sales tell you what a buyer paid.
• Look at how many comps there are. One sale is an anecdote, a dozen is a range.
• Also check the sold price of the same items as singles. If the sum of the single prices is far above the lot prices, consider why before you bundle them.

Work from the total sale to your profit with the eBay fee calculator, and check what you can pay for a pile with the max buy price calculator.

A lot is heavier and bulkier than any one piece in it, so a shipping guess based on a single item is likely to be wrong. Our suggestion: pack the lot in the box you would really use, with the packing material, weigh it, and measure it before you set the shipping charge. Our shipping overview covers the options, and the guide to heavy items applies when the box is large. See the shipping supplies guide for packing materials, which belong in your cost.

These are eBay's published fees for sellers without a Store, and Store fees differ.⁶ The final value fee is a percentage of the total amount of the sale, which includes the item price, handling, shipping you collect from the buyer (with some exceptions), sales tax and other applicable fees, plus a per-order fee of $0.30 for orders of $10.00 or less and $0.40 for orders over $10.00.⁶ For most categories the percentage is 13.6% up to $7,500.⁶ An order is any number of items one buyer buys at checkout with the same shipping method.⁶ Insertion fees are charged once per listing for listings with multiple items.⁶ If you refund the buyer or cancel the sale you may be eligible for fee credits under eBay's fee credits policy.⁶

So a lot sold for one price is one sale, with one percentage fee on the whole total and one per-order fee, not a fee per item in the lot.

When you buy a pile for one price, you need a cost per item to see your margin on each. This is for your own profit tracking, and it is our arithmetic, not an eBay statement. For a related walkthrough on receipts, see splitting a receipt across items. Three methods:

• Equal split. Divide the total by the number of items. It is quick and needs no estimates. The trade-off: a $5 item and a $25 item carry the same cost, so the cheap item looks like a loss and the valuable one looks like a large gain.
• Proportional to estimated sold value. Each item takes a share of the total equal to its share of the combined estimated sold value. It needs an estimate for every item, but each item then shows a similar margin unless it sells off its estimate. The trade-off: it is only as good as your estimates, and it takes longer.
• Average cost with outlier adjustments. Start from the equal split, then set aside an outlier (one piece worth far more than the rest) and give it a cost by its own value, spreading the remainder over the others. It is a middle path, but it depends on your judgment about what counts as an outlier.

Whichever you pick, use the same method every time so that your numbers can be compared from lot to lot.

These are sample numbers, not a prediction. You paid $60.00 for 8 items with estimated sold values of $5, $5, $8, $10, $12, $15, $20 and $25. The estimated values add up to $100.00.

• Equal split: 60.00 divided by 8 = $7.50 per item.
• Proportional split: each item's cost is its value times 60.00 divided by 100.00, which is 0.60 of its value.

Under the equal split, items 1 and 2 are each assigned $7.50 against a $5.00 estimate, so each shows a $2.50 shortfall before fees, while item 8 shows $17.50 above its cost. Under the proportional split every item is assigned 60% of its estimate, so each starts from the same relative position. Both splits add back to $60.00. The cost per item only moves where the $60.00 is assigned. It does not change what you paid.

Our suggestions, kept simple:

• If you pull items out and sell them separately, record what was sold and the cost assigned to it under your method, then recompute the cost for what remains.
• If the buyer returns part of the lot, record which items came back, and which are back in stock.
• Keep the original total and the method in a note, so that you can redo the split if an estimate changes.

Cost per item here is for tracking margin only. The point is consistency, not precision down to the cent.

In Strooply, a combined purchase cost can be assigned to a lot and allocated across its sellable quantity. When part of that quantity sells, the corresponding per-unit cost applies instead of subtracting the entire lot's cost from one sale. On a sourcing trip, Strooply splits the trip's lot pricing total evenly across the linked items that have not been published to eBay or sold, to the cent, and sold or already-listed items keep the cost they had; this is on Pro and Team plans. See how Strooply works for the full picture.