eBay Quietly Removes RSS Feeds — And It's Hurting Small Sellers

Author: Robert Couture

Date: May 17, 2025

If you've tried to generate an RSS feed for your eBay listings lately and ended up staring at an error message, you're not alone. eBay has silently pulled the plug on its RSS feed support — a change that has left thousands of sellers scrambling for answers. For years, these feeds were a reliable way to syndicate eBay listings to personal websites, blogs, niche forums, and even Google News. Now, with no announcement and no direct replacement, this powerful tool is gone — and it’s already taking a toll on visibility and sales.

What Happened to eBay RSS?

Until recently, eBay users could easily add &_rss=1 to any search or store URL and generate a working RSS feed. These feeds were commonly used by third-party tools and services to embed real-time product listings on other platforms, including personal storefronts, automated blogs, and comparison engines.

But sometime in late 2023 or early 2024, that capability stopped working without warning. Whether you're trying to display items from your store or syndicate filtered search results, the old RSS trick now returns a blank page or an error. Worse still, eBay has not issued an official statement, deprecation notice, or roadmap for replacement.

Why RSS Feeds Mattered.

For small businesses and independent sellers, RSS feeds were more than a convenience — they were part of a growth strategy. They allowed for:

• Instant website integration: Sellers could display active eBay listings on their personal websites without writing code or relying on unreliable JavaScript widgets.

• Better SEO & content distribution: Automated tools could pull listings into news aggregators, comparison engines, and even Google Shopping feeds.

• Cross-platform visibility: Creators, bloggers, and influencers could promote eBay listings on their content platforms using feed readers or site plugins.

All of that stopped working overnight. Now, any site that depended on this functionality either shows a broken feed or, worse, nothing at all.

The Impact on Sales.

Small sellers are feeling the pinch. With fewer ways to display products outside of eBay's walled garden, discoverability is down. Some sellers report noticeable drops in external referral traffic since the change, especially those who depended on their blogs or niche websites to generate clicks to their listings.

The biggest blow is to automation. Sellers who built RSS-to-social pipelines — for example, automatically posting new items to Facebook or X.com — now face broken workflows that require expensive third-party integrations or manual uploads.

And let’s not forget those who paid for professional websites built around these feeds. Now those investments are dead in the water unless rebuilt from scratch with eBay’s clunky iframe widgets or unofficial API integrations.

Are There Any Workarounds?

At the time of writing, official eBay RSS feeds are no longer functional. A few users have had partial success with these temporary solutions:

• Feedbro Extension: A browser-based tool that can sometimes parse eBay search results into feeds. Reliability varies.

• RSSBay.net: A user-made service attempting to replicate eBay RSS functionality. It works for some basic queries, but doesn't cover all use cases and may be unstable.

• eBay APIs: For developers, the eBay API can technically be used to build a custom RSS-like feed — but this requires app credentials, programming skills, and approval from eBay (which now comes with strict data retention agreements).

For most users, these are not realistic options.

Why Did eBay Do This?

It’s hard to say. RSS is a low-cost, open standard that benefits users by decentralizing access. It could be that eBay wanted to drive more traffic exclusively through its own ecosystem, where they control the user experience and advertising. Or perhaps it was just part of a cleanup of legacy features they considered underused.

Regardless of the reason, the silence from eBay has been deafening — and damaging.

What Should Sellers Do Now?

If you relied on RSS for your site or workflow, here are a few suggestions:

• Voice your concern: Submit feedback directly through eBay’s support channels and seller forums.

• Use the eBay Partner Network (EPN): While not a full replacement, this can help generate affiliate links with tracking.

• Consider an API solution: If you have the skills or a developer, you can build a custom listing tool using eBay’s API.

• Look into third-party marketplaces or shop platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce where you control your feed structure and traffic routing.
  

Final Thoughts.

eBay’s silent removal of RSS support is another reminder that sellers don’t truly “own” their online storefronts on marketplace platforms. Features can vanish without notice, and visibility can vanish with them. For small sellers and indie brands who relied on feed-based promotion, this change is more than inconvenient — it’s a threat to their discoverability and income.

If you're a seller affected by this change, consider diversifying your channels, reclaiming control of your product feeds, and advocating for transparency in the tools you depend on.