For thirty years, eBay has been home to the “accidental entrepreneur,” Americans who begin casually selling on the marketplace before launching full-time small businesses.

Take Tiffany Cole, an eBay seller from Kentucky. Because her husband serves in the Navy, Tiffany and her family move often, making it difficult for her to keep a job. But, eBay allows her to run a business selling clothing and collectibles from anywhere in the world.

“eBay aims to make it super easy to open up that access for a small business,” CEO Jamie Iannone said. “We only win when our sellers win.”

Iannone’s comments came during a recent interview with Anna Palmer of Punchbowl News, where he discussed the many ways eBay supports entrepreneurs. Here are just five ways eBay helps small businesses grow and thrive.  

1. Bringing small businesses to the world.

With eBay’s International Shipping program, American sellers can reach buyers in 190 countries while using a simple domestic handoff. Sellers label and ship to a hub, and eBay manages the rest, including customs and duties. The result is less paperwork, faster cycle times, and a larger pool of customers.

“We’re designed to help small businesses grow and make it easy,” Iannone said, describing the program.

2. Building trust with Authenticity Guarantee.

Certain items in high-value categories, such as watches, sneakers, handbags, trading cards, and jewelry, are routed through eight U.S. authentication centers, where experts inspect every inch of them before they are shipped to the customer.  

“It raises a whole new level of trust on the platform. It's a great experience,” the CEO said.

3. Monitoring for illicit listings.

Trust also depends on rigorous prevention. eBay removes 98 percent of prohibited items before they go live and took down 5.9 million items over the past year. Recent AI investments [IA3] strengthen detection across images, text, and patterns of behavior, hardening the marketplace against counterfeits and other harmful listings.

“We put a lot of focus on ensuring a high-quality marketplace without prohibited items, counterfeit items,” Iannone said.

4. Simplifying the selling process.

eBay has recently launched new AI features that can help write listings, clean backgrounds, enhance photos, and draft responses to common questions for sellers. Hours that once went to repetitive tasks now shift to sourcing, creativity, and customer relationships.

“We help make sure that the AI playing field is level, that small businesses have access to the same type of tools as big businesses,” he added.

5. Advocating for clear, workable rules.

eBay brings sellers to Capitol Hill to speak about what supports growth in the real economy. The company backs consistent federal standards for emerging technologies, such as AI, to create one clear playbook for compliance. Earlier this year, eBay even helped launch the Recommerce Caucus to further advance policies that support circular commerce and small business growth