Guide

Your First eBay Repricer: Set a Floor, Connect, Turn It On

Most sellers avoid auto-repricing because they picture prices spiraling toward zero overnight. That fear is legitimate — but it only happens when there is no floor. The safer approach is to set one hard minimum per item before you touch anything else, then let the repricer do its job above that line. This walkthrough covers exactly that sequence: calculate your floor, connect your eBay account, and switch on repricing in a single session. Nothing complicated, nothing irreversible.

What Repricing Actually Does (and What It Does Not)

An eBay repricer watches the live prices of competing listings for the same item and adjusts your price to stay just below the lowest one — so buyers see your listing first. What it does not do, on its own, is know your costs. That is your job, and it is the only thing you need to supply. Once your floor is set, the repricer will never go below it, regardless of how aggressive competitors get. Think of it as a thermostat with a hard lower limit: it can turn the heat down, but it cannot freeze the pipes.

  • Repricers match competitor drops automatically — you do not need to watch listings manually.
  • Without a floor, a repricer will follow competitors below your cost.
  • With a floor, it stops and holds until competitors recover.
  • You stay visible without becoming the seller who accidentally gives inventory away.

Step 1 — Calculate Your Floor Before You Do Anything Else

Your floor is the lowest price at which a sale still puts money in your pocket after every cost is paid. Here is a worked example using a common household electronics item.

Suppose you sourced a used Bluetooth speaker for $8.00 and your shipping supplies and label cost $4.00. eBay's final value fee runs roughly 13.25% of the total sale price. You want at least a 15% net margin on your cost to make the time worthwhile.

Floor calculation: • Total hard cost: $8.00 (item) + $4.00 (shipping) = $12.00 • Add 15% margin target: $12.00 × 1.15 = $13.80 • Gross up for eBay fees (divide by 0.8675): $13.80 ÷ 0.8675 ≈ $15.91 • Round up to a clean number for comfort: set floor at $16.00

That $16.00 is your hard floor. Enter it in Undercut per listing. The repricer will never propose a price below it, even if a competitor lists at $12.00.

  • Item cost + all shipping costs = your base.
  • Apply your minimum margin multiplier.
  • Gross up for eBay fees (13.25% is a safe estimate for most categories).
  • Round up, not down — fees vary slightly, so give yourself a cushion.

Step 2 — Connect Your eBay Account (Takes About Three Minutes)

Undercut connects through eBay's official OAuth flow, the same mechanism eBay uses for every authorized third-party app. You grant read and write access to your listings — nothing else. Undercut cannot touch your PayPal, your bank, or your eBay messages.

Once connected, Undercut imports your active listings. For each listing, you will see a Floor Price field. You enter each listing's floor in the dashboard, calculating the number from that item's own cost — keeping your calculations in a spreadsheet makes this quick when several listings share a cost band. Start with five to ten listings on your first session so you can watch how pricing behaves before scaling up.

  • Sign in to Undercut and click 'Connect eBay Account'.
  • Approve read/write access on eBay's own OAuth page.
  • Your active listings appear in Undercut within seconds.
  • Set a floor on each listing before enabling repricing for that item.

Step 3 — Turn On Repricing and Read the Dashboard

After floors are set, enable repricing per listing or in bulk. Undercut checks competitor prices and updates yours on its next repricing cycle — every hour on the Free plan, and every 15 minutes on Pro and Scale. For beginners, hourly is plenty. Most eBay buyers do not refresh pages by the minute.

The dashboard shows three columns that matter most: your current price, the lowest competitor price, and your floor. When the competitor price falls below your floor, your listing holds at floor price and a small indicator flags the item as floor-locked. That flag is useful — it tells you a competitor may be selling below cost, liquidating, or pricing incorrectly. You can decide whether to reprice manually or simply wait them out.

  • Floor-locked items hold at your minimum — no action required from you.
  • Watch the floor-locked count over a week; a high count may mean your floor needs recalibrating.
  • Repricing cycles run automatically; you do not need to log in every day.
  • The Free plan covers 25 listings — enough to test the workflow on your best movers.

Common Beginner Mistakes and How Floors Prevent Them

The two most common beginner repricing errors are setting no floor at all and setting a floor based on the sale price rather than the cost. Both lead to the same outcome: profitable-looking sales that lose money once fees are counted.

A third mistake is enabling repricing on every listing at once before verifying that floors are correct. If you miscalculate one floor, the repricer faithfully defends the wrong number. The fix is simple: start with a small batch, review your first week of sales against your floor spreadsheet, and expand only when the numbers match your expectations.

Undercut's floor field is required — you cannot enable repricing on a listing without entering a value, which makes accidental omission impossible.

  • Never set a floor from memory — always calculate from current sourcing cost.
  • Fees compound: a 13% fee on a $20 sale is $2.60, not a rounding error.
  • Enable repricing on 5-10 listings first, then review after one week.
  • Update floors whenever your sourcing cost or shipping rates change.

Set Your First Floor and Start Repricing Today

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FAQ

Will the repricer keep lowering my price until I am selling at a loss?

No, as long as you set a floor. The floor is a hard stop — Undercut will not propose any price below the value you enter for that listing. If competitors drop below your floor, your listing holds at the floor price instead of following them down.

How do I know what floor to set if I sell items across many different cost points?

Calculate a floor individually for each listing using the formula: (item cost + shipping cost) divided by (1 minus eBay fee rate), then multiplied by your margin target. If you have many listings in the same cost band — say, books that all cost you $3-4 — you can set a single floor for the batch and adjust individual listings that fall outside the range.

What happens to my floor if eBay changes its fee structure?

Your floor stays at whatever number you entered — Undercut does not auto-adjust it. You are responsible for recalculating and updating floors if eBay's fee rates change or if your shipping costs shift. Undercut will send an alert if you have a floor-locked listing for more than 72 hours, which is a good prompt to review whether a recalculation is needed.

Can I try repricing without connecting my live eBay inventory?

You can sign up and use Undercut's floor calculator and dashboard in preview mode before connecting. Once you are ready, connect your eBay account and enable repricing only on the specific listings you choose. Nothing is switched on automatically — every listing starts paused.

Is the Free plan genuinely usable, or is it just a teaser?

The Free plan covers up to 25 active listings with hourly repricing and full floor protection — all core features included. It is genuinely functional for sellers who are still building inventory or want to validate the workflow before committing to a paid plan. No credit card is required to start, and the 14-day trial of Pro is also included so you can test faster repricing cycles on the same account.

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Related: How to Avoid Selling Below Cost on eBay · What Is a Price Floor? · eBay Seller Fees Explained · Manual vs Automated Repricing · Repricing Without Losing Margin

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