Due to the policy shift of the UK's leading domestic logistics giant, Royal Mail, the cross-border e-commerce platform eBay has had to urgently follow up and adjust its logistics rules in the UK market. Recently, eBay officially announced that it will make significant adjustments to the current "Age Verified Delivery" service on the platform. The direct cause of this update is that Royal Mail has completely canceled the permission to provide this regulated service to private sellers.

As a countermeasure, eBay announced that starting from May 21, 2026, the platform system will adopt automated intervention: all existing orders that originally selected Royal Mail's age verification service will be automatically and uniformly replaced by UPS's Adult Signature Required service. However, this replacement will lead to a significant increase in logistics costs. According to the published price list, the starting price for UPS's Adult Signature Required service for small packages is as high as £11, and for large packages, it reaches £24.32.

eBay also left a buffer for business/commercial sellers in the announcement: if commercial sellers wish to continue to enjoy Royal Mail's relatively low-cost age verification service, they must bypass eBay's default logistics and directly apply to Royal Mail to open an independent business account. This new rule has a profound impact on sellers who sell age-restricted products such as knives, alcohol, adult toys, or laser equipment on eBay's UK site. Sellers must recalculate logistics costs and adjust pricing before May 21, otherwise, the high UPS service fees will directly erode all profits from the orders.