- eBay completed listings shows all ended listings — both sold and unsold — from the last 90 days
- Green price = sold. Red or plain price = ended without a sale
- Always check sold listings for real price data, not active listings — asking prices lie, sold prices don't
- The ratio of sold to unsold gives you the sell-through rate — one of the strongest demand signals on eBay
- This is the manual version of what Privy automates — useful to understand, but slow at scale
Every experienced eBay reseller knows about completed listings. It's the filter that separates the sellers who guess from the sellers who know.
New sellers often miss it entirely — they search eBay, see active listings with prices from £5 to £80, and have no idea which end of that range is real. They list at the wrong price, wonder why their item isn't selling, and eventually lower it until it goes — usually at a loss.
Completed listings fixes this. It shows you what actually happened, not what sellers are hoping for. Here's how to use it properly.
What are eBay completed listings?
Completed listings is an eBay search filter that shows you listings that have ended — whether they sold or not. By default, eBay search shows you active listings only: items currently for sale. Completed listings opens the history window and shows you everything that ended in the last 90 days.
This includes:
- Items that sold (with the final sale price)
- Items that ended without a sale (relisted, expired, removed)
The combination of both tells you far more than either alone. Sold listings tell you the real price. Unsold listings tell you the ceiling — the price buyers wouldn't pay.
Completed listings are different from sold listings — an important distinction. Sold listings shows only the subset where a transaction completed. Completed listings shows everything. You need both to understand a market properly.
Where to find eBay completed listings (step by step)
Search for your product on eBay
Enter the specific product in eBay's search bar. Be precise — brand, model, size, condition. "Nike Air Max 90 Size UK 9 used" gives you a much cleaner data set than "Nike trainers".
Open the filters panel
On desktop: you'll see a filter column on the left side of the results page. Scroll down to the section labelled "Show only". On the eBay mobile app: tap the filter icon (sliders symbol) at the top of the results page.
Enable "Completed items"
On desktop: tick the checkbox next to "Completed items". On mobile: scroll to "Item details" and toggle on "Completed listings". The results will refresh to show ended listings from the last 90 days.
Read the colour coding
Green prices indicate the item sold at that price. Red or plain prices indicate the listing ended without a sale. This is the most important thing to understand about completed listings — the colour tells you whether the transaction happened.
Filter to sold only for pricing research
Once you've seen the full picture, tick "Sold items" alongside "Completed items" to see only successful transactions. Sort by Price: highest first to see the top of the market, or most recent to see what's happening now. The middle of this range is your realistic sale price.
Active listings show what sellers want to charge — not what buyers are willing to pay. You can list something for any price you like. Completed listings show you what the market actually accepted. Always base your pricing and profit calculations on sold prices, never active prices.
Worked example: vintage Casio watch
You find a Casio A168 gold-tone watch at a charity shop for £4. You want to know what it's worth on eBay.
Active listings: prices range from £12 to £45. Useless — that range is too wide and tells you nothing about what actually clears.
Completed listings (last 90 days):
79% sell-through rate means 4 in 5 listings sold. The unsold ones were all priced at £35+ — the market ceiling is clearly around £25. At an average of £18.40, after eBay's fees (roughly £2.90) and £3.99 postage, you're left with around £10.50 profit on a £4 buy. That's a 160% return. Buy it.
Get the completed listings data without the clicking.
Privy scrapes eBay's sold listings automatically and shows you average price, monthly sales, sell-through rate, and competition level — right on the product page.
What completed listings data actually tells you
Once you've found your completed listings, here's what to extract from them.
Real market price
Filter to sold only and sort by price. Ignore the top 10% (often bundles, rare variants, or lucky sales) and the bottom 10% (items sold to clear, damaged, or wrong condition). The middle 80% is your realistic sale price range. Calculate profit from the lower end of that range to stay conservative.
Sell-through rate
Count sold listings and divide by total completed listings. 60 sold out of 80 completed = 75% STR — very healthy. 15 sold out of 80 completed = 19% STR — most sellers are failing to shift this. For a full explanation of what counts as a good STR, see our guide to sell-through rate.
Price ceiling
The unsold listings cluster at a specific price. That's the ceiling — the price buyers consistently reject. Never list above it unless your item has a clear condition or scarcity advantage.
Demand trend
Sort by most recent. If sales are evenly distributed across the 90 days, demand is consistent. If most sales happened 60–90 days ago and recent sales have dried up, the market may be cooling. For seasonal products, this matters a lot.
Common mistakes when reading completed listings
Using too broad a search query
Searching "Nike jacket" gives you thousands of results across dozens of styles, sizes, and conditions. The data is meaningless at that level. Search for the exact item you're holding — model number, size, colour where relevant. The more specific the query, the more useful the data.
Ignoring condition
A brand new item and a used item with cosmetic damage are not the same market. Filter by condition to see only results that match what you're selling. A 79% STR for new items might be 40% STR for used — completely different decision.
Mistaking asking prices for sold prices
The most common mistake. Active listing prices are hopes, not facts. If you're not filtering to completed listings, you're pricing blind. This one mistake is responsible for more bad buys than any other.
Looking at too small a sample
Fewer than 10–15 completed listings is too thin to draw conclusions. If you can only find 3–4 results for a product, either your search query is too specific or the item is genuinely rare. Both affect how you should interpret and price it.
Frequently asked questions
eBay completed listings shows all ended listings — both sold and unsold — from the last 90 days. Sold items show in green; unsold items show in red or plain text. This gives you a picture of real market demand, unlike active listings which only shows what people are hoping to charge.
Search for a product on eBay. On desktop, scroll the left filter panel to "Show only" and tick "Completed items". On the eBay app, tap the filter icon and enable "Completed listings" under Item details. Sold items will show with a green price.
Completed listings includes all ended listings — both sold and unsold. Sold listings is the subset where a buyer actually paid. For price research, filter to sold only. For demand research (sell-through rate), you need completed listings to see both sold and unsold counts.
eBay completed listings go back 90 days. For longer-term trend data (up to 365 days), use Terapeak via Seller Hub — it's free for all eBay sellers and shows historical averages over a longer window.
Yes. In the eBay app, search for a product, tap the filter icon, scroll to "Item details", and enable "Completed listings". You can also enable "Sold items" from the same screen to see only successful transactions. The data is identical to desktop.