eBay AutoPilot

Run your eBay store on autopilot.

Listing is the job every eBay store owner hates: retyping the title into an 80-character box, filling 20+ item specifics, re-uploading photos, and building every size and color variant by hand — per product. It is the most commonly outsourced task in the business.

eBay AutoPilot replaces that work with one button. Select up to 50 products, press List selected, and the batch is written by AI, variant-expanded, brand-screened, priced after real eBay fees, and published. Repricing, stock sync, and automatic order ingestion are in progress.

Built with Next.js 16 (App Router), Drizzle ORM, and PostgreSQL.

---

What it does

Area	Detail
Bulk listing	The core feature. Tick any number of products and publish the whole batch in one run — the same engine handles 1 or 200
Variants	Size, color, and style options expanded into proper multi-variant listings, each row with its own SKU, price, and quantity
Research	Supplier catalog with cost, suggested eBay price, shipping, and net profit after eBay's 13.55% final value fee and $0.40 per-order fee
Listing defaults	Settings → Listing defaults (seller_settings table): pricing rule (suggested or own markup), ad rate, quantity per variant, handling time, description footer — applied to Bulk list, Paste links, and New listing. Every price has a "Why this price" fee breakdown (priceBreakdown in src/lib/pricing.ts) and money-losing items are never listed
Import	Paste up to 50 supplier links (/dashboard/import); each page is read for title, price, and image, priced at your markup, VeRO-screened, and listed with variants. Links to retailers/marketplaces (Amazon, Walmart, etc.) are refused because eBay does not allow filling orders from another retailer (src/lib/supplier-policy.ts)
AI copy	Claude drafts an 80-character title, bullets, description, and item specifics, with a deterministic template fallback
Publishing	Store connection over eBay OAuth is built (/api/ebay/connect → /api/ebay/callback, state-checked, tokens AES-256-GCM encrypted at rest and auto-refreshed). Publishing through the Sell/Inventory API is in progress — until then every listing falls back to demo mode and says so. Headless-Chromium fallback is scaffolded only
Plan limits	Active listings are the upgrade driver: 50 on Starter, 200 on Pro, 1,000 on Business. Batch size: 50 per run and up to 20 variants per product on every plan. Limits enforced server-side (non-ended listings counted, typed plan_limit_reached error)
Maintenance	Built: VeRO brand screening on every listing (src/lib/vero.ts); drip posting on Pro/Business — listings are scheduled and released up to 10 per account per hour by /api/cron/release, triggered hourly by .github/workflows/drip-release.yml (Vercel Hobby cron only runs daily). In progress: supplier re-checks, repricing rules, out-of-stock pause
Orders	Fulfillment queue with buyer details, supplier cost, and realized margin, feeding the analytics totals
Billing	Stripe Checkout with a demo fallback so the flow is clickable before live keys are added

Every number shown in the product is computed from the data in that deployment. There are no placeholder metrics and no testimonials.

Stack

• Next.js 16 App Router — Server Components for all data reads, "use client" only for interactive forms
• Drizzle ORM + PostgreSQL
• Tailwind CSS v4
• jose JWT sessions + bcryptjs password hashing, HTTP-only cookies
• Server-only secrets: every API key is read in route handlers or server modules and never reaches the client bundle

Getting started

npm install
cp .env.example .env        # fill in DATABASE_URL and AUTH_SECRET
npm run db:push             # create tables
npm run db:seed             # load the 24 starter products (example prices)
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000.

Scripts

Script	Purpose
npm run dev	Development server
npm run build	Production build
npm run start	Serve the production build
npm run typecheck	tsc --noEmit
npm run lint	ESLint
npm run db:push	Apply the Drizzle schema
npm run db:seed	Load the 24 starter products (example prices)

Environment variables

Required:

Variable	Purpose
DATABASE_URL	PostgreSQL connection string
AUTH_SECRET	Signing key for session JWTs (openssl rand -base64 32)

Optional — each has a working fallback:

Variable	Purpose
NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL	Canonical site URL for metadata and Stripe redirects
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	Claude listing copy; falls back to the built-in template
ANTHROPIC_MODEL	Override the Claude model
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY	Live Stripe Checkout; falls back to demo checkout
CRON_SECRET	Protects /api/cron/release (drip posting). Same value as the GitHub secret CRON_SECRET
EBAY_CLIENT_ID / EBAY_CLIENT_SECRET	eBay keyset App ID and Cert ID
EBAY_REDIRECT_URI	The RuName (eBay Redirect URL name) shown on the developer portal's User Tokens page — not a URL. Its auth accepted URL must be https://<your-domain>/api/ebay/callback
EBAY_AUTH_ORIGIN	Optional. A second domain of this same deployment without "ebay" in it (e.g. https://autopilot-lister.vercel.app). eBay's sign-in settings reject privacy/accept URLs on a domain containing "ebay", so the RuName points there: privacy …/legal/privacy, accepted and declined …/api/ebay/callback. The seller is handed over with a 2-minute signed token and returned to NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL
TOKEN_ENCRYPTION_KEY	Optional. Key for encrypting stored eBay tokens; defaults to AUTH_SECRET. Changing it means sellers reconnect
EBAY_SANDBOX	true to target eBay sandbox
ENABLE_BROWSER_ENGINE / CHROMIUM_EXECUTABLE_PATH	Enable the headless-Chromium fallback (not implemented yet)

Who sets up what

This trips people up, so to be explicit:

	You (the operator), once	Your customers, ever
eBay developer account	Yes — register one free app at developer.ebay.com	No. Never.
eBay app keys (EBAY_CLIENT_ID / EBAY_CLIENT_SECRET)	Yes — paste into Vercel env vars	No
Redirect URI	Yes — set it to https://yourdomain.com/api/ebay/callback	No
Connecting a store	Not applicable	One click. Press Connect eBay store, approve on eBay's screen, done

You register one eBay application for the whole product. Every customer then authorises your application against their own eBay account through eBay's standard permission screen — the same flow as "Sign in with Google". A customer never sees a key, a redirect URI, or any configuration, and they never type their eBay password into our site.

Until you add the eBay keys, the app runs every customer in demo mode: the full pipeline works and nothing is posted to eBay.

Your one-time eBay setup

1. Sign in at developer.ebay.com with your normal eBay account and join the developer program (free).
2. Create a Production keyset. Note the App ID (client ID) and Cert ID (client secret).
3. Add an RuName / redirect URI pointing at https://yourdomain.com/api/ebay/callback.
4. Put EBAY_CLIENT_ID, EBAY_CLIENT_SECRET, and EBAY_REDIRECT_URI into your Vercel environment variables.
5. Redeploy. The Connect button now does a real connection for every customer.

Deploying to Vercel

1. Import the repository on vercel.com/new.
2. Add AUTH_SECRET on the Configure Project screen before the first deploy.
3. After the first deploy, add Neon Postgres from the Storage tab — it injects DATABASE_URL.
4. Apply the schema and seed the catalog from your machine:

   vercel link && vercel env pull .env.production
   DATABASE_URL="$(grep DATABASE_URL .env.production | cut -d= -f2-)" npx drizzle-kit push
   DATABASE_URL="$(grep DATABASE_URL .env.production | cut -d= -f2-)" npm run db:seed
   

5. Add NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL with your production URL and redeploy.

Serverless function memory stays at the default 1024 MB — Chromium is not bundled in this release, so any "missing Chromium" warning is expected and safe to ignore.

Roadmap

• Sell/Inventory API publishing (store connection and token refresh are built)
• Encrypted-credentials table and the headless-Chromium listing engine
• Scheduled order ingestion and tracking upload

Honesty policy

No invented testimonials, no fabricated user counts, no superlative claims. Marketing figures are either generic truthful statements or values computed at request time from the running deployment. CI fails the build if unverifiable social-proof strings reappear in README.md, src/, or public/.

eBay AutoPilot is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by eBay Inc.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.