Selling DVDs, Blu-rays and CDs on eBay: the format word, the back of the case, and the postage rule that works for you
DVDs, Blu-rays and CDs are the stock every reseller walks past: a dollar a disc at the thrift store, a box of them at the end of every estate sale. The ones worth listing are worth listing quickly, because the margin is in the volume, and a disc listing that takes ten minutes to write has spent most of its profit before it goes up. Most of the time goes on the same few things, and most of the returns come from the same few mistakes.
The format is the word the buyer typed
Nobody searches for a movie without the format. A buyer with a 4K player wants the 4K disc, a collector wants the Blu-ray, and a DVD bought as a Blu-ray is a return. The format is printed on the case: the banner across the top and the logo on the spine. Put it in the title right after the name, and keep it there even when the name is long enough that something else has to go.
After the format come the words a collector filters on, but only when the case prints them: Steelbook, Criterion, Director's Cut, Box Set, a season number on a TV set. An edition typed from memory is how an ordinary release ends up listed as a special one. Then the year and the lead actor if there is room. This site writes a Blu-ray like this:
The Dark Knight Blu-ray Steelbook 2008 Christian Bale
A CD leads with the artist, then the album, then the format, then the label and the year.
Nirvana Nevermind CD DGC 1991
The back of the case is the important photograph
The front gives you the title. The back gives you everything else: the UPC, the rating, the studio or the label, the copyright year, the disc count and, on a DVD, the region. Photograph it square, close and in focus.
The UPC matters most. A UPC read off a photograph has a safety net: its last digit is a check digit worked out from the others, so a misread digit produces a number that fails its own arithmetic and can be thrown away rather than listed. The UPC is also what eBay's catalogue is meant to match a listing on. We have not had a disc file from here through a live upload yet, so treat that as the plan rather than a result.
Region is the quiet one. A region 2 DVD will not play on most players sold in the US, and a US buyer who did not notice will tell you so. If the case does not print a region 1 mark, say what it does print.
Open the case
An empty case is the most common way a disc listing goes wrong. A closed case looks the same with the disc in it or without, so no photograph of the outside can tell you, and a buyer who opens an empty case opens a return. Open every one. Photograph the disc if you can, because a clean disc in the photographs answers the scratch question before it is asked.
The other way round is fine, and common: a disc with no case. Say so in the title, Disc Only, so the buyer who wants the case keeps scrolling. The same goes for a CD booklet or a cassette's J-card: if it is there, show it, and if it is missing, say so.
A slipcover is worth a mention on a movie. Collectors care, and it is in the photographs anyway.
Condition is five words, and sealed is the highest
eBay offers the same five conditions for Movies & TV and for Music: Brand New, Like New, Very Good, Good and Acceptable. Sealed means Brand New, the rung with the least forgiving buyers, and a case that was opened and wrapped again is a dispute waiting to happen. If you are not sure the wrap is factory, it is not Brand New.
A cassette is not a CD. eBay files it in its own Cassettes category, next to CDs under Music, and a buyer looking for tapes looks there.
Media Mail is allowed, and that is the rule that works for you
USPS Media Mail is often the cheapest way to post a heavy disc or a box set, and unlike comics, magazines and video games, discs qualify. For a single CD under eight ounces, compare Ground Advantage. The Domestic Mail Manual lists sound recordings, and says that "Video recordings and player piano rolls are classified as sound recordings". DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs and cassettes all go.
Two cautions. Media Mail can be opened and inspected, and a parcel with something in it that does not qualify can be charged the difference, so a disc shipped with a poster or a game in the same box is not a Media Mail parcel any more. And a video game is never Media Mail, whatever it is on: USPS ruled on that in so many words, which the video games guide covers. The Media Mail guide has the whole list.
What eBay keeps
eBay's final value fee for Movies & TV and for Music (everything except vinyl records) is 15.3 percent of the total, store or no store, which is more than it takes on comics or records. On a four dollar CD with free shipping, the percentage is about 61 cents and the per-order fee adds another 30, so eBay keeps almost a quarter of the price. The free eBay fee calculator works out both for a disc before you price it.
How Point and Sell fits in
You shoot each case the same way, the front, the back, then the disc, and move to the next. Point and Sell groups the photographs by that count, reads the title, the format, the season, the studio, the rating, the year and the UPC off a movie, or the artist, the album, the label and the catalogue number off a CD or a cassette, checks the UPC against its check digit, and writes the title, the item specifics, the weight and the package. The case, disc and slipcover ticks come from what the photographs showed, a case with no disc in them is refused rather than listed, and every row is yours to check on one screen before anything is approved.
What it does not do, as of today. It does not price a disc: you type a starting price for the batch. It does not grade one, or read a scratch off a photograph: the condition is yours. It does not check a CD against Discogs yet, the way it checks a record. It does not do VHS, laserdiscs or lots of loose discs. Movies and CDs go to eBay only, not to Whatnot, Shopify or Discogs. And no disc file from here has been through a live eBay upload yet, which the file itself says until one has.
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Sources
The five conditions are eBay's item conditions for Movies & TV and Music as its help pages list them. The category names and the item specifics were read off eBay's DVDs & Blu-ray Discs, CDs and Cassettes category pages and live listings on 27 September 2026. The Media Mail quote is the Domestic Mail Manual, section 173.4.1; the video games ruling is USPS Customer Support Ruling PS-334. The fee is eBay's help pages 4822 and 4809, read the same day. The example titles are written by the product's own title builder on the day this page is served. What Point and Sell does is its code on the day this was published.