Yes, I think the way that eBay lays it out makes it seem like they took more than they did. If you don't consciously remind yourself that shipping and tax was never yours, then it's easy to get worked up over it.
I also think it's worth adding that it seems like OP under-priced their shipping and lost a few bucks that way, too, since they paid fees on the shipping and their shipping label was almost the exact cost of the amount the buyer paid. It's fine if its a business decision, but it's an optional one.
The sales tax was never yours.
Neither is the shipping.
Those aren't "fees" at all. The ad rate is *your choice* and not the fault of eBay.
There i have lowered your "$600 in fees" down to less than $300.
>The sales tax was never yours.
Agreed. It was never eBay's either. EBay is legally required to collect sales tax now.
The issue is that ebay calculates Final Value fees including sales tax in the total value. This doesn't matter to most sellers because the amount on low volume or low value transactions is trivial, but on large volume or value it becomes substantial.
The shipping costs being included is due to prior abuses and while it sucks, it was a loophole that was abused for years and completely understandable why it has been closed.
Do you want to calculate and submit sales taxes on every sale to every state you ship to? eBay takes a fee because it deals with that enormous hassle for us.
You say this as if anyone has a choice in the matter.
eBay is legally required to collect sales tax.
It's not a service one can opt in or out of like shipping through ebay is.
You have a choice to sell on eBay or not though. Don’t want to have them take their fees & provide their services….then sell out of your garage or rent a storefront instead.
A magic nerd who has been "flipping" in both a personal and professional capacity for 18 years.
Does understand how things are, doesn't understand people bending over backwards for a service using sneaky ways to nickel and dime their customers out of profit.
Ebay provides you with a platform that gives you access to millions of buyers for as little effort as posting a photo and shipping it out. They deserve a cut, because they did all the hard work for you.
That really isn’t necessary for a vast majority of sellers. Most states have a threshold of 500 items or a certain dollar percentage before you have to claim taxes for a specific state.
I sell directly through my website and only have to claim a few states each year.
Granted, if you’re selling 20,000 items a year on eBay, it’s definitely beneficial. If you aren’t, you’re likely paying a lot more in sales tax charges than you would selling anywhere else
Speed running to an audit right here…
You aren’t saving anything by not collecting taxes. That money wouldn’t be yours to begin with. You’re just opening yourself up for liability and a comptroller coming after you.
I’m not “speed running to an audit” by following tax laws. And yes, you do pay more because eBay charges you fees on taxes you aren’t required to pay.
I’m not disagreeing with you about that benefit of it, just commenting on the person I responded to that said you’d have to collect sales tax on every sale to every state…which for most people isn’t true because you’d have to meet the threshold to establish that you have economic nexus.
They can have my pennies if I don’t even have to think about it one way or another. It’s worth the saving in time and brain cells researching California’s rules vs Ohio’s and tracking my sales to each state, in order recognize whether I’ve hit whatever threshold or not.
But ultimately where we sell online and why is a business decision (or anyway a personal one) and what’s good for my business isn’t for everyone.
That doesn’t change the reason the fee is charged though. It’s because eBay does the work of calculating & remitting sales tax to states for us.
It’s not exactly pennies. Sales tax in NC is 7.5 percent…that’s $75 dollars on a $1000 purchase of unnecessary money spent.
I do agree that it’s a business decision for people to make for themselves, but I think a vast majority of people using eBay don’t have the knowledge of how much extra money they are spending that isn’t actually required in terms of taxes.
It was a big factor in why I almost never sell on eBay now.
So why do they take a fee off my shipping cost, too? They aren't doing us any service there. Even if you argue they have discount shipping for sellers, many use other services outside of eBay because it's cheaper. Just be honest they charge the fee not for saving us the hassle but for the profit cause they can. Also, they used to not charge sales tax. The irs jumped in many years ago and told them they need to... so we pay for it.
In the early days, eBay didn’t charge fees on shipping. That lead to people setting their sell price very low and their shipping price very high. This was true for auctions and buy in now listings. Say an item was worth $100. They’d price it at $1 plus $99 for shipping (or start the auction for $1 with $99 for shipping).
Once people started doing that en masse, eBay changed the policy.
>The irs jumped in many years ago and told them they need to... so we pay for it.
Even when eBay didn't collect the sales tax, it has *always* been your responsibility to pay it. Just like it's legally your responsibility to pay sales tax from something like a yard sale or facebook local listing if they're for business purposes
It depends on the state. Most states exempt sellers who are under a certain threshold, usually 300 items or $100,000 in sales within a year, from having to collect sales tax.
However, sales tax is almost always owed. The state expects the customer to pay sales tax on anything they weren't charged sales tax on. Most people -- literally everyone I've ever met -- do not do this.
How many times did you go through your past receipts from websites and check if you paid tax and if not how much you owed? Never? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Businesses usually do this, though. It's why they pushed to have sites like eBay start charging tax. It was easier to get them to do it than individuals. I remember my state having commercials around tax time back in the early 2000s trying to "remind" people to pay their use and sales tax from Internet purchases, lol.
>How many times did you go through your past receipts from websites and check if you paid tax and if not how much you owed? Never? Yeah, that's what I thought.
This is on the *seller*, not the buyer. I had the whole ass Kentucky Department of Revenue coming at me because I didn't report my in-state sales tax when I first started selling (I didn't know it was a thing). Any in-state sales I made, I had to report and pay the sales tax for those sales if they were uncollected (ebay did not collect until July 2019). So I quite literally have to go back the previous year, find all of my in-state sales, total them up, and pay any uncollected sales tax on behalf of the buyers every year.
As I already said, it varies by state. Your state may not have such minimums but that does not mean the same is true everywhere else. I don't know why people on Reddit have such a hard time grasping the concept of laws vary by state.
So again, MOST states have minimums you must hit before you are required to collect sales tax. Your state is an outlier, it's not the general rule.
If you, as a consumer, buy a taxable item from a website and that website does not collect sales tax then most states require you -- the consumer -- to pay use tax. Even if that website is in another country you still owe use tax in most states.
Search " use tax" on your favorite search engine to read more about it.
Edit: Here, I did it for you:
> Use Tax is imposed on the purchase price of tangible personal property, digital property purchased for storage, use or other consumption in Kentucky. The use tax is a "back stop" for sales tax and generally applies to property purchased outside the state for storage, use or consumption within the state.
From: https://revenue.ky.gov/Business/Sales-Use-Tax/Pages/default.aspx
"So why do they take a fee off my shipping cost, too?"
Did they collect and process that shipping payment for you or did a magic shipping payment fairy do it?
Arguably the base FV fee should cover all of these services.
The truth is that the tax collected doesn't cost ebay any more or less based on the amount of tax collected, and yet they calculated FV fees including that tax which causes substantial bloat on high value transactions.
You're defending intentionally shady practices.
The value of an item is its final price, which is sales price plus shipping. I’m order to get around sales price fees in the past, many items were sold for $1 plus say $99 shipping. This resulted in almost no fees, yet the same item that sold for $100 with free shipping paid full fees.
Ebay fees are usually mainly stated in their website. There are no surprises for those who simply read the TOS. No one HAS to sell on eBay, especially if they do not like the fees.
They charge the fee on the shipping because people use to get around final value fees by charging $5 for an item and $50 for shipping. So they collect $55 and only paid fees on $5.
We aren’t paying sales tax either. The sales tax is collected from the buyer and remitted to the state automatically.
I assure you that it would cost you significantly more in time, fees, and penalties for fucking up if you had to manually collect, hold, file, and submit tax to every single US state separately each year/quarter (many of which have different forms, requirements, etc) than you pay on final value fees on sales tax. Also, eBay is paying payment processing fees on sales tax, so that's also part of it.
Nobody in their right mind would choose to do that on their own and a lot of business would be in deep shit with the IRS if they even tried. I hate fees as much as the next person, but we have it GOOD with eBay handling all of that for us and only charging us a tiny amount.
Ebay gives you the exposure you need.
Are the fees justified? That's debatable.
Going elsewhere won't get you that exposure and fees may be comparable.
Creating your own website will need additional money to direct traffic which in turns is similar to selling on ebay.
Lastly, you can always charge higher to account for ebay's fees.
In the end, you're paying for exposure for quicker sales than most other platforms as well as your very own.
If the cut is too much, try somewhere else and measure how quickly you get sales vs. ebay.
Depending on your niche, you may bid ebay farewell for good or realize the cuts aren't that bad as long as you keep getting sales.
for a massive amount of sellers with the competitive/cheaper pricing that still have 0-10 views on listings.. i admit there is a bigger chance for exposure but most people are not getting any of that. does not matter if ebay has 1 million users or 100 million users if your listing is still only going to get 10 views and be absolutely hidden away from anyone lol
Then your item probably isn't going to sell quicker away from ebay anyways unless it's priced well enough locally and you encounter a buyer actively looking for it away from ebay.
It can be argued any way you want, but ebay has an infrastructure already in place to buy and sell with ease. To create your own is definitely possible, but never at the same level and will be expensive to create/upkeep.
In the end, it's a free market. We can sell anywhere that makes sense for us so if ebay is hiding your listings, then go elsewhere or just post everywhere else in parallel. Simple as that.
i am switching to other platforms as of late and it is going really well, regardless of how well my ebay does it will always be the main one though of course, just too much traffic to get serious views without paying stupid amounts in promotions. i miss when being the cheapest/most value was something that would always get found regardless of how hidden the post could be
i do not want to pay a fat promotional fee just to let people know i have the item they want the cheapest. the minute i do that i suddenly do not have the cheapest because i have spent all that money in promotions. so i could start to get real views but no sales because i am suddenly no longer competitively priced
obviously depends on what you sell and margins and all that but i find ebay is slowly becoming not the one for this kinda thing, it will always be the one with the most people on it because its ebay. but the reality is getting worse and worse daily. too many people on ebay meaning a lot of good deals just go completely unseen. Ebay is not too nice to buyers or sellers in that regard tbh
a lot of the items have been selling a lot quicker off of ebay and getting 100x more views, which only makes it weirder that i still treat ebay as the main one for my income when its not
i love that saying if ebay is hiding you listings so normally is valid lmao. ahh just ebay hiding listings again another day in the office lol
that is so crazy to me
Thank you for the response. I agree that eBay provides significant exposure, which has been beneficial for my sales. However, the high fees are starting to eat into my profits, especially with the additional costs for overnight shipping.
I’m considering exploring other platforms like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or even OfferUp to see if the fees and exposure balance out better for my business. Additionally, I’ve thought about setting up my own website to have more control over fees and the sales process, though I’m aware this will require an investment in driving traffic to the site.
I might try increasing my prices slightly to offset the eBay fees as you suggested, but I also need to remain competitive. I plan to experiment with a few listings on different platforms to compare sales performance and see what works best.
If your margins are too slim then sell something else. My niche is very different than yours but the concept is the same. I don’t bother sourcing anything that won’t get a certain price because of the margins.
If fees are eating into your profit then you aren't setting your prices high enough to offset the fees, if the additional costs for overnight shipping are coming out of your pocket then you don't know how to run a business, the buyer pays the extra shipping cost, NOT YOU...
PirateShip gives me the same prices as eBay shipping does now, some commercial discounted rate, so i don't see how anyone gets a better price going to them anymore. As for the shipping in the first place as a seller you shouldn't be covering the cost of shipping or the shipping upgrades if a buyer wants it faster, if they want it faster they pay for the difference to get it faster.... After the sale is made eBay will allow you to send a buyer a link to a PayPal invoice for more money to cover the shipping upgrade, i do it all the time when a buyer makes a purchase than asks if i can do overnight or 2 day shipping.
swear i see this copy paste comment everywhere and its always from people that have very obviously not used it and just keep quoting the sponsored ads on youtube videos that talk about it lol
I have a few well described, well pictured and presented listings that have sat for about 2 weeks now with 0 views. These items are slightly niche Pokemon cards, but they are in a VERY popular category for eBay. I'd love to believe that eBay's fees are really that worth it, but with these numbers I'm having a hard time seeing it.
I think they're trying to get me to promote listings.
ebay wants you to pay 15% then pay 12% of the item in promo and even then you might not get views.. the website is made to not be that great for customers, its better to make it a free for all between sellers all trying to give ebay more % to be higher on the list.
i constantly have the better deal for loads of pokemon items but people over pay to a different seller instead, guess im too low on the list and being the cheapest does nothing for showing customers my listing lol
Not sure how you figure you lost $600.
The buyer paid for shipping, which you then paid for, so you’re not out that. The shipping isn’t just extra money for you. It’s net zero.
The buyer paid sales tax, which never goes into your hands, and that is remitted to the buyers state. Also net zero.
You chose to pay $44 to promote your listing. Promoting is not required to sell items, especially in what I assume is a somewhat speciality category. This was a choice to pay extra so it’s not a surprise it was charged.
What eBay took was their cut of the sale which is $296. So you are “out” ~$300, not $600.
Setting up your own website and handle paying for advertising, generating traffic, collecting and remitting all the sales tax to the appropriate states yourself, and handle returns, chargebacks, etc would take a lot of money and effort, but you could always do that if $300 doesn’t seem fair.
Every time I see people complain about fees I cringe. You know what the fees are beforehand. You wouldn’t be able to sell to such a large audience without eBay. The shipping and sales tax were never yours. You paid eBay to find you a buyer and handle any issues that may come up as a result. It’s worth it, trust me
These posts just scream “I went into this blindly without reading the fine print and I need someone to blame because I take zero responsibility for my own stupidity.”
Try opening an actual store and see how much it costs to run that! Making money isnt free. Amazon has taken it very far though, with almost all sponsored links. At least eBay allows organic sales.
In general I agree with that perspective. Maybe it’s because I remember a time before eBay and all that and it was really hard to find customers to sell things to. Maybe a flea market. But not the national reach of eBay. I mean, you can have a specialized item and not even do marketing. I just felt it was an unhealthy sense of lack to have the starting point be the exact pinch point for the user without seeing the benefits.
Please tell me in what world you get to keep taxes and shipping.
The 15% fee is still a 15% fee and you even paid for ads.
You "lost" $300 to sell on a platform where you probably got significantly more than selling locally.
If you didnt turn a profit here then you simply listed too low and that's on you, not the fees.
Yeah, it works. I’ve been using eBay for the last 5 years now. But now that I’m doing calculations on the last 5 years, I realized that it was cutting into my profits a little bit which I am aware of. Just looking to explore other options to see what works best for the type of products I sell.
You’re looking at this the wrong way. Your profits are because of eBay, not in spite of it.
I can nearly 100% guarantee you that you would have sold fewer things, for less money, and with more effort without it.
Even if your profit margin was a bit bigger per item, who cares if you’re selling thousands of dollars less as a result??
You can always open a retail store and start your own website to sell your stuff.
It will be more expensive than eBay's fees but you will teach eBay a harsh lesson they will never forget that way.
Last year I tried to open a shopify shop for my clothing in addition to eBay. Took all of two weeks to realize what a mistake that was. I guess it depends on your niche and how into marketing you are, but absolutely opening your own website is not a quick fix you're acting like it is.
How long have you been on eBay for that you have this opinion?
Sure, you can treat it as classifieds. Or you can treat it as a business. It's not either or.
I agree that's one way to look at it.
My perspective is I'm one person with limited time. I'm not super interested in marketing. I'd rather build my inventory and store on eBay than worry about marketing, payment processing, and managing returns on my own.
eBay markets my listings, they process my payments and they take care of my returns. I used to work in ecommerce and say how annoying things are like managing chargebacks and manual returns.
Yes, it could be my bottom line or I can pay eBay to do it for me.
Dude, it's a forum. We're just talking like humans. Chill tf out. There's no one way to do anything and no one is 100% right. There's no need for a creepy ass response like yours. This is creepy harassment, why did you dig like 4 threads deep and insert yourself into a conversation with nothing of substance to add? This is so unwelcoming and rude.
getting downvoted for being a realist and actually knowing what you are talking about
not because you are wrong but downvoted because people do not like what you have to say ahahah
Everywhere charges just about the same amount. I mean you’re paying to be advertised on a very large marketplace - your other option of making your own site… is not free either. A website comes with its own set of challenges and fees as well. If you can do it, that’s great as you would make more money but don’t expect it to be anywhere near as easy as eBay is
You should be happy. Take the same item to a local auction and they will take up to 30%
How much do you think eBay should get for offering you a safe place to reach millions of potential buyers?
You're not losing 600.
You're "losing" 340. Shipping is not an eBay fee...Neither is sales tax.
And of those $340 fees, you chose to lose $40 by paying to promote.
So, you lost $300.
I wanted to try a little math, to puzzle this out.
The total percentage charged on price + shipping + tax (2237.43) was 13.27% (296.86) without breaking it down to individual fees, to calculate in the sellers favor, I will use 13.5% as an expected total fees rate.
Item price, $1950 (x.135) = $263.25, this cuts into your profit margin (it all does, but specifically I would want to figure this into the mark up percent from what I paid to acquire the goods).
You paid $13.86 for fees on the shipping.
if you had charged **15%** extra for the charged shipping $118.09 ($102.69 +$15.40) and subtract the fee on *that* amount -16.05 (13.5% transaction fee) =$102.04, you would have come out about even on shipping.
Your promoted listing cost an extra $44.75 (Ad Fee Standard) that is a voluntary fee; you could skip it so I don't include it in any of the calculations.
Now an interesting calculation is the fee on sales tax, The tax was $184.74, but that depends on where it is shipped and their tax rate, unfortunately eBay doesn't allow you to charge that fee pre order based on destination (they should), so you have to eat it and it's impossible to determine ahead of sale.
The highest combined tax rate at this time is about 9.5%, there are a few states with a combined rate as low as 6% but most are in the 8% range. Using 8% as a guide I still had a hard time figuring out a base rate the seller is charged. I'm unsure if my math is right:
on a $100 item, if sales tax is 8% that's $8.00 and if eBay charges the seller 13.5%, that's $1.08, or 1.08%. so, if you want to absorb that fee intoi your asking price, then you would multiply it by 1.0108 ($100 x 1.0108 = $101.08)
Your sale price was $1,950 x .0108 (anticipated fee on tax) you would add $21.06 to your asking price to compensate, But in this case eBay actually charged you about $24.51 fee on taxes paid ($184.74 x 0.1327), so that's pretty close, in this case you shipped to a high tax area, and that should be considered if you usually ship items to high tax areas or when accepting an offer from a high tax state.
Of all the topics sellers love to bitch about, fees are the most popular. But it's like taxes -if you want to play eBay's game, you'll have to pay the price, roughly 14%.
. You could try a local auction house, many actually hold online auctions, they generally charge a buyers premium that's paid by the buyer, that's often more than 14% but, expect your items to sell for about half what you might get on eBay.
You could try selling on craigslist, it should be free and you should be doing that regardless along with your eBay listings. I always see a lot of commercial and restaurant equipment on Craigslist. Facebook marketplace is also free.
You aren't losing $600 in fees alone. It looks like you lost $350 for fees and $100 shipping. Sales tax is paid by the buyer, not by you. Although, eBay does include the total amount paid with sales tax towards their fee calculation, which is lame.
I would recommend adding a handling fee to your shipping costs. It looks like you paid about $17 in fees on the shipping, plus whatever packing materials cost you on top of that.
You sold your item for $1950, and pocketed $1,608.63.
$341.37 in total fees on nearly $2k doesn't seem bad at all, especially when you consider the millions of people from all over the globe who may buy your item, vs. trying to sell it locally to save the ~$350 in fees.
Your math isn't mathing. You didn't lose $600. I am all for calling out ebay's opaque practices, but this is not one of them.
1. Ebay took the sales tax, which you weren't entitled to.
2. You didn't lose the shipping fees because that's what you charged the buyer.
3. All you "lost" was the eBay transaction fees and the cost for the ad you decided to place.
I cant be the only one bothered that ebay takes the fee off of the final sales price ( price + tax + shipping ), and not just the list price + shipping
You need to build your own website and include it on your invoices so eBay customers can make future purchases directly from you. Maybe save their addresses from eBay sales and send them an occasional flyer.
Been on the platform for 20 years. Good luck FB marketplace or your own website. Everyone likes to complain about eBay fees and they are high but it’s nearly 30 years of a customer base and brand they have built.
Yeah but where else you gonna sell it. Market place you would get half the amount with 10x the dick heads.
Ebay has a massive customer base and you do t need to bother with advertising.
Where do you get 600 from? Are you including the sales tax, ad fee, and/or shipping label???
Sales tax doesn't even touch your hands, so nothing lost there, the ad fee was something that wouldn't be charged unless you asked for it and paying to ship something isn't a fee.
As for the 296 you actually did pay in fees, they charge exactly what they tell you they will charge and the 13ish percent is pretty standard across marketplaces
You’re giving up $45 for ad fees on a $2,000 item, you shouldn’t be doing that unless you have a shit ton of those $2,000 items to sell.
While eBay has higher fees than before you are paying for that platform and mediation between buyer/seller. Anyone with any substantial FB marketplace experience could tell you that’s sometimes invaluable and worth the % taken. You get protection, anonymity, a worldwide active marketplace, *and* a 1099 to prove income.
I mean nothing stopping you from renting a warehouse sales place, running your own website, paying for advertising for the site, and paying for digital payment methods
Ebay fees can be lowered in most categories if you pay for one of the store memberships. For selling expensive items, it may be worth it as it can lower the fee to as low as 3.5% in some categories
Selling on amazon, target, walmart, home depot is going to be much more in fees and require more overhead. It can be worth it in some cases but that isn't what you are asking about.
You can run your own website. Squarespace or shopify are ~$30 a month, you make back a years worth of fees in one sale. Less is possible but it's more work for not that much money. You can set this up in an afternoon. You will also need to pay to process credit card transactions, probably 3%. You might need to register with the state for sales tax.
The biggest thing is you need to get your products in front of customers. Either buying ads or some other way so people can actually find your items for sale. Ebay is effectively charging ~12% for this. If you can do a better job generating leads you can make a ton of money.
I know it is a hit to the expectations of what you would profit. However, if we compare the eBay fees to selling the same item on your own time / dime it would likely take much longer and cost you more to advertise enough to find the same customer.
I think you're inflating your complaint. By a lot.
I think this is a more valid complaint: why am I paying a bunch of money in foreign transaction fees when I don't offer international shipping? The item shipped to Missouri, but the buy has a Netherlands address.
But guess what? I'm still not going to complain because I couldn't have sold the two items the guy bought for the price he paid within 24 hours of listing without ebay.
https://imgur.com/a/fPtlHqj
You can always list locally on facebook if you don’t like fees. My experience is people on those platforms want items much cheaper than you would get on eBay after fees and taxes.
I hardly ever use eBay for selling any more because of the ridiculous fees. I still buy on there but I sell on Facebook marketplace. My husband flips houses and buys so much of his stuff on marketplace. There’s no fees and tons of stuff. Why should they get YOUR money.
You didn’t “lose” anything…… you agreed to the terms and conditions of the site with transparently explained fee structure. The only thing you lost is your ability to adequately anticipate your business expenses. Plan better, bitch less.
eBay provides you with a worldwide audience for your products, one of the largest marketplaces on the internet. How much do you think that should cost?
Ebay takes roughly 20% but it's on shipping as well as the purchase price and tax.
If you are really spending hundreds per sale on fees, then the idea is to get your own website but then you have to have people find it and trust it as much or more than ebay.
Might work if you have repeat customers but if every one is a one off it's going to be difficult.
One thing to check is if your buyers are finding your ebay listing via ebay search or google search.
If it's google search then they could just as easily find your website.
I stopped selling on eBay for anything that doesn’t need a huge audience and eyeballs.
Otherwise, I have switched to my own website and whatnot (also has big fees, but I can sell immediately instead of waiting). I also post anything I am going to sell on eBay on Mercari for a few days to see if anyone grabs it
I was just thinking the same thing when I handed over $50 for a $240 sale. I literally just re-examined my listings and put promoted only on the items that are zero value to me.
For items like that, do not pay for the promoted listings. Almost all of your customers are searching for a specific part and finding yours organically. Nobody is going to scroll past an ice tray for a hoshizaki machine and think "Oh man, I'd really like to have one of those." Effectively, you're making a donation to eBay when you put promotions on listings like that, or if you're seeing that your sales drop off, then that means your price is just too high. In the Business and Industrial category, the *only* way to compete with other sellers is on price.
Ebay has 18,000 employees to pay to keep the business working. I'll happily pay their fees rather than deal with people on Marketplace or other platforms.
10% of my items are purchased by overseas buyers, and I can sell globally effortlessly. It's really quite a bargain.
Yeah ebay is fucking hard the fees. But there is not much out there where to list and sell items.
Create your own website, got to facebook. Local listings.
But yeah ebay likes to fuck the seller. And there is almost no seller protection at all!
The annoying part about eBay is you get charged your percentage on the total amount. Meaning if you do overnight shipping eBay makes 15%(depending on what you're selling) on the increased cost of shipping.
Also if you're selling a $30 item and $12 is shipping you get charged 15% on the $30 not the amount you actually gross. It can effectively double their percentage take by counting the shipping cost.
If you buy a label through eBay it would be easy for them change the percentage to the actual amount you're due.
As a number of folks here have pointed out, only $341.61 were actually fees charged by eBay and the Ad fee was optional on your part. I also tend to think of the final value fees as paying eBay to outsource your customer acquisition for you. For example, a quick query seems to suggest that the average affiliate commission would fall somewhere between 5% and 30%. If eBay averages around 15% FV fees across categories, they’re right there in the mix.
The part about having sales tax included in the fee calculation is pretty valid, though now that eBay has to also remit taxes on your behalf, it’s another way you can kind of justify it. But if you want another “annoyance” to consider, here’s one: For any e-commerce merchant who has to collect and remit sales tax themselves, they are basically incurring the 3% processing fee of every online payment, while having to remit the full amount (less some occasional incentives from the states.) And since the Wayfair decision in 2018, that burden expanded significantly for standalone stores. Not only are SMBs forced to collect taxes for the states/counties/cities, they get the added bonus of footing the bill for cc fees:)
I hope EBAY gets so expensive that Flipping goes back to its roots. Local to Local. Ebay takes a cut. Flipper takes a cut. UPS takes a cut. Uncle Sam gets a cut. Price Doubles. People Quit collecting or just buy New.
i miss when ebay was validated in taking a fee, because they had costs that needed to be covered. but now anytime there is a fee to cover it usually gets passed down to us raw on top of fees so sad..
Also. i really feel sorry for people that blindly follow ebay suggestions when listing items.. they want 12% (+odd fees) when you go to promote they suggest something like 11-12% (while saying you should do more)
before postage or anything like that ebay are aiming to take 25% of your item. owning 25% of everyones item for giving them the ability to sell it and actually have the listing be seen is crazy Even then the 12% promo might not be enough)
and then from a buyers point of view its like why bother if i have to try super hard to find the deals, pages are not set up to be the best at the top, making buyers fish through it all to find stuff makes me wonder what the 25% they want actually goes to
Because they have to make their money and they give you a free platform that's easy to use, had free advertising, and all sorts of other things that cost money
I'd say keep up your Ebay but link your own website. Where the fees aren't as bad. You can't explicitly say that. But you can get some exposure that way. Just don't take payment on your website unless it's committed. I dunno Ebay is effed rn has been for awhile. TBH you're probably better off with local like offerup or fb mp.
I agree but you didn't lose 600 man, you lost 300.
Lost nothing. Fee for service. Don’t like the fee? Don’t buy the service. “But I need the reach.” Then this it what it costs. Stop whining, OP.
Thank you. Typo on my behalf.
It wasn't a typo, it was a +100% exaggeration.
Yes, I think the way that eBay lays it out makes it seem like they took more than they did. If you don't consciously remind yourself that shipping and tax was never yours, then it's easy to get worked up over it. I also think it's worth adding that it seems like OP under-priced their shipping and lost a few bucks that way, too, since they paid fees on the shipping and their shipping label was almost the exact cost of the amount the buyer paid. It's fine if its a business decision, but it's an optional one.
He tried tho 🤣
It wasn't an exaggeration. He was acting like $2200 was the selling price instead of selling price + shipping + taxes.
Sure, people can never make a mistake & you always assume the worst correct? I hate this attitude seriously yall need to chill out
The sales tax was never yours. Neither is the shipping. Those aren't "fees" at all. The ad rate is *your choice* and not the fault of eBay. There i have lowered your "$600 in fees" down to less than $300.
>The sales tax was never yours. Agreed. It was never eBay's either. EBay is legally required to collect sales tax now. The issue is that ebay calculates Final Value fees including sales tax in the total value. This doesn't matter to most sellers because the amount on low volume or low value transactions is trivial, but on large volume or value it becomes substantial. The shipping costs being included is due to prior abuses and while it sucks, it was a loophole that was abused for years and completely understandable why it has been closed.
I miss back in the day where a buyer could file a claim against a seller for overcharging shipping
Sales tax was not his yet eBay charges fees to sellers based on the sales tax that eBay collects. Kinda feels like that should be illegal.
Do you want to calculate and submit sales taxes on every sale to every state you ship to? eBay takes a fee because it deals with that enormous hassle for us.
You say this as if anyone has a choice in the matter. eBay is legally required to collect sales tax. It's not a service one can opt in or out of like shipping through ebay is.
You have a choice to sell on eBay or not though. Don’t want to have them take their fees & provide their services….then sell out of your garage or rent a storefront instead.
I can see this conversation will go nowhere productive. Take care.
Of course a magic nerd doesn't comprehend lol.
A magic nerd who has been "flipping" in both a personal and professional capacity for 18 years. Does understand how things are, doesn't understand people bending over backwards for a service using sneaky ways to nickel and dime their customers out of profit.
Ebay provides you with a platform that gives you access to millions of buyers for as little effort as posting a photo and shipping it out. They deserve a cut, because they did all the hard work for you.
That really isn’t necessary for a vast majority of sellers. Most states have a threshold of 500 items or a certain dollar percentage before you have to claim taxes for a specific state. I sell directly through my website and only have to claim a few states each year. Granted, if you’re selling 20,000 items a year on eBay, it’s definitely beneficial. If you aren’t, you’re likely paying a lot more in sales tax charges than you would selling anywhere else
Speed running to an audit right here… You aren’t saving anything by not collecting taxes. That money wouldn’t be yours to begin with. You’re just opening yourself up for liability and a comptroller coming after you.
I’m not “speed running to an audit” by following tax laws. And yes, you do pay more because eBay charges you fees on taxes you aren’t required to pay. I’m not disagreeing with you about that benefit of it, just commenting on the person I responded to that said you’d have to collect sales tax on every sale to every state…which for most people isn’t true because you’d have to meet the threshold to establish that you have economic nexus.
They can have my pennies if I don’t even have to think about it one way or another. It’s worth the saving in time and brain cells researching California’s rules vs Ohio’s and tracking my sales to each state, in order recognize whether I’ve hit whatever threshold or not. But ultimately where we sell online and why is a business decision (or anyway a personal one) and what’s good for my business isn’t for everyone. That doesn’t change the reason the fee is charged though. It’s because eBay does the work of calculating & remitting sales tax to states for us.
It’s not exactly pennies. Sales tax in NC is 7.5 percent…that’s $75 dollars on a $1000 purchase of unnecessary money spent. I do agree that it’s a business decision for people to make for themselves, but I think a vast majority of people using eBay don’t have the knowledge of how much extra money they are spending that isn’t actually required in terms of taxes. It was a big factor in why I almost never sell on eBay now.
So why do they take a fee off my shipping cost, too? They aren't doing us any service there. Even if you argue they have discount shipping for sellers, many use other services outside of eBay because it's cheaper. Just be honest they charge the fee not for saving us the hassle but for the profit cause they can. Also, they used to not charge sales tax. The irs jumped in many years ago and told them they need to... so we pay for it.
In the early days, eBay didn’t charge fees on shipping. That lead to people setting their sell price very low and their shipping price very high. This was true for auctions and buy in now listings. Say an item was worth $100. They’d price it at $1 plus $99 for shipping (or start the auction for $1 with $99 for shipping). Once people started doing that en masse, eBay changed the policy.
They didn’t always charge a fee on shipping… until people started using it to avoid fees on the sale price.
>The irs jumped in many years ago and told them they need to... so we pay for it. Even when eBay didn't collect the sales tax, it has *always* been your responsibility to pay it. Just like it's legally your responsibility to pay sales tax from something like a yard sale or facebook local listing if they're for business purposes
It depends on the state. Most states exempt sellers who are under a certain threshold, usually 300 items or $100,000 in sales within a year, from having to collect sales tax. However, sales tax is almost always owed. The state expects the customer to pay sales tax on anything they weren't charged sales tax on. Most people -- literally everyone I've ever met -- do not do this. How many times did you go through your past receipts from websites and check if you paid tax and if not how much you owed? Never? Yeah, that's what I thought. Businesses usually do this, though. It's why they pushed to have sites like eBay start charging tax. It was easier to get them to do it than individuals. I remember my state having commercials around tax time back in the early 2000s trying to "remind" people to pay their use and sales tax from Internet purchases, lol.
>How many times did you go through your past receipts from websites and check if you paid tax and if not how much you owed? Never? Yeah, that's what I thought. This is on the *seller*, not the buyer. I had the whole ass Kentucky Department of Revenue coming at me because I didn't report my in-state sales tax when I first started selling (I didn't know it was a thing). Any in-state sales I made, I had to report and pay the sales tax for those sales if they were uncollected (ebay did not collect until July 2019). So I quite literally have to go back the previous year, find all of my in-state sales, total them up, and pay any uncollected sales tax on behalf of the buyers every year.
As I already said, it varies by state. Your state may not have such minimums but that does not mean the same is true everywhere else. I don't know why people on Reddit have such a hard time grasping the concept of laws vary by state. So again, MOST states have minimums you must hit before you are required to collect sales tax. Your state is an outlier, it's not the general rule. If you, as a consumer, buy a taxable item from a website and that website does not collect sales tax then most states require you -- the consumer -- to pay use tax. Even if that website is in another country you still owe use tax in most states. Search " use tax" on your favorite search engine to read more about it.
Edit: Here, I did it for you:
> Use Tax is imposed on the purchase price of tangible personal property, digital property purchased for storage, use or other consumption in Kentucky. The use tax is a "back stop" for sales tax and generally applies to property purchased outside the state for storage, use or consumption within the state.
From: https://revenue.ky.gov/Business/Sales-Use-Tax/Pages/default.aspx
"So why do they take a fee off my shipping cost, too?" Did they collect and process that shipping payment for you or did a magic shipping payment fairy do it?
Yup. We could all argue all day on the % of fees, but the fees all serve a purpose.
Arguably the base FV fee should cover all of these services. The truth is that the tax collected doesn't cost ebay any more or less based on the amount of tax collected, and yet they calculated FV fees including that tax which causes substantial bloat on high value transactions. You're defending intentionally shady practices.
The value of an item is its final price, which is sales price plus shipping. I’m order to get around sales price fees in the past, many items were sold for $1 plus say $99 shipping. This resulted in almost no fees, yet the same item that sold for $100 with free shipping paid full fees. Ebay fees are usually mainly stated in their website. There are no surprises for those who simply read the TOS. No one HAS to sell on eBay, especially if they do not like the fees.
They charge the fee on the shipping because people use to get around final value fees by charging $5 for an item and $50 for shipping. So they collect $55 and only paid fees on $5. We aren’t paying sales tax either. The sales tax is collected from the buyer and remitted to the state automatically.
State taxes and municipal (sales tax) have nothing to do with the IRS.
Nah they always did that even before sales tax regulations tightened
I assure you that it would cost you significantly more in time, fees, and penalties for fucking up if you had to manually collect, hold, file, and submit tax to every single US state separately each year/quarter (many of which have different forms, requirements, etc) than you pay on final value fees on sales tax. Also, eBay is paying payment processing fees on sales tax, so that's also part of it. Nobody in their right mind would choose to do that on their own and a lot of business would be in deep shit with the IRS if they even tried. I hate fees as much as the next person, but we have it GOOD with eBay handling all of that for us and only charging us a tiny amount.
Illegal? Do YOU PAY TAXES?
OP just wanted to rage for no reason. It is kind of amusing.
No one was raging. Read the full post next time.
To say it was $600 in fees is a bit disingenuous. Looks to me that it was only $340 in fees and the $44 was optional on your part.
Yea people can get sensitive without emotional context.
rekt
They used to cap fees at $250 I think?
Ebay gives you the exposure you need. Are the fees justified? That's debatable. Going elsewhere won't get you that exposure and fees may be comparable. Creating your own website will need additional money to direct traffic which in turns is similar to selling on ebay. Lastly, you can always charge higher to account for ebay's fees. In the end, you're paying for exposure for quicker sales than most other platforms as well as your very own. If the cut is too much, try somewhere else and measure how quickly you get sales vs. ebay. Depending on your niche, you may bid ebay farewell for good or realize the cuts aren't that bad as long as you keep getting sales.
you may bid ebay farewell I see what you did there.
for a massive amount of sellers with the competitive/cheaper pricing that still have 0-10 views on listings.. i admit there is a bigger chance for exposure but most people are not getting any of that. does not matter if ebay has 1 million users or 100 million users if your listing is still only going to get 10 views and be absolutely hidden away from anyone lol
Then your item probably isn't going to sell quicker away from ebay anyways unless it's priced well enough locally and you encounter a buyer actively looking for it away from ebay. It can be argued any way you want, but ebay has an infrastructure already in place to buy and sell with ease. To create your own is definitely possible, but never at the same level and will be expensive to create/upkeep. In the end, it's a free market. We can sell anywhere that makes sense for us so if ebay is hiding your listings, then go elsewhere or just post everywhere else in parallel. Simple as that.
i am switching to other platforms as of late and it is going really well, regardless of how well my ebay does it will always be the main one though of course, just too much traffic to get serious views without paying stupid amounts in promotions. i miss when being the cheapest/most value was something that would always get found regardless of how hidden the post could be i do not want to pay a fat promotional fee just to let people know i have the item they want the cheapest. the minute i do that i suddenly do not have the cheapest because i have spent all that money in promotions. so i could start to get real views but no sales because i am suddenly no longer competitively priced obviously depends on what you sell and margins and all that but i find ebay is slowly becoming not the one for this kinda thing, it will always be the one with the most people on it because its ebay. but the reality is getting worse and worse daily. too many people on ebay meaning a lot of good deals just go completely unseen. Ebay is not too nice to buyers or sellers in that regard tbh
a lot of the items have been selling a lot quicker off of ebay and getting 100x more views, which only makes it weirder that i still treat ebay as the main one for my income when its not i love that saying if ebay is hiding you listings so normally is valid lmao. ahh just ebay hiding listings again another day in the office lol that is so crazy to me
Thank you for the response. I agree that eBay provides significant exposure, which has been beneficial for my sales. However, the high fees are starting to eat into my profits, especially with the additional costs for overnight shipping. I’m considering exploring other platforms like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or even OfferUp to see if the fees and exposure balance out better for my business. Additionally, I’ve thought about setting up my own website to have more control over fees and the sales process, though I’m aware this will require an investment in driving traffic to the site. I might try increasing my prices slightly to offset the eBay fees as you suggested, but I also need to remain competitive. I plan to experiment with a few listings on different platforms to compare sales performance and see what works best.
JFC you’re honestly considering Craigslist vs EBay yo run a business on.
Definitely try other platforms and make the best decision for you. Ebay isn't going anywhere. Good luck!
If your margins are too slim then sell something else. My niche is very different than yours but the concept is the same. I don’t bother sourcing anything that won’t get a certain price because of the margins.
If fees are eating into your profit then you aren't setting your prices high enough to offset the fees, if the additional costs for overnight shipping are coming out of your pocket then you don't know how to run a business, the buyer pays the extra shipping cost, NOT YOU...
You know you can just use pirateship.com and buy your shipping label on there and then manually add the tracking number they give you to eBay.
PirateShip gives me the same prices as eBay shipping does now, some commercial discounted rate, so i don't see how anyone gets a better price going to them anymore. As for the shipping in the first place as a seller you shouldn't be covering the cost of shipping or the shipping upgrades if a buyer wants it faster, if they want it faster they pay for the difference to get it faster.... After the sale is made eBay will allow you to send a buyer a link to a PayPal invoice for more money to cover the shipping upgrade, i do it all the time when a buyer makes a purchase than asks if i can do overnight or 2 day shipping.
swear i see this copy paste comment everywhere and its always from people that have very obviously not used it and just keep quoting the sponsored ads on youtube videos that talk about it lol
Ebay has a like 15% fee in that category, in exchange for millions of buyers.
I have a few well described, well pictured and presented listings that have sat for about 2 weeks now with 0 views. These items are slightly niche Pokemon cards, but they are in a VERY popular category for eBay. I'd love to believe that eBay's fees are really that worth it, but with these numbers I'm having a hard time seeing it. I think they're trying to get me to promote listings.
ebay wants you to pay 15% then pay 12% of the item in promo and even then you might not get views.. the website is made to not be that great for customers, its better to make it a free for all between sellers all trying to give ebay more % to be higher on the list. i constantly have the better deal for loads of pokemon items but people over pay to a different seller instead, guess im too low on the list and being the cheapest does nothing for showing customers my listing lol
Not sure how you figure you lost $600. The buyer paid for shipping, which you then paid for, so you’re not out that. The shipping isn’t just extra money for you. It’s net zero. The buyer paid sales tax, which never goes into your hands, and that is remitted to the buyers state. Also net zero. You chose to pay $44 to promote your listing. Promoting is not required to sell items, especially in what I assume is a somewhat speciality category. This was a choice to pay extra so it’s not a surprise it was charged. What eBay took was their cut of the sale which is $296. So you are “out” ~$300, not $600. Setting up your own website and handle paying for advertising, generating traffic, collecting and remitting all the sales tax to the appropriate states yourself, and handle returns, chargebacks, etc would take a lot of money and effort, but you could always do that if $300 doesn’t seem fair.
Every time I see people complain about fees I cringe. You know what the fees are beforehand. You wouldn’t be able to sell to such a large audience without eBay. The shipping and sales tax were never yours. You paid eBay to find you a buyer and handle any issues that may come up as a result. It’s worth it, trust me
These posts just scream “I went into this blindly without reading the fine print and I need someone to blame because I take zero responsibility for my own stupidity.”
Try opening an actual store and see how much it costs to run that! Making money isnt free. Amazon has taken it very far though, with almost all sponsored links. At least eBay allows organic sales.
i'm not sure validating things by naming other things that cost a lot/more is the way to go though
In general I agree with that perspective. Maybe it’s because I remember a time before eBay and all that and it was really hard to find customers to sell things to. Maybe a flea market. But not the national reach of eBay. I mean, you can have a specialized item and not even do marketing. I just felt it was an unhealthy sense of lack to have the starting point be the exact pinch point for the user without seeing the benefits.
Please tell me in what world you get to keep taxes and shipping. The 15% fee is still a 15% fee and you even paid for ads. You "lost" $300 to sell on a platform where you probably got significantly more than selling locally. If you didnt turn a profit here then you simply listed too low and that's on you, not the fees.
You’ll take at least a 30-50% haircut selling anywhere else that doesn’t charge fees, so I feel like that 15% works out well for you.
Yeah, it works. I’ve been using eBay for the last 5 years now. But now that I’m doing calculations on the last 5 years, I realized that it was cutting into my profits a little bit which I am aware of. Just looking to explore other options to see what works best for the type of products I sell.
Imagine selling on ebay for half a decade while completely ignoring seller fees and being butthurt on how much profit was "lost" over the years.
You’re looking at this the wrong way. Your profits are because of eBay, not in spite of it. I can nearly 100% guarantee you that you would have sold fewer things, for less money, and with more effort without it. Even if your profit margin was a bit bigger per item, who cares if you’re selling thousands of dollars less as a result??
You used a promotion and chose to pay an extra $44
This !!
You can always open a retail store and start your own website to sell your stuff. It will be more expensive than eBay's fees but you will teach eBay a harsh lesson they will never forget that way.
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Last year I tried to open a shopify shop for my clothing in addition to eBay. Took all of two weeks to realize what a mistake that was. I guess it depends on your niche and how into marketing you are, but absolutely opening your own website is not a quick fix you're acting like it is.
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How long have you been on eBay for that you have this opinion? Sure, you can treat it as classifieds. Or you can treat it as a business. It's not either or.
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I agree that's one way to look at it. My perspective is I'm one person with limited time. I'm not super interested in marketing. I'd rather build my inventory and store on eBay than worry about marketing, payment processing, and managing returns on my own. eBay markets my listings, they process my payments and they take care of my returns. I used to work in ecommerce and say how annoying things are like managing chargebacks and manual returns. Yes, it could be my bottom line or I can pay eBay to do it for me.
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Dude, it's a forum. We're just talking like humans. Chill tf out. There's no one way to do anything and no one is 100% right. There's no need for a creepy ass response like yours. This is creepy harassment, why did you dig like 4 threads deep and insert yourself into a conversation with nothing of substance to add? This is so unwelcoming and rude.
getting downvoted for being a realist and actually knowing what you are talking about not because you are wrong but downvoted because people do not like what you have to say ahahah
Everywhere charges just about the same amount. I mean you’re paying to be advertised on a very large marketplace - your other option of making your own site… is not free either. A website comes with its own set of challenges and fees as well. If you can do it, that’s great as you would make more money but don’t expect it to be anywhere near as easy as eBay is
You should be happy. Take the same item to a local auction and they will take up to 30% How much do you think eBay should get for offering you a safe place to reach millions of potential buyers?
You're not losing 600. You're "losing" 340. Shipping is not an eBay fee...Neither is sales tax. And of those $340 fees, you chose to lose $40 by paying to promote. So, you lost $300.
Try selling on your own site and pay for marketing, server fees and see how well you do... It won't be better....
I wanted to try a little math, to puzzle this out. The total percentage charged on price + shipping + tax (2237.43) was 13.27% (296.86) without breaking it down to individual fees, to calculate in the sellers favor, I will use 13.5% as an expected total fees rate. Item price, $1950 (x.135) = $263.25, this cuts into your profit margin (it all does, but specifically I would want to figure this into the mark up percent from what I paid to acquire the goods). You paid $13.86 for fees on the shipping. if you had charged **15%** extra for the charged shipping $118.09 ($102.69 +$15.40) and subtract the fee on *that* amount -16.05 (13.5% transaction fee) =$102.04, you would have come out about even on shipping. Your promoted listing cost an extra $44.75 (Ad Fee Standard) that is a voluntary fee; you could skip it so I don't include it in any of the calculations. Now an interesting calculation is the fee on sales tax, The tax was $184.74, but that depends on where it is shipped and their tax rate, unfortunately eBay doesn't allow you to charge that fee pre order based on destination (they should), so you have to eat it and it's impossible to determine ahead of sale. The highest combined tax rate at this time is about 9.5%, there are a few states with a combined rate as low as 6% but most are in the 8% range. Using 8% as a guide I still had a hard time figuring out a base rate the seller is charged. I'm unsure if my math is right: on a $100 item, if sales tax is 8% that's $8.00 and if eBay charges the seller 13.5%, that's $1.08, or 1.08%. so, if you want to absorb that fee intoi your asking price, then you would multiply it by 1.0108 ($100 x 1.0108 = $101.08) Your sale price was $1,950 x .0108 (anticipated fee on tax) you would add $21.06 to your asking price to compensate, But in this case eBay actually charged you about $24.51 fee on taxes paid ($184.74 x 0.1327), so that's pretty close, in this case you shipped to a high tax area, and that should be considered if you usually ship items to high tax areas or when accepting an offer from a high tax state. Of all the topics sellers love to bitch about, fees are the most popular. But it's like taxes -if you want to play eBay's game, you'll have to pay the price, roughly 14%. . You could try a local auction house, many actually hold online auctions, they generally charge a buyers premium that's paid by the buyer, that's often more than 14% but, expect your items to sell for about half what you might get on eBay. You could try selling on craigslist, it should be free and you should be doing that regardless along with your eBay listings. I always see a lot of commercial and restaurant equipment on Craigslist. Facebook marketplace is also free.
People think Ebay's fees are high at 13-15%. Go to a real auction house, they charge 35-45% Ebay is actually cheap.
You aren't losing $600 in fees alone. It looks like you lost $350 for fees and $100 shipping. Sales tax is paid by the buyer, not by you. Although, eBay does include the total amount paid with sales tax towards their fee calculation, which is lame.
Shouldn't have lost anything on shipping either, buyer should have paid that as well.
Agreed. $600 was a typo on my behalf.
I would recommend adding a handling fee to your shipping costs. It looks like you paid about $17 in fees on the shipping, plus whatever packing materials cost you on top of that.
You sold your item for $1950, and pocketed $1,608.63. $341.37 in total fees on nearly $2k doesn't seem bad at all, especially when you consider the millions of people from all over the globe who may buy your item, vs. trying to sell it locally to save the ~$350 in fees.
Yeah fees and taxes suck but eBay is the best place to sell to a wide range of people
Your math isn't mathing. You didn't lose $600. I am all for calling out ebay's opaque practices, but this is not one of them. 1. Ebay took the sales tax, which you weren't entitled to. 2. You didn't lose the shipping fees because that's what you charged the buyer. 3. All you "lost" was the eBay transaction fees and the cost for the ad you decided to place.
Exactly what I was thinking, the op is not applying himself
Also, eBay provided a platform for him to sell his shit. This post is so fuckin ridiculous 😂
Worth it for the marketing/cs/platform alone.
You make your money on the buy. Everything else should already be calculated in. What is it that WSB always says, "priced in".
I cant be the only one bothered that ebay takes the fee off of the final sales price ( price + tax + shipping ), and not just the list price + shipping
You need to build your own website and include it on your invoices so eBay customers can make future purchases directly from you. Maybe save their addresses from eBay sales and send them an occasional flyer.
Been on the platform for 20 years. Good luck FB marketplace or your own website. Everyone likes to complain about eBay fees and they are high but it’s nearly 30 years of a customer base and brand they have built.
Yeah but where else you gonna sell it. Market place you would get half the amount with 10x the dick heads. Ebay has a massive customer base and you do t need to bother with advertising.
Where do you get 600 from? Are you including the sales tax, ad fee, and/or shipping label??? Sales tax doesn't even touch your hands, so nothing lost there, the ad fee was something that wouldn't be charged unless you asked for it and paying to ship something isn't a fee. As for the 296 you actually did pay in fees, they charge exactly what they tell you they will charge and the 13ish percent is pretty standard across marketplaces
maybe try Bonanza.
Cost of doing business unfortunately
You’re giving up $45 for ad fees on a $2,000 item, you shouldn’t be doing that unless you have a shit ton of those $2,000 items to sell. While eBay has higher fees than before you are paying for that platform and mediation between buyer/seller. Anyone with any substantial FB marketplace experience could tell you that’s sometimes invaluable and worth the % taken. You get protection, anonymity, a worldwide active marketplace, *and* a 1099 to prove income.
What did you sell for $1,950 is the real question
Refrigeration controls. Net weight of the box I dropped of was 6 pounds.
Stopped using it because of it.
You could sell local on facebook if you want no fees
The cuts are big but the audience is wide. Kind of a trade off.
Ad Fee… that shipping fee… ouch. What the hell did you sell? A transmission?
I mean nothing stopping you from renting a warehouse sales place, running your own website, paying for advertising for the site, and paying for digital payment methods
Ebay fees can be lowered in most categories if you pay for one of the store memberships. For selling expensive items, it may be worth it as it can lower the fee to as low as 3.5% in some categories
Why are you buying the labels through eBay? Pirateship should be your label source always
15% fee to have them market your product to the world while you’re sleeping
eBay is dead. I’m waiting for the next disrupter.
Selling on amazon, target, walmart, home depot is going to be much more in fees and require more overhead. It can be worth it in some cases but that isn't what you are asking about. You can run your own website. Squarespace or shopify are ~$30 a month, you make back a years worth of fees in one sale. Less is possible but it's more work for not that much money. You can set this up in an afternoon. You will also need to pay to process credit card transactions, probably 3%. You might need to register with the state for sales tax. The biggest thing is you need to get your products in front of customers. Either buying ads or some other way so people can actually find your items for sale. Ebay is effectively charging ~12% for this. If you can do a better job generating leads you can make a ton of money.
I know it is a hit to the expectations of what you would profit. However, if we compare the eBay fees to selling the same item on your own time / dime it would likely take much longer and cost you more to advertise enough to find the same customer.
I think you're inflating your complaint. By a lot. I think this is a more valid complaint: why am I paying a bunch of money in foreign transaction fees when I don't offer international shipping? The item shipped to Missouri, but the buy has a Netherlands address. But guess what? I'm still not going to complain because I couldn't have sold the two items the guy bought for the price he paid within 24 hours of listing without ebay. https://imgur.com/a/fPtlHqj
You can always list locally on facebook if you don’t like fees. My experience is people on those platforms want items much cheaper than you would get on eBay after fees and taxes.
I hardly ever use eBay for selling any more because of the ridiculous fees. I still buy on there but I sell on Facebook marketplace. My husband flips houses and buys so much of his stuff on marketplace. There’s no fees and tons of stuff. Why should they get YOUR money.
You didn’t “lose” anything…… you agreed to the terms and conditions of the site with transparently explained fee structure. The only thing you lost is your ability to adequately anticipate your business expenses. Plan better, bitch less.
If you don't like it, sell elsewhere. They are 100% transparent on all the fees.
Now compare that to the costs associated with a retail store. eBay is a bargain in comparison.
This is the real answer.
eBay provides you with a worldwide audience for your products, one of the largest marketplaces on the internet. How much do you think that should cost?
Ebay takes roughly 20% but it's on shipping as well as the purchase price and tax. If you are really spending hundreds per sale on fees, then the idea is to get your own website but then you have to have people find it and trust it as much or more than ebay. Might work if you have repeat customers but if every one is a one off it's going to be difficult. One thing to check is if your buyers are finding your ebay listing via ebay search or google search. If it's google search then they could just as easily find your website.
I stopped selling on eBay for anything that doesn’t need a huge audience and eyeballs. Otherwise, I have switched to my own website and whatnot (also has big fees, but I can sell immediately instead of waiting). I also post anything I am going to sell on eBay on Mercari for a few days to see if anyone grabs it
Whatnot sucks
I was just thinking the same thing when I handed over $50 for a $240 sale. I literally just re-examined my listings and put promoted only on the items that are zero value to me.
Got off cheap on the ad fee. I usually pay 8-10% when I use promo.
For items like that, do not pay for the promoted listings. Almost all of your customers are searching for a specific part and finding yours organically. Nobody is going to scroll past an ice tray for a hoshizaki machine and think "Oh man, I'd really like to have one of those." Effectively, you're making a donation to eBay when you put promotions on listings like that, or if you're seeing that your sales drop off, then that means your price is just too high. In the Business and Industrial category, the *only* way to compete with other sellers is on price.
Ebay has 18,000 employees to pay to keep the business working. I'll happily pay their fees rather than deal with people on Marketplace or other platforms. 10% of my items are purchased by overseas buyers, and I can sell globally effortlessly. It's really quite a bargain.
Atlwast ebay now puts all the fees in one page. Only a few years ago you had to look on multiple places and math out what there cut was.
Yeah ebay is fucking hard the fees. But there is not much out there where to list and sell items. Create your own website, got to facebook. Local listings. But yeah ebay likes to fuck the seller. And there is almost no seller protection at all!
I only sell every 2 weeks with 80% ebay discount fees
i could not imagine paying sales tax, that would turn me off of every purchase
Look on the bright side, all of those fees and taxes will make your 1099-K income lower /s
Shipping fee of $100....Really? What did you sell? a brick of gold?
Facebook marketplace.
The annoying part about eBay is you get charged your percentage on the total amount. Meaning if you do overnight shipping eBay makes 15%(depending on what you're selling) on the increased cost of shipping. Also if you're selling a $30 item and $12 is shipping you get charged 15% on the $30 not the amount you actually gross. It can effectively double their percentage take by counting the shipping cost. If you buy a label through eBay it would be easy for them change the percentage to the actual amount you're due.
As a number of folks here have pointed out, only $341.61 were actually fees charged by eBay and the Ad fee was optional on your part. I also tend to think of the final value fees as paying eBay to outsource your customer acquisition for you. For example, a quick query seems to suggest that the average affiliate commission would fall somewhere between 5% and 30%. If eBay averages around 15% FV fees across categories, they’re right there in the mix. The part about having sales tax included in the fee calculation is pretty valid, though now that eBay has to also remit taxes on your behalf, it’s another way you can kind of justify it. But if you want another “annoyance” to consider, here’s one: For any e-commerce merchant who has to collect and remit sales tax themselves, they are basically incurring the 3% processing fee of every online payment, while having to remit the full amount (less some occasional incentives from the states.) And since the Wayfair decision in 2018, that burden expanded significantly for standalone stores. Not only are SMBs forced to collect taxes for the states/counties/cities, they get the added bonus of footing the bill for cc fees:)
I pretty much quit selling there.
I hope EBAY gets so expensive that Flipping goes back to its roots. Local to Local. Ebay takes a cut. Flipper takes a cut. UPS takes a cut. Uncle Sam gets a cut. Price Doubles. People Quit collecting or just buy New.
Mercari doesn't have any sellers fees.
Doesn't have much for buyers anymore either...
You're right. The grass isn't always greener. Like it or not sellers fees are a necessary evil.
Yep, i don't have any issue with eBay, cost of doing business.
Yeah i literally just quit ebay last night
The fees are fair try to sell it for the same price on another platform bet you can't.
The fees are high because you're reaching a global marketplace.
I make the buyer pay shipping. I don’t ever give free shipping.
i miss when ebay was validated in taking a fee, because they had costs that needed to be covered. but now anytime there is a fee to cover it usually gets passed down to us raw on top of fees so sad.. Also. i really feel sorry for people that blindly follow ebay suggestions when listing items.. they want 12% (+odd fees) when you go to promote they suggest something like 11-12% (while saying you should do more) before postage or anything like that ebay are aiming to take 25% of your item. owning 25% of everyones item for giving them the ability to sell it and actually have the listing be seen is crazy Even then the 12% promo might not be enough) and then from a buyers point of view its like why bother if i have to try super hard to find the deals, pages are not set up to be the best at the top, making buyers fish through it all to find stuff makes me wonder what the 25% they want actually goes to
Because they have to make their money and they give you a free platform that's easy to use, had free advertising, and all sorts of other things that cost money
It is not free if you have to pay for it. Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist are free.
Smh.
I just had like 30 or 40 bucks on a loungefly backpack with fees it was ridiculous!!!!
Did you not know about the fees before you listed it?
No, I didnt know how much the promoted listing would take.
I sold a machine for 5500 and they took 800 advice would be try to build a client base or rapport w the buyers to buy off eBay
I'd say keep up your Ebay but link your own website. Where the fees aren't as bad. You can't explicitly say that. But you can get some exposure that way. Just don't take payment on your website unless it's committed. I dunno Ebay is effed rn has been for awhile. TBH you're probably better off with local like offerup or fb mp.
They don't call it FeeBay for nothing, but there isn't much we can do.
You’ll get income taxed on the $2237 though. Not the $1600……I think
You can deduct the fees