Paypal fees on ebay

RainbowsInTheSpray

Having just started as a seller, I notice that the cost of using Paypal to receive payments - 3.4% + 20p - can be a significant problem.

I'm sure this will have been discussed before but can anyone with experience offer their take on using Paypal or otherwise?

mrsb_5

The fees are a pain but I did try selling wihtout offering paypal as a payment option and my items either didn't sell or did not reach the price they would have done had i offered paypal

jembie

A lot of people add the paypal fees to the postage amount which I think is quite fair to be honest.

pinkgem

jembie wrote:

A lot of people add the paypal fees to the postage amount which I think is quite fair to be honest.

ebay don't allow that

postage and packaging is for postage costs, packaging costs (jiffy bags, mail sacks, brown paper, bubble wrap, sellotape, labels etc) and handling (which could mean petrol costs, bus fare, wages for packers etc)

I personally only charge approx £1 on top of actual postage to cover packaging and handling for small items that just require a jiffy envelope or some bubble wrap and brown paper.

paypal and ebay fees should be covered in the price of the item you are selling

doingwhatican

I just tend to build the fee into the starting price of the item i'm selling.
If your going to sell alot of items for less than £12 a time then you need to setup a paypal micro account. The fees are charged at a differnt rate to the standard paypal account - 5% + 5p. This works out to be cheaper on transactions under £12
You will need to have a new paypal account for this.

windswept

pinkgem wrote:

ebay don't allow that

postage and packaging is for postage costs, packaging costs (jiffy bags, mail sacks, brown paper, bubble wrap, sellotape, labels etc) and handling (which could mean petrol costs, bus fare, wages for packers etc)

I personally only charge approx £1 on top of actual postage to cover packaging and handling for small items that just require a jiffy envelope or some bubble wrap and brown paper.

paypal and ebay fees should be covered in the price of the item you are selling

if ebay don't "allow" that, how come there are millions of listings for 99p with £20 postage? I find this kind of fee avoidance totally unacceptable and can't understand why ebay don't do something as it must be losing them a fortune in fees. they seem to jump all over innocent sellers e.g. pulling listings etc. yet with something as large scale as this they seem completely ineffectual.

doingwhatican

I reckon ebay should include the postage price in their Final Value Fee calculation, and then depending on what type of item you have sold deduct a certain amount from the FVF. A bit like amazon in a way where they almost dictate what you can charge for postage. This way it would make it fairer for all.

pinkgem

windswept wrote:

if ebay don't "allow" that, how come there are millions of listings for 99p with £20 postage? I find this kind of fee avoidance totally unacceptable and can't understand why ebay don't do something as it must be losing them a fortune in fees. they seem to jump all over innocent sellers e.g. pulling listings etc. yet with something as large scale as this they seem completely ineffectual.

ok what i meant to say is its not allowed, although people do it.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/listing-shipping.html

pinkgem

doingwhatican wrote:

I reckon ebay should include the postage price in their Final Value Fee calculation, and then depending on what type of item you have sold deduct a certain amount from the FVF. A bit like amazon in a way where they almost dictate what you can charge for postage. This way it would make it fairer for all.

Amazon can get it a bit wrong though as they give an allowance of £1.99 for video games, this also includes consoles and when I sold a Wii I had to pay £18.50 to post it by Special Delivery

Books also have a standard rate but some books can be really big and heavy and cost a fortune and others are small and thin and cost hardly anything.

pinkgem

I think what ebay need to do is have an easier/less involved way to report items with excessive postage, so if someone browsing sees an item with ridiculous postage they can just click on a "report" link or similar, then if lots of people reported it ebay might do something about it.

I always see lots of listing with excessive postage when I am browsing and buying on ebay. If I wanted to report them all it would take ages to keep going to help, contact us, and then finding the correct topic (listing policy breaches), then the correct sub topic (circumvention of ebay fees), and the next subtopic (excessive postage and packaging)

frivolous_fay

doingwhatican wrote:

I just tend to build the fee into the starting price of the item i'm selling.
If your going to sell alot of items for less than £12 a time then you need to setup a paypal micro account. The fees are charged at a differnt rate to the standard paypal account - 5% + 5p. This works out to be cheaper on transactions under £12
You will need to have a new paypal account for this.

It's possibly to upgrade an existing account. Not easy, but I managed it.

There is a single person employed by paypal who knows how to do it, and her name is Mary.