eBay's sneaky fees - do you know about them?

potassium_flower

If you sold a jumper on eBay for 99p how much profit do you think you’d make? Ebay’s Fee Calculator would tell you 89p, as eBay takes 10%. But unless your buyer collects they’re going to have paid via Paypal, and surprisingly the calculator doesn’t include or even mention Paypal fees. eBay and Paypal fees combined are 20%, so 80p right? Not quite.

I've just had a listing on eBay removed for violating their policies. But I think it's something lots of people don't realise and miss out on.

When I sell an item I explain in my listing that "Postage is at cost price, please bear in mind eBay and PayPal add 20% fee to postage as well”, so that I don’t get bad feedback for postage costs. This means for a £2.90 small parcel I charge £3.63.

But today my item was removed for “violating eBay’s policies”. All I was doing was stating a fact and charging postage fairly, so I contacted customer services and was told “I agree we charge sellers, however sellers are not allowed to mention about an additional fees of any kind is charged by eBay or Paypal, this may discourage the buyers…sellers are responsible for paying all fees…and you are not suppose to mention all these fees in the listing”.

So what are we supposed to do? Use their suggested postage of £2.90 and recoup the fee from the profit we make on selling an item? What if the item only sells for 99p – then we’d only make 27p profit. Do people realise this? Or we could leave postage at £3.63 and not explain why and get poor feedback?

Ms_Chocaholic

I charge slightly over the postage cost (but within reasonable limits) to cover packaging (and time) but don't mention why in my listing. I think that's where the problem lies, you've mentioned it.

ballisticbrian

Sorry if this sounds like knit picking but I think I do have a valid point.


When you sell a jumper for pennies, you cannot state,

we’d only make 27p profit

Because, technically you are selling this item at a loss compared to it's original purchase price. Possibly everything you sell is at a loss.


eBay, always looking over it's shoulder at other retail platforms is really only interested in the business model with free postage and costs hidden from the customer which you simply can't do with a second hand 99p jumper. It's just that there's things eBay also can't tell you.

theonlywayisup

potassium_flower wrote: »

If you sold a jumper on eBay for 99p how much profit do you think you’d make? Ebay’s Fee Calculator would tell you 89p, as eBay takes 10%. But unless your buyer collects they’re going to have paid via Paypal, and surprisingly the calculator doesn’t include or even mention Paypal fees. eBay and Paypal fees combined are 20%, so 80p right? Not quite.

Ebay and Paypal are separate companies. BT and Talktalk don't tell you each other's costs, it's for you to know what costs are involved.

potassium_flower wrote: »

When I sell an item I explain in my listing that "Postage is at cost price, please bear in mind eBay and PayPal add 20% fee to postage as well”, so that I don’t get bad feedback for postage costs. This means for a £2.90 small parcel I charge £3.63.

Ebay and Paypal don't add 20%. If you are a private seller your eBay fee is likely 10% of the entire sale price (including postage). Paypal will be 3.4% plus 20p on the amount that is deposited in the account, on a standard account, less if you have a micro account (and you should if you are selling under £8ish an item).

potassium_flower wrote: »

What if the item only sells for 99p – then we’d only make 27p profit. Do people realise this? Or we could leave postage at £3.63 and not explain why and get poor feedback?

An item will only sell for 99p if that is the lowest BIN/bid you allow.

soolin

potassium_flower wrote: »

If you sold a jumper on eBay for 99p how much profit do you think you’d make? Ebay’s Fee Calculator would tell you 89p, as eBay takes 10%. But unless your buyer collects they’re going to have paid via Paypal, and surprisingly the calculator doesn’t include or even mention Paypal fees. eBay and Paypal fees combined are 20%, so 80p right? Not quite.

I've just had a listing on eBay removed for violating their policies. But I think it's something lots of people don't realise and miss out on.

When I sell an item I explain in my listing that "Postage is at cost price, please bear in mind eBay and PayPal add 20% fee to postage as well”, so that I don’t get bad feedback for postage costs. This means for a £2.90 small parcel I charge £3.63.

But today my item was removed for “violating eBay’s policies”. All I was doing was stating a fact and charging postage fairly, so I contacted customer services and was told “I agree we charge sellers, however sellers are not allowed to mention about an additional fees of any kind is charged by eBay or Paypal, this may discourage the buyers…sellers are responsible for paying all fees…and you are not suppose to mention all these fees in the listing”.

So what are we supposed to do? Use their suggested postage of £2.90 and recoup the fee from the profit we make on selling an item? What if the item only sells for 99p – then we’d only make 27p profit. Do people realise this? Or we could leave postage at £3.63 and not explain why and get poor feedback?

I think everything has really been said. I think it's 5 years or so now since ebay started charging FVFs on the postage element, and the rules about not mentioning charges in listings has been around for longer, but is rarely enforced unless a lot of other members report you.

99p starts are a very bad idea, even for unwanted items from a private seller, with basically free listings for private sellers there is no need at all to start at anything less than the price you are happy to accept. If I thought an item was only worth 99p then frankly I wouldn't spend even 5 minutes listing it on ebay, I'd rather donate it to charity.

I use inclusive postage for virtually all of my business listings and know *exactly* what my profit margin is, for my private stuff I do a mix of both and tend to charge £2.95 or £3 for 2nd class parcels, but make sure any shortfall is added to my start price (I pay less than over the counter prices for postage as I have a business account). The trick is just to charge it, and not go off on a lengthy explanation in your listings. £3 is a fairly average price being charged for 2nd class parcels.

AS with any site where money is involved it is worth spending a little time on research before committing yourself.

RFW

potassium_flower wrote: »

If you sold a jumper on eBay for 99p how much profit do you think you’d make?

Easy. Nothing. Who sells a jumper for 99p?

Donate it and save yourself any hassle.
Ebay don't really want people selling stuff for 99p, they (generally) get 100 times more when someone sells something for £99. Largely speaking, it costs the same for them to manage a £99 sale as it does a 99p sale.

If you're a business you build the business model around what makes you a profit, not what anyone else is charging or how much they're making.

Just before Christmas I was offered a deal on something, it was a great price. It was costing 25p and I could have sold it for between £3 and £5. Problem was it was bulky and postage would have been £2.50ish thus wiping out any profit. I passed it on to a market trader friend who made a nice profit.

As far as putting why you charge £x for postage that's pointless, no one who marks down feedback for overcharged postage would bother reading that far down a listing anyway.

mrcol1000

Putting on your listing that you will get back to them with postage costs is a bit like going to your village post office to get a stamp for your BT phone bill cheque. I am sure there are people who still do it, but there shouldn't be and they are years behind the rest of us.

I don't blame Ebay for removing your listings. People want to know how much they are paying for postage. They don't want to have to wait a day or two while you tot up your costs on your calculator with the paper receipt bit. Ebay 2017 is very different place. It is not for everyone. There are alternatives but I don't think you will make much more on your 99p jumper.

theonlywayisup

Just to add to everyone's comments. Your 99p jumper may end up actually costing you more than your 27p profit. If the buyer deems you've misdescribed the item, you will have to pay for the return postage too. Don't leave yourself short. Only sell at a price you are willing to accept and add in the costs of selling - fees, postage, returns etc.

Lisbon

If you want to charge postage, show it at a maximum of the actual cost charged by the carrier, possibly plus 10p or so for packaging - and ensure that the starting price of your item leaves you enough profit to make the transaction worthwhile. Otherwise don't sell it; give it to charity, as others have suggested.

Pun

potassium_flower wrote: »

So what are we supposed to do? Use their suggested postage of £2.90 and recoup the fee from the profit we make on selling an item?

Couldn't have put it better myself...

Flyonthewall

potassium_flower wrote: »

When I sell an item I explain in my listing that "Postage is at cost price, please bear in mind eBay and PayPal add 20% fee to postage as well”, so that I don’t get bad feedback for postage costs. This means for a £2.90 small parcel I charge £3.63.

So what are we supposed to do? Use their suggested postage of £2.90 and recoup the fee from the profit we make on selling an item? What if the item only sells for 99p – then we’d only make 27p profit. Do people realise this? Or we could leave postage at £3.63 and not explain why and get poor feedback?

A buyer knowing that you are overcharging on postage because of your costs is far more likely to give you negative feedback, regardless of whether they agreed to the cost.

No buyer wants to knowingly pay your fees. They're your fees, not the buyers.

As for the profit, no buyer cares whether you are making or losing money. They don't care what your costs are. They care about what they are paying and the item they're getting. Ebay don't care either so long as you pay the fees, it's up to you if you wish to sell at a loss or for very little profit.

What you list an item for is your choice. It's up to you to know all the fees (which are clearly stated on ebay and Paypal) and list at a price you are happy with.

If you think people will be unhappy with the postage (which isn't surprising as it's not just the postage, it's postage plus your fees and they know it) then list the item for more and include (some) postage/fee costs in that or accept not everyone will like the higher postage costs. Nobody is forcing you to sell for 99p with high postage costs.

Also fees are not 20% and there are often ebay listing offers for private sellers anyway.

You never see any companies listing their costs and making customers aware of their profit on each item. There's a reason for that! It would massively put buyers off.