eBay Business Seller Fee Breakdown

MR1988

So with regards to recent eBay updates for private sellers to business sellers, I thought we could dive through the Business Seller Fees for people to have a clear image of what to expect once the incentive goes away after 31st of December. I'll be honest, it's been always a bit confusing trying to figure out the fees breakdown for Business Sellers. So what could someone expect from upgrading once the offer ends?

There are 4 shop packages, so depending on quanitity and other variables, each seller should know what is best shop to open.

No Shop

• No Monthly Shop Fees
• No Free Listings
• Fixed Price Listing - 30p
• Auction Style Listing - 30p

Basic Shop

• Monthly Price - £27
• Free Listings - 250
• Free 7-Day Auction Style Listings - 100
• Additional Fixed Price Listing - 10p
• Additional Auction Style Listings - 15p

Featured Shop

• Monthly Price - £77
• Free Listings - 1500
• Free 7-Day Auction Style Listings - 600
• Additional Fixed Price Listing - 5p
• Additional Auction Style Listings - 15p

Anchor Shop

• Monthly Price - £437
• Free Listings - Unlimited
  
• Free 7-Day Auction Style Listings - 1000
• Additional Fixed Price Listing - Free
  
• Additional Auction Style Listings - 15p

Shop cost and fees will incurr an additional 20% VAT.

I am going to try and keep it simple and not include promotion prices, reserve prices and fees that boost listings as all those are optional and each seller should be aware that any optional perks might cost extra.

Final Value Fees (FVF)

• Depending on category, FVF is a set % of the sale + 30p.
• There is a long list of categories with the FVF breakdwon which I'm not going to share as it's easily available at the following link: https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4809

VAT

• 20% of the FVF

Regulatory Operating Fees

• 0.35% of the total amount of the sale (Item price, postage and any applicable taxes)

International Fees

Assuming your registered address is within the UK, there are additional international fees based on buyer address:

• Eurozone & Northern Europe - 1.05%
• US & Canada - 1.8%
• All other countries - 2%

Seller Performance Based Fees

• If Seller Performance is below standard on the 20th of the month, you would incur an additional 6% on top of FVF for sales in the following calendar month.
• Above Standard & Top-Rated Sellers are not affected by this.

For INAD (Item Not as Described) Requests

• Sellers with "Very High" rates in the metrics dashboard for INAD requests on the 20th of the month, would incur an additional 4% fees on top of the FVF for sales in the following calendar month.

Dispute Fees

• When found responsible for a chargeback or other disputed amount, eBay will charge a £14 dispute fee for each dispute.

I am not too sure what this means, but I assume if a buyer were to use a credit card chargeback or open a PayPal dispute. Confirmation would be appreciated.

__________________________________________________

I am not 100% certain on the breakdown, as this is all I could put together myself from reading the Fees page. I woulod appreciate for clarification from our most experienced users and will update as needed.

There is a UK eBay Fee Calculator website at the following link: https://www.ebayfeescalculator.com/uk-ebay-calculator/ . Not entirely sure how accurate this is though.

For the sake of simplicity, let's use an example below:

Assuming the item you are selling is in the "Collectables" category, which would incur a 10.9% + 30p FVF, free postage included and item sold within the UK, the costs expected for selling the item should be similar to the below:

Sold Price: £100

FVF (10.9% + 30p): £10.9 + 30p = £11.20

VAT (20% of FVF): £2.24

Regulatory Operating Fees (Assuming free postage): £0.35

Total Fees: £13.79

Am I missing out on something else?

MR1988

Also, a question for our experienced members ( @soolin @the_lunatic_is_in_my_head ) how is the monthly free listings calculated:

For example, if you had  basic shop with 250 free listings, if you list 250 items and these keep relisting at the end of the month because you are not selling them, they simply get deducted from the monthly free listings automatically, correct? So for example if you list 250 items during one month and they get relisted at the end of the month, you can't use the "free 250 monthly listings" to list an additional 250 next month since that would being your item total to 500, correct? You would have to pay for the additional 250 listings, I assume. Thanks for clarification!

se2020

At first glance the fees (for no shop) would appear to be the same as I pay as a private seller except for the 30p listing fee.

Can a business seller list a good-til-cancelled bin?
Would this only incur the 30p fee once?

I ask as I have quite a few items in my listing that are specific tools. Values between £30-500.
They can be listed for months or even years before getting a sale. When they do sell they normally sell at the listed bin price with no offers being made as, because the buyer needs that exact item, they are happy with the price.

I would probably not list these items if I had to pay 30p a month for them as I have a few hundred listed.


Second question, why/how have so many business sellers got 99p free post items for sale.
It looks like a business seller who's account is above standard woth no shop will only receive 17p from a 99p sale and that 17p also has to cover the cost of the item and the postage. 

There are so many of these listjngs they can not all be loss-leaders. Are they sellers who have shops and are just listing to use up all the listing allowance?
Or do they have some sort of special deal with someone to get postage for less than the 85p which is the cheapest I can currently find?

soolin

Just to clarify a few points from the excellent posts above.

Firstly business sellers pay VAT on the shop fees, so that needs to be built in to the headline cost.

Yes business listings are exactly the same as for private sellers and BINs are automatically GTC.

Unlike basic private accounts without a shop where a seller can list 1000 items every single month without listing fees a business pays every time BIN is renewed. So as a simple example, you take a basic shop and your 250 free BINs start on the 1st of the month and you list your 250 items. At the end of the month you've sold 50, so you carry forward 200 which are automatically renewed (BIN GTC) so on the 1st of the next month those 200 renew leaving you with only 50 free listings for that month.

Re the 99p listings, some businesses have virtually unlimited listings if they have a top tier shop, so can afford some loss leaders to get people into the shop. A large business also won't be paying over the counter prices for postage. RM offer loads of options , and a large seller may well negotiate a really good deal for post. When I had a big turnover of stock I used a fairly basic RM business account as the one I negotiated allowed me to average out my weights on large letters. So if I sent 30 large letters in a day I recorded the weight of all 30 and as long as it was under 100g for each over all  I paid a lower LL rate. This was absolutely ideal for me as at the time I was selling a lot of very light weight items and a few 260g LL items, so could average out the costs. 

The main thing to remember as a business apart from the fees is the requirement to have a refund policy clearly stated, and for your listings to display openly a geographic address where you can be contacted. business sellers must accept change of mind returns and a policy is important as without one they would also pay for the return, so a simple policy saying returns accepted with buyer to pay return postage should be in place. 

martindow

se2020 said:

At first glance the fees (for no shop) would appear to be the same as I pay as a private seller except for the 30p listing fee.

Can a business seller list a good-til-cancelled bin?
Would this only incur the 30p fee once?

Coming back to this, I think that with no shop and therefore no free BINs, fees are charged monthly on good until cancelled listings.  Perhaps someone can confirm.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

MR1988 said:

Also, a question for our experienced members ( @soolin @the_lunatic_is_in_my_head ) how is the monthly free listings calculated:

For example, if you had  basic shop with 250 free listings, if you list 250 items and these keep relisting at the end of the month because you are not selling them, they simply get deducted from the monthly free listings automatically, correct? So for example if you list 250 items during one month and they get relisted at the end of the month, you can't use the "free 250 monthly listings" to list an additional 250 next month since that would being your item total to 500, correct? You would have to pay for the additional 250 listings, I assume. Thanks for clarification!

This is correct (or at least was 3 years ago), each time the listing ticks over it's monthly cycle it will deduct from the number given with the shop level so you can't build up an extra 250 each month on top of those unsold.

soolin said:

Firstly business sellers pay VAT on the shop fees, so that needs to be built in to the headline cost.

Worth highlight business sellers pay VAT on all fees Prices in the OP are net of VAT so need 20% adding (which OP has noted about half way down their post). 

martindow said:

Coming back to this, I think that with no shop and therefore no free BINs, fees are charged monthly on good until cancelled listings.  Perhaps someone can confirm.

Yes this correct  

MR1988

Ah! Good information, thank you!

So to clarify, the shop fees, as in the Listing and Auction style fees also incur a 20% VAT? And this does not affect the monthly shop cost, correct?

soolin

MR1988 said:

Ah! Good information, thank you!

So to clarify, the shop fees, as in the Listing and Auction style fees also incur a 20% VAT? And this does not affect the monthly shop cost, correct?

It does affect the headline cost as it needs 20% VAT added to it. So the basic £27 shop will actually cost over £30. 

MR1988

Thank you for clarification, added to the breakdown.