Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

Hello to fellow store holders and sellers on ebay!

 

I am sure this question has been done many times before, however I did a key word search of the selling forum and couldn't find exactly what I was looking for.

 

My question is -

 

On our Invoice each month there is a percentage given for the amount of ebay fees in relation to out total sale amount (excluding postage etc).

 

My percentage varies a bit, with the highest I ever had being 33% during a period when I was marked as on holidays.

 

What percentage means you are doing well as an eBay seller?

 

I would love to hear from others as I need some encouragement to know if I'm doing OK?

 

Warm regards,

 

Beautiful Baby Vintage Store

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

beautifullbabyvintage - I have been working ebay as a full time job for several years. Everybody has a different business model, product range etc. so what works for one may not work for some-one else. Some of the things that work for me are

 

* I work on the KISS principle. ( Keep it simple stupid ). I spend very little time on record keeping. I keep all info that the tax office require and not much else. I figure the more time I spend on record keeping, the less time I spend actually making money.

 

* I try to have efficient listing systems using standard templates and just changing photos and a few words in item description to speed up listing times. I work to a goal of listing a minimum of $1000 worth of items per full listing day. If I spend the morning packing, I work on $500 worth of listings in the afternoon. I just keep going untill they are done.

 

* I try to use standardised packing systems and products to make packing efficient time wise. I have a packing area set up with all packing products within easy reach.

 

* I answer questions politely and acurately without using too many words. Time is money.

 

* I try to provide top service, mailing daily, answering questions as soon as possible, packing well  etc. It just makes good business sense as customers are less likely to get grumpy if things are handled promptly. 

 

*I continually look to sell more expensive items as these offer the greatest profit per sale in dollar terms. It takes as much work to list and pack a $10 item with $5 profit as a $100 item with $30 or $40 profit. I do still sell cheap items around $10-$15 dollars but these are things I can use a generic description for and list 15 to 20 an hour. They cost me virtually nothing so even after ebay fees I can still make maybe $8 on a sale. These items need to be super easy to pack taking a few minutes. Any more and they dont return the $$$ per hour to earn a decent wage.

 

* I continually strive to stretch my profit margin. Buy cheaper and sell dearer. I buy stock in bulk by the pallet load when possible as this usually returns more $$$ than buying individual items to resell. It also means less time sourcing stock, so more $$$$ per hour.

 

* I dont waste time arguing with customers or ebay. It just causes stress and wastes a lot of time. If a customer doesnt pay, I dont waste time with messages, they just get a case opened. If ebay muck, me around, I usually just cop it and get on with it, as I could waste hours contacting them to no avail.

 

Basically I try to focus on listing, selling, customer service and packing as that is what makes dollars an hour. Everything else just takes time and doesnt return the dollars per hour.

 

 

Hope this helps a bit.

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

You can't really set a standard for how well you're doing based on the fee percentage.

 

I post $40 items with $1.70 postage and the fees are a bit over 10%, but when I sell a $16 item with $12 postage it boosts the fees to almost 17%.

 

The higher the postage on the items you sell, the higher your fee percentage will be.  If you sell cheap items with expensive postage (because they're bulky or heavy), your fee percentage will be a lot higher than it will if you sell expensive items with expensive postage.

 

So you can see there are too many variables to use the fee percentage as a measure of success.  Better to work out the profit on your items and forget about the fee percentages.

 

On the month you were away, your shop fees would have been a much higher percentage of your sales because there wouldn't have been many sales.

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

saarzi
Community Member

Completely agree with the above - the fee percentages really mean nothing.  To use them as an accurate measure of success, you would need to measure them, along with a whole set of variables in an excel sheet - too much work and a waste of time (which youd also need to factor into variable cost if youre doing it like an actual business and want to know true profit!).

 

also - "Total monthly fees exclude fee credits from refunds or unpaid items, non-recurring charges (e.g. late fees), shipping label charges, and PayPal fees. Total monthly sales excludes shipping cost paid by the buyer" - what if your shipping estimate is a bit out?

 

Mine hover around 14% - but I track all sales in an excel spreadsheet (EVERYTHING every fee, refund, credit, postage, packaging, item cost, my shipping fees (me buying items to sell), my CC fees when purchasing stock, buyer shipping fees, store fees, paypal, etc etc, down to, literally, the cent), and it doesnt reflect Ebays percentage at all.

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

If you want to know how well you are travelling compared to the ebay seller average, there are several figures which would give a good indication. Probably the most important is $$$$ profit per hour spent on ebay. ( assuming stock value is not ridiculous ). Are you earning a few dollars an hour, an average wage or well above what you could earn doing paid employment. Anyone who could equal a reasonable average wage of say $28-$30, per hour spent on ebay would be doing well. This includes all time spent sourcing stock, listing,  packing, answering questions, phoneing CS etc. 

 

A second figure which would be a good indicator of performance is profit as a percent of turnover. You need to include all costs in this such as stock purchase costs, ebay fees, paypal costs, internet costs, intrest on stock invested and depreciation ( stock holding costs ) and possibly postage costs ( we could debate that one as it is a fixed extra expense that ebay say we should not profit from). I would think that anyone selling cheaper used goods who had a profit margin of 66% or more ( $660 profit in hand out of every $1000 sold ) would be doing very well. Practically this means you would need to be marking items up by 600-700% ie. you buy an item for $10, you sell it for $60 - $70.

 

The faster your items sell, you can afford to make.less profit ie. if you buy something for $10 and KNOW it will sell within a few days for $25, ( leaving $10 or 100% profit after ebay & paypal fees ) it can be a viable business model if the listing and packing times are not great. If it takes awhile to write the item description and pack the item, $10 profit after fees is probably barely enough to make good $$$ per hour.

 

This figure would not be as high for expensive items where 10% or 20% could still provide a great return per hour ( such as making 20% profit on a $10,000 car you sell )  

 

Personally I think the $$$$$$$ per hour is what really counts, as this is what you are paying yourself to work on ebay.

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

I keep track of all our incomings and outgoings in an excel spreadsheet.

At the end of all the calculations our profit margin as a percentage of total sales runs at around 30%.

 

To do any better than that we would have to either buy our stock for less or sell our stuff for more.

Neither of those are viable options for us so that's where it stays.

 

If you worked this out as an hourly rate it would be way less than the minimum wage of $16.87 per hour.

 

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

There is obviously much to think about and consider if I want to improve my performance here on eBay.

 

I do spent a lot of time on it so I want to make sure it is as profitable as it can be and would love to eventually earn a full time income!

 

I have really appreciated these helpful replies. Thank you!!

 

Warm regards, Ann

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

beautifullbabyvintage - I have been working ebay as a full time job for several years. Everybody has a different business model, product range etc. so what works for one may not work for some-one else. Some of the things that work for me are

 

* I work on the KISS principle. ( Keep it simple stupid ). I spend very little time on record keeping. I keep all info that the tax office require and not much else. I figure the more time I spend on record keeping, the less time I spend actually making money.

 

* I try to have efficient listing systems using standard templates and just changing photos and a few words in item description to speed up listing times. I work to a goal of listing a minimum of $1000 worth of items per full listing day. If I spend the morning packing, I work on $500 worth of listings in the afternoon. I just keep going untill they are done.

 

* I try to use standardised packing systems and products to make packing efficient time wise. I have a packing area set up with all packing products within easy reach.

 

* I answer questions politely and acurately without using too many words. Time is money.

 

* I try to provide top service, mailing daily, answering questions as soon as possible, packing well  etc. It just makes good business sense as customers are less likely to get grumpy if things are handled promptly. 

 

*I continually look to sell more expensive items as these offer the greatest profit per sale in dollar terms. It takes as much work to list and pack a $10 item with $5 profit as a $100 item with $30 or $40 profit. I do still sell cheap items around $10-$15 dollars but these are things I can use a generic description for and list 15 to 20 an hour. They cost me virtually nothing so even after ebay fees I can still make maybe $8 on a sale. These items need to be super easy to pack taking a few minutes. Any more and they dont return the $$$ per hour to earn a decent wage.

 

* I continually strive to stretch my profit margin. Buy cheaper and sell dearer. I buy stock in bulk by the pallet load when possible as this usually returns more $$$ than buying individual items to resell. It also means less time sourcing stock, so more $$$$ per hour.

 

* I dont waste time arguing with customers or ebay. It just causes stress and wastes a lot of time. If a customer doesnt pay, I dont waste time with messages, they just get a case opened. If ebay muck, me around, I usually just cop it and get on with it, as I could waste hours contacting them to no avail.

 

Basically I try to focus on listing, selling, customer service and packing as that is what makes dollars an hour. Everything else just takes time and doesnt return the dollars per hour.

 

 

Hope this helps a bit.

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Fee Percentage of Total Sales - how much means you are doing well?

According to ebay any fee amount you pay them means you are doing well.

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