How can sellers break even with this new charge on postage.?

[secretgarden6341]

My articles are very small and low cost from $1.00 to 7-8 for the most part. I was offering postage of $1.20 covering several articles. No, however, in order to break even I will have no choice but to add postage costs to the article itself if I am to offer free postage. E'bay says this is what people want, but I cannot see that my customers would prefer this as they will be paying more in the long run and the only ones to win will be E'bay?

What do other sellers of small articles think on this, as I am really now considering leaving E'bay.

[twyngwyn]

don't quit yet....you don't know what the future holds.....just try & get rid of your most heavy items prior to 6th May 🙂

[diecastcarsvicki]

the only way to counter the new fees is to only list items with free listings.

because if you paid to list as well then most sellers will not be able to continue.

[clarry100]

This is true.

We operate two stores. Our items average around $10 each.

We are unable to afford to list auctions unless we get free listings.

The low success rates make the $1.50 insertion fee too high to recover on the ones where we do have success.

And on the ones that actually result in a sale the non-payment rate is about 50%. These end up in a UID.

So overall our auction result is only about 10% that we actually receive payment for.

Pretty dismal really.

So the 9 that fail ($13.50 insertion fees) cannot possibly be recovered from the one that succeeds.

Pretty clearly a bad business proposition to use auctions.

[chameleon54]

If you are keen to keep the really cheap items ( a dollar or two ), you may be best to keep the post cost seperate so that your customers can buy a number of items and combine postage. Its pretty hard to make a reasonable profit on really low cost items as the time taken to process & pack the order outweigh the profit. Is it worth stocking more of the higher priced items you have for sale ? 

[ggearstore]

my most popular product is 3.5kg and fits in a bx1 box, the new changes are horrible i would have to use bx2 boxes, flat rate 5kg satchels or just pay at the post office.
All options nearly double my postage cost and my packing costs are going to be much higher because im using bigger boxes for such a small product. All that's before the extra 9.9% ebay is now charging, i'm not even sure if it's viable to sell the product any more with this hike and even if i manage to make a profit it's going to be allot more work for me.

[digital*ghost]

I have quite a lot of low value items that go as large letters, average around $4 with $2 post, so in that regard I'm relieved my fees aren't going to increase to the level that will mean a major shake-up to what I currently offer and/or charge. 

At the moment, I'm taking a bit of time to think about how this change is really going to impact me, and what I need to do about it, so I have also left my P&H at the rates they were before the latest rise (plan is to - hopefully - ultimately make one change, rather than a few little ones over the coming weeks). 

My handmade items...well, my prices are very much on the low side for most of those anyway, so a price rise there was going to be inevitable regardless, but on the smaller items, because I dictate the quantity (craft supplies), I'll probably increase the quantity so that even with a price rise, the value to the buyer can remain the same. (eg, say I have a pack of 10 for $5, which equals 50c each for the buyer - in that $5 price, the percentage that is covering operating costs is a bit higher than it is for a $10 item, so I have a bit of leeway to say make it a pack of 15 for $7.50, probably a bit less actually, so while it's a price increase, I can actually provide slightly better value and still cover everything with the same margins. 

The only thing I'd really like to do, though, since set-quanity listings are a bit restrictive (and higher quantities a little more-so) is find an easy way to facilitate a "mix n' match" kind of service. I have a few people contact me who only want one of an item etc, but that's probably something for my own website. 

[ggearstore]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

I have quite a lot of low value items that go as large letters, average around $4 with $2 post, so in that regard I'm relieved my fees aren't going to increase to the level that will mean a major shake-up to what I currently offer and/or charge. 

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I have those too, it's still a big rise when ebay is charging at extra 9.9% and AusPost is charging an extra 10c a stamp, it now costs $1.5386+envelope for a large letter under 120g (On your $2, it's almost an extra 40c) which is huge, i lose at least $8-$12 a day on that alone ($2920-$4380 year), if i don't increase my postage costs but my sales will drop becouse my prices will be higher.

the extra time i'll need to post items is whats going to annoy me even more, allot of my items now there will be no flat rate options avaliable.

[digital*ghost]

If eBay are going to carry over the same FVF to P&H as what I currently pay on items, I'll be charged 8.5% on my postage, which is currently less than $2 (for any amount of items). A lot of people take advantage of my combined rate, because at the moment $4 + $2 is ok... but $20 + $2 is much better (for them and for me, in terms of economy of resources).

So... my P&H is likely to go up to something like $2.20 - $2.50, to cover the min. 20c extra in actual postage, plus make sure I can continue using it as a flat rate because anything over 125gm will cost me $2.10 or $3.50 to post. But that means eBay are going to get around 20c more from me per sale than they do now. They won't get more than that because I've structured a lot of my listings (quantity plus pricing) around that flat rate postage, so the impact on my costs and pricing is actually going to be relatively minimal, thankfully. 

That extra 20c per sale is going to be off-set a bit because my free listings per month is increasing from 200 to 500 (I currently have 250 listings, with a bunch of new stock on the way, so there's some immediate "savings" - in quotation marks because at the end of the month, I'll have been charge a tad more than I've saved). 

That's just me, of course, but maybe it might offer other people some ideas with adjusting to the new fees.

[secretgarden6341]

I am with you. No more international postage, and as I am only downsizing my collection once that is gone, if not before I will quit ebay, as there is no way I can break even with the post free, and it seems that is what buyers want, and I don't really like having to add to the item cost as you say it stops people from availing themselves of the free post for added items,which works well for small items. Overall, looks like Ebay, and buyers will miss out too!!!!

[secretgarden6341]

In Aust. the post is usually $1.20 in small padded bag or thick envelope depending how many articles. For regular customers I still charge only $1.20 even if parcel is heavier and cover the extra cost myself. It seems though, that ebay will keep at you to offer free postage so that you can continue to be on their good seller listings.

Well I won't be on any soon, as it is all getting too hard and time consuming for the little return you get.

I also have a problem with the photos now that they require larger ones as it is hard to get good close ups of small articles and I gather that a lot of people don't know to use the zoom feature to get a better look, as my sales have plumeted since this new photo requirement came in.

Will be changing back to charging post on each item as I thinkit is better for my buyers.