Why does ebay take a percentage from postage?

[greengreen50]

Why does ebay and Paypal take a percentage from the postage when it has nothing to do with them??

[phorum_junkie*]

Paypal take their fee based on the entire payment because they are processing the entire payment so of course that is the amount they base their charge on.

Ebay have now started to charge the fee on the entire payment because they can and because they want to. One reason id to stop sellers listing things at a low price with inflated postage, another is to bring the Aus site into line with the UK and US sites where the fees have been charged on postage for years now and the third and probably main reason is because they can make more money which is, after all, the reason for their existence.

[robinsonmarineparts]

This needs to be a ' Sticky Topic'

[cherry*135]

Read this greengreen regarding FVF on postage

http://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/selling-fees/fee-change-overview

[cq_tech]

Ebay's ridiculous money-grabbing justification for doing so absolutely sucks...

"More than 60% of items sold on eBay.com.au offer free postage, which means many sellers have already been paying a fee based on the total paid by a buyer. The new way of calculating final value fees means all sellers pay a fee based on the total amount paid by a buyer, whether postage is included in the cost of an item or charged additionally."

I very much doubt that the real figure was anywhere near 60% but even if it was, it was the sellers' choice to price their items that way, in the full knowledge that by doing so they were being charged FVF on the postage component of that particular sale, but that certainly doesn't give eBay the right to arbitrarily decree that all sellers should therefore pay FVF on the separate postage component of their sales as well, especially when they specifically elected not to include postage as part of their retail price.

Listing the item price plus separate postage costs gives a certain degree of transparency to the transaction so whatever happened to the concept of free choice? What is equitable about sellers being forced to pay fees on a necessary non-profit component of their sales? Where's the common decency? It's bad enough that eBay saw fit to increase their FVF on the item price to an outrageously usurous 9.9% but to charge that percentage on the postage component as well simply beggars belief.

[dylan11235813]

Like PJ said it is to make more money. I don;t like it but they were allowed to do it, why I have no idea. In that I get charged that for handling costs as well.

Sure there was a problem with people charging more for post but that is why they had the DSR for post cost in the first instance and no longer have that rating. ANd it is ebays problem not mine, Thay had to do something I guess, as what else could be done, who knows.

It would have been a fee increase anyway. The chinese sellers win though because it is so cheap to post from china. oh and it is better to have free post to get the rating up/

[van_werkhoven]

It's not hard to understand. We may not like it, but it is logical.

a. Ebay wants people to use Free Postage

b. before, a deterent to free postage was the FVF being changed on the whole amount

c. Charging for postage removes the deterent, making the field completely even and encouraging more people to use free postage because higher fees are no longer a factor.

Sure it sucks for those of us who were getting away without free postage and the extra fees associated, but all they have done is made it even. There's no possible way to subtract postage from the fees when using free postage, so the only way to make it even all around was to combine price and postage for everyone. The old system was unfair for a large portion of sellers, now it just generally sucks for everyone.

[iamanark]

Because ebay are going downhill so fast they are trying to claw some profits back …. If it was not for paypal, ebay would be in serious trouble

.

And recently there was a Board Room challenge to separate Paypal from ebay … but failed

.

But those responsible have not given up … and it will eventually happen … then ebay will be in serious trouble

.

Their management has made so many serious mistakes and ebay now no longer have the market share they used to have

.

.

And charging FVF on postage is an example of one of their major mistakes …. Underhanded, immoral and turning people away in droves … and not just the sellers, but the buyers who have to pay higher prices to cover the sellers’ extra outgoings

[cq_tech]

Forcing sellers to list with 'free' postage has done more to damage eBay's reputation and credibility than anything else in the last 5 years IMO, because calling it 'free postage' is not only blatantly misleading, it is also morally and ethically wrong.

Buyers aren't stupid; they know full well that there is no such thing as free postage and they are well aware that the postal charges have simply been added to the item cost in an attempt to create the illusion that postage is free, when in actual fact it is not; it is merely included.

In their attempt to maintain the facade, eBay have tried to entice sellers into doing so by dangling such carrots as higher rankings in best-match searches but what they have clearly failed to realise is that most buyers would actually prefer to know just what proportion of the overall price is being apportioned towards the cost of postage, in the name of transparency.

[digital*ghost]

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@van_werkhoven wrote:

It's not hard to understand. We may not like it, but it is logical.

a. Ebay wants people to use Free Postage

b. before, a deterent to free postage was the FVF being changed on the whole amount

c. Charging for postage removes the deterent, making the field completely even and encouraging more people to use free postage because higher fees are no longer a factor.

Sure it sucks for those of us who were getting away without free postage and the extra fees associated, but all they have done is made it even. There's no possible way to subtract postage from the fees when using free postage, so the only way to make it even all around was to combine price and postage for everyone. The old system was unfair for a large portion of sellers, now it just generally sucks for everyone.

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A more logical incentive to offer free postage would have been a lower FVF for those who do. Putting FVF on both price and postage does not offer me any incentive to do one or the other, because I'll be paying the same amount to ebay no matter what, ergo I choose to do what is best for me and my buyers, still, and that means no free postage. 

eBay already offered incentives to those who chose to pay FVF on the entire amount by offering free post with promises of increased exposure. In other words, previously the choice was pay a bit more FVF, get a bit more prominence. Now that's not a choice, and in fact there are many sellers who simply can't do free post due to the nature of their items, and not only do they have to pay more, but don't enjoy any of the previous 'privileges'.

The also say it was to try and stop postage piracy ($1 items with $100 postage as an example). I don't buy that either. FVF on P&H means eBay do absolutely nothing to actually improve the site, it offers no incentive for a seller to do anything in particular, and eBay collects more money from it. Their motivation is pretty clear to me.