topic Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage? in Selling

why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

l.skye001-7 — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 00:54:47 GMT

Why does Ebay charge a fee on postage costs? We do not profit from this. I charge the exact fee it costs to send an item domestically, this is to be fair to the buyer. And this is also automated by Ebay as it makes uploading process easier. Ive just discovered that on the final postage fee of $8.50 (for example) Ebay take 93 cents? What purpose does this serve other than ripping off the seller? With both paypal and ebay fees on top of this i am out of pocket. Its already a struggle to sell on ebay. Literally ill sell my items somwhere else.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 01:46:54 GMT

A good few dozens threads on the boards here where it has been asked and answered

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

davewil1964 — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 09:12:19 GMT

For the last five(?) years.

So there are plenty to choose from.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

imastawka — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 09:31:13 GMT

You are not contacting ebay here, just other members.

I notice that you re-listed a yellow kimono 5 days after it was sold the first time.

I'd say you didn't bother to get your fees back for that non-paying buyer.

But yeah, let's complain about postage costs.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

bundymods — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 23:54:29 GMT

Because ebay are Thiefs

You Get Charged 3 Times

Final fees

Postage fees

Paypal fees

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

lyndal1838 — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 03:19:46 GMT

Final Value Fees apply to the total transaction.....item and postage.

Paypal fees are to pay for the transfer of money.

ONE fee from ebay, one fee from paypal.

Please stop posting incorrect information of the boards....you can be reported for doing so.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

dazzledayz — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 23:27:10 GMT

@lyndal1838 wrote:
Final Value Fees apply to the total transaction.....item and postage.

Paypal fees are to pay for the transfer of money.

ONE fee from ebay, one fee from paypal.

Please stop posting incorrect information of the boards....you can be reported for doing so.

Absolutely correct Lyndal, there re only two fees so Peewee has misdescribed the fee structure:

1. eBay - FVF on total sale amount + 10% GST so 10.9% (for a basic seller with no store using only free listings).

2. Paypal - 2.6% FVF on total sale amount + 30c fixed fee so 8.6% on $5, 5.6% on $10, 4.1% on $20, 3.6% on $30 and so on. (AU sales only)

So, if you sell an item for:

$5 it will cost a total of $0.98 in fees (rounded up from 0.975).

$10 it will cost a total of $1.65 in fees.

$20 - $3 in fees

$30 - $4.35 in fees

I really don't think too many occasional sellers actually work this out as I see people selling for very little profit when postage is taken into account.

Quite often only a dollar or two which certainly doesn't pay for the work done.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

dazzledayz — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 23:56:41 GMT

I should add to the above.

To get the actual profit made from selling your item use these formulae:

For a basic seller:

Profit = (Total Selling Price inc Postage) - (item cost + postage cost + packaging cost + fees)

For a business seller:

Profit = (Total Selling Price inc Postage) - (item cost + postage cost + packaging cost + fees + (Store fees/avg sales per month))

I have this set up in a spreadsheet so it's not too hard to work out what the actual profit per item is.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

padraicpaul91 — Sat, 04 Aug 2018 03:55:29 GMT

I think it was 3 years ago. Ebay's explanation was that it was in the interests of 'equity'. By that they meant they were in part protecting sellers who had moved to 'free postage' which eBay had been pushing heavily at the time. These sellers were obviously paying fees on the incorporated postage cost. Also, it helped cut out sellers who had low prices combined with high postage costs, to minimize fees.

What eBay did not explain was the effective large increase in profit they made by this move, whilst claiming they were keeping fees down. For me, it was an overnight 30% increase in fees per item, on average.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

dazzledayz — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 00:17:43 GMT

With books it seriously disadvantaged Australian sellers as the big UK outfits get brilliant parcel prices from UK Royal Mail.

(they can post a book to me much cheaper than I can post it to myself).

Overnight, the Poms managed to undercut us by 50~100%.

It's similar in other categories with a high Chinese seller cohort.

Once fees were applied to postage Aus booksellers saw their total eBay fees increase by more than 50%.

And now we also have the GST added to that as the eBay fees themselves are taxed.

eBay could have quite easilly stamped out the practise of overcharging for postage but it was simpler to slap fees on it.

(much more profitable too, which I suspect was the real reason).

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

sydney-diecast-kingdom — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 00:37:35 GMT

eBay started charging fees on postage costs to counter sellers who were avoiding paying fees.

Some dodgy sellers were listing a valuable item for $1 with say $1,000 shipping. This meant they could sell an item for $1,000 and pay only 10c in fees.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

padi*0409 — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 00:44:54 GMT

@sydney-diecast-kingdom wrote:
eBay started charging fees on postage costs to counter sellers who were avoiding paying fees.

Some dodgy sellers were listing a valuable item for $1 with say $1,000 shipping. This meant they could sell an item for $1,000 and pay only 10c in fees.

Before eBay brought in the fees on postage I reported a seller in Korea several times for doing that, and ebay did nothing at all about it.

So I suspect that the real reason for the fees was that it was/is a handy way to generate extra revenue, with eBay putting the blame on a few sellers that were rorting the system.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

meekamag2 — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 01:32:17 GMT

Yep. Just another way to make $$$$$$. Greed.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

egglesdtp — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 05:00:27 GMT

@lyndal1838 wrote:
Final Value Fees apply to the total transaction.....item and postage.

Paypal fees are to pay for the transfer of money.

ONE fee from ebay, one fee from paypal.

Please stop posting incorrect information of the boards....you can be reported for doing so.

Well actually the fee on the item cost and the fee on postage are listed separately in the ebay invoice, so the info was not incorrect.

An snippet of my invoice, showing the separate fee on item and shipping is shown below:

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

egglesdtp — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 05:09:56 GMT

So if a single 500g prepaid satchel costs $8.50, and you have been charged a 93 cents fee on it, then make your postage cost for the buyer $8.50 + 0.93 = $9.43, which you would probably round up to $9.50. Then you have covered your postage fee cost.

If you sell enough to warrant buying 500g satchels in packs of 10, the cost per satchel drops to $8.08, which can be rounded up to $9.00 to cover the cost of the ebay fee. The fee on $9 is 0.98, which if you charge $9 for the <500g parcel, this will cover the cost of the satchel and the fee ($8.08 + $0.98 = $9.06)

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

lyndal1838 — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 05:12:07 GMT

But it is still the same fee on the two components of the transaction.....not two fees on the same part of the transaction.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

dazzledayz — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 06:18:56 GMT

You say Tomato while I say ... oh what the heck.

The point is the amount IN fees paid rather than the amount OF fees paid.

(Free Post Item FVF) = Item FVF + postage Fee ... unless there is something wrong with my maths.

This argument is just splitting hairs.

The real point I'd say, is that eBay are trying so hard to copy Amazon, they've even reproduced their fee structure once PayPal is taken into account.

By the time eBay becomes the payment intermediary they'll probably be slightly cheaper but I would suspect not by much.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

l.skye001-7 — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 23:47:06 GMT

oh thanks for stalking - wonderful response.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

l.skye001-7 — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 23:49:39 GMT

Report me for what? Calm down.

i posted a question in relation specifically to postage costs - nothing else?

post a question and get attacked.

thanks.

Re: why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

l.skye001-7 — Sun, 05 Aug 2018 23:53:23 GMT

thank you so much for explaining this. I posted a question just asking specifically about postage and was attacked for doing so lol.

I know there are paypal fees and ebay fees - thats life and ofcourse they need to charge a fee. I was just a bit **bleep** off that a fee is taken from postage and i make no profit specifically from postage.

thanks again. Appreciated.