topic When did final value fees get so high? in Selling

When did final value fees get so high?

masterclonkex — Mon, 29 May 2023 21:43:40 GMT

I've used eBay for a reasonably long time. I sold a camera yesterday for $550, and only received $476 in the payout. That's ridiculous. I never agreed to pay $74 (plus shipping!) to sell this item. Who would ever do that??

I remember final value fees being about 2.5%, not 12.18%! When did this change happen? Is there any way to sell things on eBay without the fees being so incredibly unreasonable? Or is there a better marketplace I should look to?

There's literally no point selling things on here with fees that high. It's insane. And yeah, in case you're wondering, I'm pretty **bleep** that this fee wasn't made blindingly obvious on the selling page (you have to read through the fees page, only linked in the fine print at the bottom).

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

sandypebbles — Mon, 29 May 2023 22:43:24 GMT

No fine print, no secret not hidden, it's what you ticked as to having 'read and understood' in order to be able to list

Not sure when you were ever able to sell for 2.5% or how you managed to only pay 12.18% this time

The fees were shown when you listed

If you have been using eBay for a reasonable long time, it is surprising you did not notice what the real fees are well before now, since they have been roughly the same for eons

Sellers with a poor record due to defects etc will pay even higher fees

If you sold on this ID and have failed to complete sign up and verification for Managed Payments, that might also have something to do with it

As well as meaning you won't get the money from the sale, since it has nowhere to go

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

eol-products — Mon, 29 May 2023 22:59:54 GMT

2.5% selling fees may have been early 2000's. 2005 was just under 5%.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

masterclonkex — Mon, 29 May 2023 23:12:41 GMT

I mean, it is fine print. It's the literal definition of fine print. I never said it was a secret, just that it wasn't called out. It's a pretty important piece of information. I literally had to pay $74 to sell that item. I'm only paying $75 to sell my entire motorcycle through Bikesales (which equates to ~1.27%).

Checking through my emails I can see that I sold a few things around $250 and one thing at $525. I seems that the fees were consistently ~9.8% around 5-6 years ago, except for a couple of items that had some sort of promotional fees (?) and were only ~5%. I guess it feels worse now because the fees are immediately deducted from the payout instead of being charged separately later. I still don't know how they justify >12%. I'll certainly be a lot more cautious about listing things on eBay from now on.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

masterclonkex — Mon, 29 May 2023 23:13:49 GMT

Maybe that's what I'm thinking of then. I signed up in 2013 but I used Mum's account well before that.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

eol-products — Mon, 29 May 2023 23:17:38 GMT

In the past when you created a listing they used to show what the selling fee would be at the bottom. I don't think it does anymore but but just shows a link. If they still had this feature it would make life a lot easier so not sure why they removed it.

Maybe it was removed due to promoted listings and that the fees could vary.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

sandypebbles — Mon, 29 May 2023 23:34:41 GMT

Ah there you go

I did'nt join until 2005, was maybe a year after that I started selling

No wonder I never saw 2. something %

Still, 2005 may as well have been 1805 in eBay world

Nearly 20 years ago, no way were fees going to be anything like that amount these days

And what has'nt gone up, way up in all that time ?

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

domino-710 — Mon, 29 May 2023 23:43:41 GMT

@masterclonkex wrote:
I never agreed to pay $74 (plus shipping!) to sell this item. Who would ever do that??

You did - you included shipping in the sale as - free.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

springyzone — Mon, 29 May 2023 23:51:26 GMT

From what I can gather, it pays to read all the fine print on ebay as people do get caught out, both with listing fees and payment.

I haven't sold in years but if I did list, I'd definitely make it my business to find out what the likely fees would be.

You ask if there are other places you can sell. You probably already know of them-Gumtree (very quiet site) or FB marketplace. With the latter, the main problem might be getting the $550 price for the camera. People there try to beat you down a lot.

The other thing you could try (if you had a particular, good brand of something) is check to see if there is a dedicated facebook site for that brand as sometimes there will be, and it may have a buy and sell site. You'd then need to join.

I've not looked for cameras but I know of such sites for eg Tupperware and some brands of clothes and the sellers seem to get reasonable prices on those private sites, maybe because the people on it are already fans of the brand.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

masterclonkex — Mon, 29 May 2023 23:55:27 GMT

And what has'nt gone up, way up in all that time ?

That's true, but this is a percentage. Why should a percentage need to go up? The prices for items have already gone up because of inflation, chip shortages, etc. That means the fees automatically go up as well. We don't need percentage increases on top of that.

You did - you included shipping in the sale as - free.

Well yeah, I did agree to pay the shipping. That was poor wording on my part. What I didn't intentionally agree to was $74 plus shipping. The shipping part was fine, the $74 wasn't.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

masterclonkex — Tue, 30 May 2023 00:02:08 GMT

The key is that I thought I knew what the fees were, and I thought they were reasonable. My jaw dropped when I saw how much they'd charged. "Outrage" would be an appropriate description of how I felt (and still feel). Of course I should have checked, but at the same time those fees are unreasonably high. That's a huge chunk of money just to facilitate a sale.

And yet they still put no effort into preventing dozens of zero-effort duplicate stores selling identical items from the same warehouse, pretending to be different stores just so they can overwhelm the search results with their items. Where is all this money going? Guess my opinion of eBay is pretty low right now.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

eol-products — Tue, 30 May 2023 00:37:16 GMT

The only thing you can do going forward is allow the 13% fees and you may also find ebay buyers will be willing to pay more than other selling methods as they feel better protected if any issues arise. So a camera on gumtree should sell for more on ebay and after taking out the fees you could be better off with less work dealing with demanding buyers from those sites.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

springyzone — Tue, 30 May 2023 01:23:09 GMT

Yes, the fees can add up.

The thing that would worry me more than the fees-the thing that put me off returning to sell on ebay, actually-is that selling second hand items seems a bit fraught these days.

You've only got to get a buyer who is the least bit unreasonable and they could potentially be stating it isn't as described or has faults or marks you didn't mention or what have you. Then they can ask for a partial refund or make an ebay claim where you'll have to refund in full plus pay return postage for your item.

We had it happen a few years back where a buyer outright asked for a refund & complained about the international postage cost etc & it was easier/cheaper in the end to just refund half the postage & let her keep it but it left a bad taste. We knew she had no basis at all but at the same time, buyers who claim faults will just about always win any ebay claim.

Good luck with your camera sale, I hope it all goes well.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

sugar249 — Tue, 30 May 2023 04:08:28 GMT

@masterclonkex wrote:
The key is that I thought I knew what the fees were, and I thought they were reasonable. My jaw dropped when I saw how much they'd charged. "Outrage" would be an appropriate description of how I felt (and still feel). Of course I should have checked, but at the same time those fees are unreasonably high. That's a huge chunk of money just to facilitate a sale.

The problem is you thought you knew, obviously you didnt do any homework.

I walked into a car dealer ship and I thought a brand new car would be $10,000 because that is what it was 15 years ago. Does that mean I jumped onto a forum and complained, no, I realised that inflation has hit and everything has gone up. (in reality I knew before I walked in, but that is the same argument you are using)

Really what is wrong with people these days.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

sugar249 — Tue, 30 May 2023 08:32:31 GMT

Actually I would complain to Ebay, instead of 12.1% you should have paid 13.4% plus 30 cents, you got a bargain.

Fee type/category	Final value fee (incl. GST)
Fixed fee – all categories Applies to all transactions, in addition to fees below	$0.30 per order
Variable fee – most categories Calculated per item, based on the total amount of the sale (including postage and handling)	13.4% of the sale amount up to $4,000 plus 2.5% of the sale amount over $4,000
Variable fee - Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) category	5.5% of the total sale amount
Fixed fee – Services category	$44.00

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

gutterpunkz05 — Tue, 30 May 2023 08:39:23 GMT

Are you sure you are not referring to the 2.5% paypal fee, that used to be taken from your payment at time of sale. Ebay fees then accumulated and you were billed separately by ebay each month.

Now no paypal, and ebay takes there full fee at time of sale.

In any event, the scale of fees is fully known prior to listing. After all you agreed to the T&C's when signing on to managed payments, and you agreed to the listing terms again when you listed the item.

No point crying after the fact.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

countessalmirena — Tue, 30 May 2023 09:07:47 GMT

@masterclonkex,

The fees on eBay are not peanuts, but they compare favourably against Amazon fees, Etsy fees, auction house fees, etc.

I suspect you are still thinking of eBay as the unsophisticated fun place where everyday people listed rare or weird or interesting things, before it became a global corporation with a lot of executives to pay, a lot of investors to whom dividends must be yielded, and a lot of “big box” stores were lured onto its platform because its customer base is huge.

All of that costs money. It’s a business. 2.5% is simply not realistic in such an environment.

eBayers occasionally selling things from around the house are no longer the target demographic by eBay in terms of sellers. Managed Payments drives this home. eBay is still a good venue if you have something that will drive a lot of interest and where the increased price you can get on eBay (because of wider field of potential buyers) makes the fee comparatively negligible.

For many things, you really should try Facebook Marketplace - but make yourself thoroughly aware of the very prevalent scams.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

davewil1964 — Tue, 30 May 2023 09:14:12 GMT

Your 9.8% didn't include Paypal fees, as has been noted.

The equivalent fees have now been absorbed into eBay's fees, so you are paying no more than you used to. It's in one hit, rather than two.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

*sons_n_daughters* — Tue, 30 May 2023 11:12:05 GMT

Obviously you've not sold for a very long time. Ebay fees haven't increased in years. In fact, the fees have been 13% for over 10 years. I incorporate the fees into my listings, and I don't offer free postage and then expect that I shouldn't have to pay it.

Your fees are correct. The fees were correct 10 years ago.

Re: When did final value fees get so high?

davewil1964 — Wed, 31 May 2023 07:39:58 GMT

40 years ago, at least.

The hot, cheap car 27 years ago was the Hyundai Excel - $14,990 drive away.