As a new seller, I'm frustrated with the amount of Chinese sellers taking all of the best match spots on Ebay.com.au. I noticed that there were Chinese sellers (thousands of them) selling bracelets (to name but 1) for $1 Buy It Now - including free postage. Surely this couldn't be possible? I sent an online letter to Australia post to clarify costs, because my maths says the following:
Taking into account Ebay's final value fee (7.5% for an anchor store) and a paypal charge of 3.4%(for international transaction here in Australia according to the Paypal website) which together add up to 10.9 cents (let's say 11) you are left with 89 cents, minus postage costs (which should be a minimum of 70 cents (same as we are charged surely?) and you are left with a measely 19 cents. The cheapest fee for the smallest letter delivery within China (before it goes overseas) is 0.60 yuan, which is 11 Australian cents. 19 cents take away 11 cents is 8 cents. I'm pretty sure packing materials aren't free, but let's say they cost a conservative 2 cents. That's 7 cents left and you still haven't counted the cost of the wholesaler in China puchasing the item for their inventory -even producing it if they were a manufacturer (but manufacturers don't tend to sell single pieces on ebay, but rather sell massive wholesale lots). Then there is a little thing called profit, which must be taken into account.
Given that these kinds of transactions would clearly not be profitable if Chinese sellers had the same costs for listing/postage as we do here in Australia(which they most certainly and etically should) and given that there are tens and thousands of these types of products flooding ebay and it's not simply a case of a few crazy weirdos taking a loss, it leads me to my next very serious question - is it Aus Post that is duping us, or is it Ebay?
