Ebay charging fees including postage

[blue.rival]

Hello. I am one of those sellers just about Killed off by EBAY's greedy ways . . For December we sold $5509 in items. Cost base was $2952 . . . ENTER EBAY - Fees were $835 - 15.3% . . . . We do all the work, give Ebay more $$$ for postage and take the hit at the POST OFFICE. Is there an alternative? The Current Ebay Fee structure amounts to theft - maybe they want the low level sellers gone?? 

Ebay used to be a worth while avenue to SELL ..................... not now. We're ready to pull the plug.

[i-love-my-sheep]

There are a few other sites, but they don't have the traffic that eBay has. It also depends on what you are selling.

Your items could possibly do well on a regular website because they are the type of thing that people would google if they needed it. A Facebook page might be OK too, but it's getting traffic to that which is the issue.

[saarzi]

With all due respect, maybe you need a change of business plan and/or price structure, along with a new marketing plan.
In Australia, 15% is an average commission or fee structure for a business providing you a platform to sell your products, both online AND off in the manner that Ebay does. Its the same in most types of retail commission plans, travel and tourism, even business management services... etc etc.
This 15% is only a little higher than how much it would cost a business to do the same themselves. Sometimes its actually cheaper to involve a third party.
Generally you get what you pay for.. theres no way to do the same thing for cheaper. you might compare other websites and think their fees are cheaper, but marketing is less, exposure is less, brand is lower etc etc.
Its the same offline.

[blue.rival]

Fair enough - thank you for the reply. Surely  - you don't agree though to EBAY's postage charge cut? That's pure theft 

[phorum_junkie*]

Most of my items post for $7.15 and I charge $7.99, the fee on the postage component is just under 10% so my postage covers the extra fee and I raised the prices of my most popular items by around 30 to 60c to cover all my other packaging costs like the ebay satchels, ziplock bags, tissue paper etc.

My fees over my three selling ids, despite selling about the same number of items, are actually less than they were last year Nov to mid Jan when you had to pay 50 bucks for a store to get 200 free listings, there were no free re-lists on non store items and you didn't get 40 free listings a month either.

Yes there are other auction sites but they have an abundance of sellers and almost no buyers, yes selling on facebook is fee free but things sell for much less than they do on ebay and the majority have to be local so I will be sticking with ebay as long as I am still making enough money to make it worth the time and effort.

[saarzi]

Ebay did that because people were selling items for $1 and charging $20 postage to avoid fees. If those sellers were a business and did that in the real world they would have legal action taken against them... so I understand why Ebay did that.
Technically Ebays policy is you arent allowed to pass this cost onto the buyer and can only charge "actual" postage costs. In the real world this would be all fees and costs associated with posting. In the ebay world (apparently) this means the packing cost within reason, and the stamp. If you were only charging this PRIOR to ebays postage charge, you would be losing money then anyway. Postage costs is really stamp + packaging + fees + staff or time (including youself even if a hobby seller) plus transport plus other variables. If youre only charging stamp plus packaging, the other money is coming from your 'profit'.

With or without the fee, ALL sellers, hobby or business need to balance money coming in with money going out and make profit. With retail, the very basics of this is done with the price of your items combined with volume sold. At the next level it also involves the value of your brand etc etc.

If you are not making reasonable profit, you need to sell larger numbers, adjust who you are targeting or how you are targeting them, change product, improve brand, or whatever else.

Ebays fee isnt *really* the problem... the business plan is.
Ik not sure Ebay is for those very basic hobby sellers, or those who are cleaning out their wardrobe, that dont know much about business and dont want to.
Thats why Ebay has another fee free business with a conpletely different business plan.... gumtree.

[cq_tech]

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@gtx305 wrote:
Ebay did that because people were selling items for $1 and charging $20 postage to avoid fees.

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No, that was simply the pi$$-poor excuse that eBay used in an attempt to justify their disgusting and unwarranted imposition of 9.9% FVF on postage in addition to the item. If what you've asserted above was true, then why is it that in AU we pay that extra amount on all postage, both domestic and international, yet in the US, they're only charged the extra on domestic postage, while international postage is totally exempt from the additional 9.9%?

I honestly can't believe how many people were gullible enough to actually believe the BS that eBay spouted at the time. It was nothing more than yet another thieving cash-grab from eBay which, in the process, has virtually destroyed overseas sales from the Australian site, and cost sellers (and buyers) an extra fortune in unnecessary and usurous fees.

[thecatspjs]

[davewil1964]

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@cq_tech wrote:

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@gtx305 wrote:
Ebay did that because people were selling items for $1 and charging $20 postage to avoid fees.

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No, that was simply the pi$$-poor excuse that eBay used in an attempt to justify their disgusting and unwarranted imposition of 9.9% FVF on postage in addition to the item. If what you've asserted above was true, then why is it that in AU we pay that extra amount on all postage, both domestic and international, yet in the US, they're only charged the extra on domestic postage, while international postage is totally exempt from the additional 9.9%?

I honestly can't believe how many people were gullible enough to actually believe the BS that eBay spouted at the time. It was nothing more than yet another thieving cash-grab from eBay which, in the process, has virtually destroyed overseas sales from the Australian site, and cost sellers (and buyers) an extra fortune in unnecessary and usurous fees.

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However, if you use eBay's label service, for parcels going in satchels or boxes (especially), the cost is 10% or more less than the equivalent Australia Post service.

Is it THAT big a gouge?

And eBay postage was the main reason they got the charge past the ACCC. So maybe utilise the lower costs available.....

For parcels. For letters it shouldn't be a deal breaker.

[digital*ghost]

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@cq_tech wrote:

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@gtx305 wrote:
Ebay did that because people were selling items for $1 and charging $20 postage to avoid fees.

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No, that was simply the pi$$-poor excuse that eBay used in an attempt to justify their disgusting and unwarranted imposition of 9.9% FVF on postage in addition to the item. If what you've asserted above was true, then why is it that in AU we pay that extra amount on all postage, both domestic and international, yet in the US, they're only charged the extra on domestic postage, while international postage is totally exempt from the additional 9.9%?

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The most telling thing that shows eBay did not introduce FVF on postage due to postage piracy is in the FAQs regarding no longer counting postage cost DSRs in a seller's performance rating (that alone undermines the FVF being due to postage piracy IMHO).

eBay's own statement is that postage rating DSRs weren't much of an indication of buyer dissatisfaction anymore, saying that - in a nutshell - even when a buyer rates a seller with low stars for postage cost, it doesn't affect whether or not they continue to buy on eBay.

In other words, while we do see that some buyers get quite ticked when they find out their sellers didn't pay as much as they did for postage, postage piracy in itself was not a big enough issue for eBay (or buyers) for it to be something eBay wanted to police in any way, nor punish sellers for.

The really funny thing is, eBay claimed that it was the increase of sellers offering free postage that contributed to postage costs (and buyer opinion of them) not having an overall adverse affect on the site....  

Um, someone should remind eBay that buyers can't rate seller's postage cost DSRs when it's free post, so it's not possible for free-post items to provide any data whatsoever regarding whether buyers keep buying on eBay after they've rated a seller low for P&H costs.