Ebay is getting too expensive to sell on

[roverlordoffroadspares]

I'm starting to think is it really worth sellling on ebay, we get charged fees on what we sell then we get slugged again on a ebay fee on the postage. We don't profit on postage, and actually loose money, we also have to pay GST on the postage costs also . It we inflate the postage to cover these costs then the customer will shy away as postage is too high. If you increase postage to cover the fees then eBay get an even bigger slice as they take a fee on the higher postage charge.

Seems a win win situation for Ebay, but not so win win for the seller.

May be we should all start selling   just the item and stating postage will be charged separately direct to customer ?

Then ebay won't get a fee on postage cost .

  Ebay should take a good look at the situation, if it wasn't for sellers then ebay would have no revenue.

[*tippy*toes*]

I would call it a case of sour grapes. I'm not the only one here who has a huge markup on their items. While I don't get sales every day, when I do get them, they are well worth it. Same as the other person/people. Given I have a real job, I don't want or needs sales every day anyway. 

I would say that well over 50% of my items go to rural or remote areas. Those people don't have access to the items locally, usually. However, they do have the internet, so are capable of shopping around. Yet, they come to me. Maybe it's to do with my providing exception service and high quality items. Who knows?

[digital*ghost]

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@audistarelectronics wrote:

If your average profit is 1000%, I will be steering clear of your items, whatever they are. I dont know of any business that can average that markup. Good luck to you, but thanks for the heads up.

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If someone buys something for 90c and it sells at auction for $86 (which is the example provided in tippy's original post), who's responsible for the stated average of 1000% profit margin? Your post suggests you're offended that other people would choose to pay a lot more than the seller does, and for that reason the seller is to be avoided? Sorry, just doesn't make much sense to me. 

Aside from the fact that it was stated as an average, percentages are virtually meaningless without the data to quantify them. eg on the example above, the profit on the 90c item (after all expenses), would have been well in excess of 1000%, so if the average is 1000% it's entirely possible there's hundreds of other items where the profit was more in the realm of 100% or 200%, or maybe even 50%.  

There is a lot more to the price of something than the out of pocket expense to purchase goods and/or materials. I make that kind of profit - and more (just in dollar to dollar terms) - on some of my items. They cost me a lot in time to produce, however, and frankly are still underpriced in terms of how much is invested in them in non-material and selling costs (to be fair, I'm more than happy to lose custom from people who don't recognise or appreciate that, though).  

[*tippy*toes*]

I for one can definitely appreciate the cost of hand made items when others just don't get it. I used to make decorated biscuits. On average, they would take 3-4 days to make, depending on how much decorating was to be done. Each colour had to dry before the next colour could be applied, or they would blend. 

One of my former work colleagues has a cafe and she asked me if I would make some to sell at their cafe. I made 200 biscuits, over 4 days and she gave me 20c each for them. I was mortified, but what else was I going to do with 200 biscuits with a limited shelf life? I tried to talk her into $1 each and she wouldn't budge. She wanted it to become a regular thing. No way, not when I found out she was selling them for $5 each. Of course I expected the cost she paid me to be low enough whereby she would make a profit, but she out and out ripped me off. I should have thrown them in the bin.

Part of the deal of making more, because I didn't have health certificates for my kitchen, I would RENT a corner of her kitchen. By the time she gave me the final figures, to do this one day a week, I would have been out of pocket nearly $100, while she was raking in the rewards for my efforts. She just could not appreciate the effort and detail that went into each biscuit. 

It wasn't a case of mixing up a batch of dough and throwing it in the oven. I had to store them while they cooled. I'd then have to make up multiple batches of royal icing, which is a right pain in the rear because the surface dries very quickly in the air. Each one had to be mixed to the right colour and kept covered until I was ready to use it. If I was making black or red, a whole bottle of colour gel would be needed because black and red are the two colours that when mixed with white, make a different colour.

I really enjoyed making them, but I wasn't about to be ripped off blindly. These days I sometimes make them as a gift for someone, but won't ever make them to sell wholesale as it's just not worth it. I want to sell some stuff at the farmer's markets next month, I might take some there.

So yes, I can appreciate when you put a lot of effort (and love) into hand made stuff and people don't want to pay a decent price for it. 

[digital*ghost]

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@*tippy*toes* wrote:

One of my former work colleagues has a cafe and she asked me if I would make some to sell at their cafe. I made 200 biscuits, over 4 days and she gave me 20c each for them.

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I think I just died a little inside   

Man, that brought back memories, though. I took a cake decorating course in my teens and one of my first forays into selling was baked goods and confectionary. I made all sorts of stuff, but the best sales were marshmallow rabbits at easter, decorated chocolate cupcakes, and various shaped / decorated gingerbread cookies at Christmas to sell as edible tree ornaments, so I know the painstaking process of it all, particularly the royal icing (get a tiny dot of egg yolk in there - start again! I used powedered dye for black and red, though, as it seemed to work much better). I can't even imagine 20c a piece would cover the production costs, let alone anything else. 

A couple of years ago I was approached by an Australian designer to make a bulk lot of something to decorate clothing they were taking to New York for fashion week. I had limited time to produce the quantity they needed, so I worked overtime before I received the material to make sure I could stay on top of my stores and keep up with sales, then worked day and night for 3 days straight to complete it. My hands were an absolute wreck afterwards, and a couple of days later I was still so fatigued that I thought I was having serious heart issues and called an ambulance (I was fine, I just didn't realise how much it took out of me).

They were really happy with the finished product, and asked if I'd be prepared to make more for the units they wanted to produce to sell, but on a sliding scale (meaning, the more they ordered, the cheaper the unit price was for them). Granted it wouldn't have the same time constraints, and all I was contributing was time and skill (and the tools, obviously), so there was no opportunity for me to reduce any costs, nor the time they would take to make in terms of total work hours, and all I could think was when an employee goes into work and contributes the same thing for a business (time and skill to manufacture a product), they don't turn around and say "so, the more hours you work for us, the lower your wage will be". I turned them down. 

[brerrabbit585]

That reminds me of my sister paying me $1 to lace her leather bags back in the early 70s. It took about 3 hours per bag and she did about the same amount of work for the rest of the bag and made over $30 profit on each one. Some people know exactly what they're doing but have no conscience!

[*tippy*toes*]

Some people are really good at getting what they want like that. They know exactly what they are doing and know they are abusing you. I'm not one that normally drops the greedy tag, but some people are just that. This cafe woman takes whatever she can get, but hides behind doing it for the community and helping disadvantaged kids, or just kids in general, which is a crock. I have a huge Rosemary bush in my garden. I put a note on Facebook asking if anyone wanted a bit to either grow, or dry and eat. One of my friends tagged this woman and within minutes "I'll take whatever you have". Yes, of course you will, and you're not getting one leaf off it.

Same thing with my rhubarb. As soon as this friend tagged her, she wanted the lot. Ummm, no. I had to tell my friend not to tag her in anything because she is greedy and takes whatever she can get with no conscience. She's one of those people who will easily convince people that she's doing them a favour, when really, there is an ulterior motive. She ripped another work colleague off too, who has a small fudge making business. She gave her next to nothing for her fudge, then put a hefty price on it. Like me, that happened a total of once. Colleague sells her fudge really cheap anyway, but she was ripped off big time.

My biggest problem is I DO have a conscience!

[springyzone]

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@*tippy*toes* wrote:

I for one can definitely appreciate the cost of hand made items when others just don't get it. I used to make decorated biscuits. On average, they would take 3-4 days to make, depending on how much decorating was to be done. Each colour had to dry before the next colour could be applied, or they would blend. 

One of my former work colleagues has a cafe and she asked me if I would make some to sell at their cafe. I made 200 biscuits, over 4 days and she gave me 20c each for them. I was mortified, but what else was I going to do with 200 biscuits with a limited shelf life? I tried to talk her into $1 each and she wouldn't budge. She wanted it to become a regular thing. No way, not when I found out she was selling them for $5 each. Of course I expected the cost she paid me to be low enough whereby she would make a profit, but she out and out ripped me off. I should have thrown them in the bin.

I really enjoyed making them, but I wasn't about to be ripped off blindly. These days I sometimes make them as a gift for someone, but won't ever make them to sell wholesale as it's just not worth it. I want to sell some stuff at the farmer's markets next month, I might take some there.

So yes, I can appreciate when you put a lot of effort (and love) into hand made stuff and people don't want to pay a decent price for it. 

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What is striking me here is that your former colleague cut off her nose to spite her face (so to speak). I was shocked to read she openly sold them at $5 but only offered you 20c PLUS expected you to pay to rent part of her industrial kitchen. I would have thought $1 per biscuit plus free use of the kitchen would have been a minimum offer. 

Had she done something like that or even $2 a biscuit, she would have had you willing to make more & she would still probably have been well ahead.

[heihachi_73]

I sold an off-centre 5c piece on eBay for $40 (auction started at $10). I received it in my change from Coles and it was worth exactly 5 cents until then. 🙂

[gec2002]

I did quite well on the DaVinci I recently sold.  Picked it up for $10 at an Op Shop and sold it for US$450 Million.

[springyzone]

Well, just looking at the original poster's items for sale.

Unless I am reading it wrong, they seem to currently have about 376 items for sale so I guess although it is expensive to sell on ebay, they have found it is still worthwhile for them at the moment. Maybe they have put prices up a little bit to help cover the commissions.