FVF on postage

[matchboxmick]

I was considering selling a large part of my collection on Ebay and not really sold much for a long time now. When I checked I found out that my FVF is now consisting of a percentage of the final cost ( fair enough as this is where Ebay earns its money)  but also they now take a percentage of the postal cost and as most of mine would be international it means I get some hefty charges stuck on me as a seller.

What I ask is 

1. is this even legal ? Postage/handling is between me and the buyer not Ebay who have nothing to do with it unless I use their GSP which given their rates there is no chance of me ever using or for that matter buying from anyone who offers it as postage.

2. If it is even legal then sadly its the end of selling for me and now only the occasional buy given current postage costs worlwide escalating - boy these postal companies sure know how to kill the goose that lays the golden egg by increasing costs astronomically ( bit like Ebay getting rid of all the small moms & dads selling cheap items who made Ebay big and rich originally )

[purplemon18]

It seems to me that the simple solution would be to factor the costs in.

List the items at the price you want to sell them at, as buy it now (forget auctions, they are only useful for collectables). Make sure that all your costs are covered, including ebay percentages, and that they make enough profit to be worth your time.

Make sure you only list with free listings and that way you don't loose anything but the time taken to list them if they don't sell.

[melbourneclearance]

Ebay has been doing that for a number of years now. You must factor in all the costs when selling on ebay. Don't worry about what your competitors are doing.

Personally, for example, I charge $8.99 for parcels below 500g. It consists of $7.55 postage + $0.90 ebay/PP fees on postage (approx) + cost of a box. to send the item in. I also avoid "Free Postage" for items over 500g and offer calculated postage instead. For all I care my competitors who have "Free Postage" can have all the customers from Broome and Darwin and pay the expensive over 500g postage while I corner the Sydney/Melbourne markets with cheap freight which equal lower total price+postage.

There are a lot of little things you can do to factor in the ebay's percentage. It is no different from paying rent in a B&M shop.

[davewil1964]

It is legal - it was done to death at the time of introduction, quite a few years ago now.

As the GSP is only available to sellers in the US or UK, this is not possible - unless I use their GSP. If it was available here, I would certainly sign up for it. Takes almost all of the risk out of selling internationally.

As you have obviously been away for many years, it might be prudent to apprise yourself of the current way eBay works. Including, but not limited to, 21 day Paypal holds, buyers' money back guarantee.

[springyzone]

 It's been this way for years & although it isn't popular, I think we can take it it must be legal or it would have stopped by now.

it is not going to change any time soon so you'll have to work within the system.

What about limiting sales to within Australia if you are worried about the cost of international postage?

It may not get you quite as big an audience but you could be surprised & do reasonably well.

I think the key will be to do as others have suggested though & set your prices and postage costs high enough to cover the fees and give you a decent profit.

[gutterpunkz05]

Yep, been happening for years.  Just incorporate it into you postage fees.  Recommend using flat rates for Australia  and only doing

International post via quote, not postage calculator.

[cake.king.australia]

FVF is based on the TOTAL sale price and has been this way for many years. I believe this to be fair considering what was going on before this

[dazzledayz]

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@cake.king.australia wrote:
FVF is based on the TOTAL sale price and has been this way for many years. I believe this to be fair considering what was going on before this

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It was well within eBay's capabilities to run an algorithm across sales in order to pick up large selling price vs postage price anomalies.

It's quite obvious what's going on when a sale for a few dollars attracts huge postage.

This would have been the more positive approach as dodgy sellers would have been noticed and more easilly dealt with.

Anyone trying to scam eBay out of FVF would have been entirely capable of scamming a buyer in other ways.

Rather than weeding out a few bad apples, this approach of FVF on postage simply added to the corporate bottom line.

Prices thus had to rise across the board to factor in the extra fees so the entire site offering became more expensive.

This in turn, resulted in a decrease in sales though I suspect the sums were done before the increase and looked good to management.

[springyzone]

The bottom line is this way was easy to implement and it rakes in more fees. What's not to love about that if you're an ebay exec.

But I think there may have been a second reason. From what I have seen, ebay is encouraging sellers to send with 'free' postage.

Of course it really means postage price included but there's no doubt it is fairly popular with a lot of buyers, probably because they can see the total price 'at a glance.'

But if you were a seller being hit with fees on the full price of items listed as 'free postage', you might be tempted to swap over to item +postage if you could save fees on the postage component.

So I see this as just a part of the ebay vision-it seems to me they would prefer a site with mainly new stock, professional or semi professional sellers, free postage and quick delivery and they are trying to steer things in that direction.

[countessalmirena]

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@springyzone wrote:

[...] rakes in more fees. What's not to love about that if you're an ebay exec.

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