Greedy Ebay

[max-power-models]

Ok So I sold an item, and of all places it was purchased by a buyer in France. So here is the break down

Sold for $90

Purchased for $75

Gross profit of $15

Minus the following:

FInal valuation fee : $8.91

Fee on postage costs:$3.96 (International Airmail of $40 )

Paypal fee :$ 3.42 As Paypal is owned by eBay

Leaving me a nett profit of negative $1.29

As of now I will not be selling items over 500 grams internationally anymore. and seriously considering not selling international anymore. Its nice to know Australian competitors in Asia can offer free or next to nothing postage to Australia cheaper than it costs an Australia seller to post to the same city.

I find this highly discriminative practice soley aimed at wiping out small to medium sellers in Australia. Unfortunatley no one that works for ebay in Australia has the ticker to take a phone call, as the call centre "cant find a direct line" to the Australian office.

Is it just me that finds this unfair?  They can spin anyway they like but its simply a greedy cash grab in our pockets. 

"The rich get richer, the poor get the picture"- Midnight Oil

[phorum_junkie*]

Nobody forced you to have such a low markup on your item and you should certainly have added the cost of all fees onto your purchase price and then worked out how much profit you wanted from the transaction and added that.

How much do you think you would have made if you had advertised the item worldwide in newspapers or had sold it through an international auction house? I suspect you would have made a more substantial loss.

[asporty]

Selling international can now be dangerously expensive. There is no way you can prevent an international buyer from putting in an express order instead of regular air mail, which means that you pay more to ebay in commissions. And that extra payment will then be an out of pocket expense.

[asporty]

The point here is that OP's item could have been bought by someone from NZ who would have paid $24 in postage and ebay would have charged something like $2.3 on top of that.

So you put $3 in handling fees and think you are covered. No you are not. Because along comes a buyer from Denmark who wants the product via express mail and shells out $80. So now ebay grabs nearly $8 on top of that and you just lost $5!

[chameleon54]

The International postage FVF thing is a bit of a problem for sellers. If I,m selling items that can go in a large envelope, I add the fvf into my international postage quote. If items go as a parcel, the cost can be embarrisingly high. ( even without the FVF on postage ) Often I give postage discounts including the full FVF plus a bit extra as postage prices have just got out of hand. Sellers need to have reasonable profit margins to take a few hits and still come out in front. I figure a smaller profit is much better than no sale and profit at all.

[digital*ghost]

An interesting tid-bit, not wholly relevant to the OP but relevant to OS competition in general - as most know, FVF in Australia is charged on the cost of postage the buyer pays, whereas in the US is charged on the first domestic postage option... except for sellers registered in China listing on the US site, their FVF is charged on whatever postage the buyer pays same as here (ok, so their postage costs are generally pretty minimal if not $0 a lot of the time, but I did find it to be an interesting move on eBay US' behalf, none the less).

That aside, the fact that a seller offering to ship worldwide can not determine their actual costs of selling in many cases until a buyer actually purchases the item is one of the most unfair ways this whole thing has been implemented, IMHO, so while I know it doesn't help at all, I have a lot of empathy for the sellers this change has affected in that way. 

[bsal6160]

So now some sellers are starting to complain that they actually had a sale? **bleep** buyers. How inconvient for the seller.

[phonebite]

I think the Asian competitor also manufacture their products making it considerably more profitable for them as well as cheaper shipping.

I have to manufacture my own products in order to not lag behind because my item is too expensive.

[ringinthedingding]

Most of the stuff I sell on ebay I take a substantial loss on .. sometimes get a surprise and get a decent price but the stuff I sell these days is stuff I don't use anymore so don't care too much, just clearing clutter with little hope of ever finding a product that could be sold here profitably without ebay doing something to send me to bankruptcy at the flick of a switch .. been there done that .. with the fees the way they are it would be near to impossible to run a profitable business in this economic climate .. 

Just use the freeby listings to empty the shed and a cupboard or two is all this place is worth for me now plus buy some cheapo china stuff here and there, is almost impossible to sell anything due to the extortionate postage costs anyway .. for the mostpart it is no use buying from Australia as the postage is a stupid price and is way cheaper to get postage from overseas etc  .. no use trying too hard here any more as ebay keeps rocking the boat with repeated policy and fee changes and has repeatedly startled tmany target markets so is rubbish to even try unless you are targeting a niche market with zero competitors .. us Aussies are getting reamed from the rear by all the international corporates and the government does nothing to protect us .. is truely a disturbing situation ..

[i-love-my-sheep]

Oh dear, I just noticed that person holding a gun to your head forcing you to sell here. Terrible when you are forced into selling on a particular site. Maybe you should try one of the other sites that have very few visitors and even less sales. Oh that's right, there's a gun to your head isn't there? My bad.