Its been a while selling on ebay ridiculous fees why bother

[jayboy2008]

I havent sold on ebay for a while and i am wondering when ebay and paypal make more from the transaction why bother?  

the item i sold cost $50 

sold for $60                    Fees      $6.53

             $8.95 postage   Fees      $  .97

                                       Pay Pal $2.09

                $10                              $9.59   fees 

Lucky the insertion fees where free other wise i would have been paying ebay for the privilege.

[davewil1964]

It's hardly eBay's fault that you don't check the costs beforehand, or allow for a reasonable profit margin.

No luck about free insertion fees - all sellers get at least 40 per month. Been that way for years.

[*tippy*toes*]

The fees are written out in black and white for all to see. Why are you adding so little mark up on your items? I make a minimum 1,000% profit on my items, so still do very well after fees are taken.

If you are selling for such a low mark up, of course you're not going to make any profit. In comparision to other ways to sell items, eBays fees are quite low. Try selling at an auction house or even an add in the paper. 

Increase your prices, or find something else to sell. Otherwise it's pointless.

[gutterpunkz05]

So what level of fees do you think should apply.  I do not agree with the fee on postage, but we have sellers abusing the system to thank for that, most sellers now just build that fee into their price or postage charges.

[eol-products]

My advice would be when running an auction is to only have one at a time in the hope to get increased bidding.

[chameleon54]

You hit the nail on the head when you noted you paid $50 for an item and sold it for $60, with ebay taking virtually all of the difference.

But that is the problem.....it would be hard to run any business anywhere with such slim profit margins and hope to make a profit. The problem isn't ebay taking too much, the problem is you are selling products with too small a margin to make any sort of profit. Like many others here I work on margins of 500%-1500 %, so ebays costs are a small fraction of my total profit. If you want to make money on the site, you just need to do some research and find products that are much more profitable.

[love_of_cars]

If you are to continue with your current operations on eBay then you need to a) source your stock at a cheaper price and b) sell them at a higher price to increase your margin to cover the fees involved.

[sugar249]

In any business sale price is set by input costs, these being your purchase price of goods, postage if sending, sale fee's (ie. paypal, Ebay), you own oncosts ie. insurance, time, office space, etc. You don't set a sale price until you have calculated all of those, then you add a profit margin. If you have set you sale price without that knowledge, don't blame Ebay, blame the business owner. They set the sale price to low.

[springyzone]

Ebay fees do look high but what you are paying for is exposure. There's more traffic on ebay that on some other sites. And depending on what you are selling, you might have a wider audience of potential buyers here because you can post the item off. Buyers sometimes just like to make a purchase and get their product without having to get into a round of coomunication with the seller. Just pay & sit back and wait for the thing to arrive. They get that with ebay.

Facebook marketplace is successful for some things and might be worth a try if you are wanting fee free sales but how successful you will be there may depend on what the items are.

I know ebay fees may look hefty but you might get a shock if you look at some of the alternatives. For example, advertising in newspapers is horrendously expensive per line. 

Ebay isn't what it used to be with fees, you now get charged fees on postage plus there are paypal fees. It's not like the old days of just a listing fee & commission on the sale price. If I were selling on ebay today, I'd be shifting up my prices so that I came out at a profit. It isn't always possible to make 100% profit but for example, if you paid $50, you would really need to be looking at $70 or more before it would start to become worth your while to sell on ebay.

[offroad7400]

MINIMUM 1000% ! You can't sell water out of a tap or thin air at that figure ? No wonder you don't use your 'real' seller ID here.

Don't let us in our your secret.... 🙂