When did final value fees get so high?

[masterclonkex]

I've used eBay for a reasonably long time. I sold a camera yesterday for $550, and only received $476 in the payout. That's ridiculous. I never agreed to pay $74 (plus shipping!) to sell this item. Who would ever do that??

I remember final value fees being about 2.5%, not 12.18%! When did this change happen? Is there any way to sell things on eBay without the fees being so incredibly unreasonable? Or is there a better marketplace I should look to?

There's literally no point selling things on here with fees that high. It's insane. And yeah, in case you're wondering, I'm pretty **bleep** that this fee wasn't made blindingly obvious on the selling page (you have to read through the fees page, only linked in the fine print at the bottom).

[masterclonkex]

The key is that I thought I knew what the fees were, and I thought they were reasonable. My jaw dropped when I saw how much they'd charged. "Outrage" would be an appropriate description of how I felt (and still feel). Of course I should have checked, but at the same time those fees are unreasonably high. That's a huge chunk of money just to facilitate a sale.

And yet they still put no effort into preventing dozens of zero-effort duplicate stores selling identical items from the same warehouse, pretending to be different stores just so they can overwhelm the search results with their items. Where is all this money going? Guess my opinion of eBay is pretty low right now.

[eol-products]

The only thing you can do going forward is allow the 13% fees and you may also find ebay buyers will be willing to pay more than other selling methods as they feel better protected if any issues arise. So a camera on gumtree should sell for more on ebay and after taking out the fees you could be better off with less work dealing with demanding buyers from those sites.

[springyzone]

Yes, the fees can add up.

The thing that would worry me more than the fees-the thing that put me off returning to sell on ebay, actually-is that selling second hand items seems a bit fraught these days.

You've only got to get a buyer who is the least bit unreasonable and they could potentially be stating it isn't as described or has faults or marks you didn't mention or what have you. Then they can ask for a partial refund or make an ebay claim where you'll have to refund in full plus pay return postage for your item.

We had it happen a few years back where a buyer outright asked for a refund & complained about the international postage cost etc & it was easier/cheaper in the end to just refund half the postage & let her keep it but it left a bad taste. We knew she had no basis at all but at the same time, buyers who claim faults will just about always win any ebay claim.

Good luck with your camera sale, I hope it all goes well.

[sugar249]

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@masterclonkex wrote:

The key is that I thought I knew what the fees were, and I thought they were reasonable. My jaw dropped when I saw how much they'd charged. "Outrage" would be an appropriate description of how I felt (and still feel). Of course I should have checked, but at the same time those fees are unreasonably high. That's a huge chunk of money just to facilitate a sale.

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The problem is you thought you knew,  obviously you didnt do any homework.

I walked into a car dealer ship and I thought a brand new car would be $10,000 because that is what it was 15 years ago.   Does that mean I jumped onto a forum and complained, no,  I realised that inflation has hit and everything has gone up.  (in reality I knew before I walked in, but that is the same argument you are using)

Really what is wrong with people these days.

[sugar249]

Actually I would complain to Ebay,  instead  of 12.1% you should have paid 13.4% plus 30 cents,  you got a bargain.

Fee type/category	Final value fee (incl. GST)
Fixed fee – all categories Applies to all transactions, in addition to fees below	$0.30 per order
Variable fee – most categories Calculated per item, based on the total amount of the sale (including postage and handling)	13.4% of the sale amount up to $4,000 plus 2.5% of the sale amount over $4,000
Variable fee - Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) category	5.5% of the total sale amount
Fixed fee – Services category	$44.00

[gutterpunkz05]

Are you sure you are not referring to the 2.5% paypal fee, that used to be taken from your payment at time of sale.   Ebay fees then accumulated and you were billed separately by ebay each month.

Now no paypal, and ebay takes there full fee at time of sale.

In any event, the scale of fees is fully known prior to listing.  After all you agreed to the T&C's when signing on to managed payments, and you agreed to the listing terms again when you listed the item.

No point crying after the fact.

[countessalmirena]

@masterclonkex,

The fees on eBay are not peanuts, but they compare favourably against Amazon fees, Etsy fees, auction house fees, etc.

I suspect you are still thinking of eBay as the unsophisticated fun place where everyday people listed rare or weird or interesting things, before it became a global corporation with a lot of executives to pay, a lot of investors to whom dividends must be yielded, and a lot of “big box” stores were lured onto its platform because its customer base is huge.

All of that costs money. It’s a business. 2.5% is simply not realistic in such an environment.

eBayers occasionally selling things from around the house are no longer the target demographic by eBay in terms of sellers. Managed Payments drives this home. eBay is still a good venue  if you have something that will drive a lot of interest and where the increased price you can get on eBay (because of wider field of potential buyers) makes the fee comparatively negligible.

For many things, you really should try Facebook Marketplace - but make yourself thoroughly aware of the very prevalent scams.

[davewil1964]

Your 9.8% didn't include Paypal fees, as has been noted.

The equivalent fees have now been absorbed into eBay's fees, so you are paying no more than you used to. It's in one hit, rather than two.

[*sons_n_daughters*]

Obviously you've not sold for a very long time. Ebay fees haven't increased in years. In fact, the fees have been 13% for over 10 years. I incorporate the fees into my listings, and I don't offer free postage and then expect that I shouldn't have to pay it.

Your fees are correct. The fees were correct 10 years ago.

[davewil1964]

40 years ago, at least.

The hot, cheap car 27 years ago was the Hyundai Excel - $14,990 drive away.