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).

[sandypebbles]

No fine print, no secret not hidden, it's what you ticked as to having 'read and understood' in order to be able to list

Not sure when you were ever able to sell for 2.5%  or how you managed to only pay 12.18%  this time

The fees were shown when you listed

If you have been using eBay for a reasonable long time, it is surprising you did not notice what the real fees are well before now, since they have been roughly the same for eons 

Sellers with a poor record due to defects etc will pay even higher fees

If you sold on this ID and have failed to complete sign up and verification for Managed Payments, that might also have something to do with it

As well as meaning you won't get the money from the sale, since it has nowhere to go

[eol-products]

2.5% selling fees may have been early 2000's. 2005 was just under 5%. 

[masterclonkex]

I mean, it is fine print. It's the literal definition of fine print. I never said it was a secret, just that it wasn't called out. It's a pretty important piece of information. I literally had to pay $74 to sell that item. I'm only paying $75 to sell my entire motorcycle through Bikesales (which equates to ~1.27%).

Checking through my emails I can see that I sold a few things around $250 and one thing at $525. I seems that the fees were consistently ~9.8% around 5-6 years ago, except for a couple of items that had some sort of promotional fees (?) and were only ~5%. I guess it feels worse now because the fees are immediately deducted from the payout instead of being charged separately later. I still don't know how they justify >12%. I'll certainly be a lot more cautious about listing things on eBay from now on.

[masterclonkex]

Maybe that's what I'm thinking of then. I signed up in 2013 but I used Mum's account well before that.

[eol-products]

In the past when you created a listing they used to show what the selling fee would be at the bottom. I don't think it does anymore but but just shows a link. If they still had this feature it would make life a lot easier so not sure why they removed it.

Maybe it was removed due to promoted listings and that the fees could vary.

[sandypebbles]

Ah there you go

I did'nt join until 2005, was maybe a year after that I started selling

No wonder I never saw 2. something %

Still, 2005 may as well have been 1805 in eBay world

Nearly 20 years ago, no way were fees going to be anything like that amount these days

And what has'nt gone up, way up in all that time ?

[domino-710]

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@masterclonkex wrote:

 I never agreed to pay $74 (plus shipping!) to sell this item. Who would ever do that??

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You did - you included shipping in the sale as - free.

[springyzone]

From what I can gather, it pays to read all the fine print on ebay as people do get caught out, both with listing fees and payment.

I haven't sold in years but if I did list, I'd definitely make it my business to find out what the likely fees would be.

You ask if there are other places you can sell. You probably already know of them-Gumtree (very quiet site) or FB marketplace. With the latter, the main problem might be getting the $550 price for the camera. People there try to beat you down a lot. 

The other thing you could try (if you had a particular, good brand of something) is check to see if there is a dedicated facebook site for that brand as sometimes there will be, and it may have a buy and sell site. You'd then need to join.

I've not looked for cameras but I know of such sites for eg Tupperware and some brands of clothes and the sellers seem to get reasonable prices on those private sites, maybe because the people on it are already fans of the brand.

[masterclonkex]

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And what has'nt gone up, way up in all that time ?

That's true, but this is a percentage. Why should a percentage need to go up? The prices for items have already gone up because of inflation, chip shortages, etc. That means the fees automatically go up as well. We don't need percentage increases on top of that.

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You did - you included shipping in the sale as - free.

Well yeah, I did agree to pay the shipping. That was poor wording on my part. What I didn't intentionally agree to was $74 plus shipping. The shipping part was fine, the $74 wasn't.