why does Ebay take a fee on postage?

[lauren.skye001-7]

Why does Ebay charge a fee on postage costs? We do not profit from this. I charge the exact fee it costs to send an item domestically, this is to be fair to the buyer. And this is also automated by Ebay as it makes uploading process easier. Ive just discovered that on the final postage fee of $8.50 (for example) Ebay take 93 cents? What purpose does this serve other than ripping off the seller? With both paypal and ebay fees on top of this i am out of pocket. Its already a struggle to sell on ebay. Literally ill sell my items somwhere else. 

[sydney-diecast-kingdom]

eBay started charging fees on postage costs to counter sellers who were avoiding paying fees.

Some dodgy sellers were listing a valuable item for $1 with say $1,000 shipping. This meant they could sell an item for $1,000 and pay only 10c in fees.  

[padi*0409]

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@sydney-diecast-kingdom wrote:

eBay started charging fees on postage costs to counter sellers who were avoiding paying fees.

Some dodgy sellers were listing a valuable item for $1 with say $1,000 shipping. This meant they could sell an item for $1,000 and pay only 10c in fees.  

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Before eBay brought in the fees on postage I reported a seller in Korea several times for doing that, and ebay did nothing at all about it.

So I suspect that the real reason for the fees was that it was/is a handy way to generate extra revenue, with eBay putting the blame on a few sellers that were rorting the system.

[meekamag2]

Yep. Just another way to make $$$$$$. Greed. 

[egglesdtp]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

Final Value Fees apply to the total transaction.....item and postage.

Paypal fees are to pay for the transfer of money.

ONE fee from ebay, one fee from paypal.

Please stop posting incorrect information of the boards....you can be reported for doing so.

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Well actually the fee on the item cost and the fee on postage are listed separately in the ebay invoice, so the info was not incorrect.

An snippet of my invoice, showing the separate fee on item and shipping is shown below:

[egglesdtp]

So if a single 500g prepaid satchel costs $8.50, and you have been charged a 93 cents fee on it, then make your postage cost for the buyer $8.50 + 0.93 = $9.43, which you would probably round up to $9.50. Then you have covered your postage fee cost.

If you sell enough to warrant buying 500g satchels in packs of 10, the cost per satchel drops to $8.08, which can be rounded up to $9.00 to cover the cost of the ebay fee. The fee on $9 is 0.98, which if you charge $9 for the <500g parcel, this will cover the cost of the satchel and the fee ($8.08 + $0.98 = $9.06)

[lyndal1838]

But it is still the same fee on the two components of the transaction.....not two fees on the same part of the transaction.

[dazzledayz]

You say Tomato while I say ... oh what the heck.

The point is the amount IN fees paid rather than the amount OF fees paid.

(Free Post Item FVF) = Item FVF + postage Fee ... unless there is something wrong with my maths.

This argument is just splitting hairs.

The real point I'd say, is that eBay are trying so hard to copy Amazon, they've even reproduced their fee structure once PayPal is taken into account.

By the time eBay becomes the payment intermediary they'll probably be slightly cheaper but I would suspect not by much.

[lauren.skye001-7]

oh thanks for stalking - wonderful response. 

[lauren.skye001-7]

Report me for what? Calm down.

i posted a question in relation specifically to postage costs - nothing else? 

post a question and get attacked. 

thanks. 

[lauren.skye001-7]

thank you so much for explaining this. I posted a question just asking specifically about postage and was attacked for doing so lol. 

I know there are paypal fees and ebay fees - thats life and ofcourse they need to charge a fee. I was just a bit **bleep** off that a fee is taken from postage and i make no profit specifically from postage. 

thanks again. Appreciated.