@lauren.skye001-7 wrote:
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.
I think they did it for a couple of reasons.
For starters they have their gimlet eyes out looking for anything that might allow people to get away with not paying the proper fees.
A few years back, there were quite a few sellers who woke up to the fact that they could ramp up the cost of postage & lower the price of the item to next to nothing and voila, minimal fees.
It wasn't the norm, I wouldn't say most sellers did it, but it wasn't uncommon either. You'd see something and think gee, that's a good price and almost go to click on it and whoa! You'd see the postage was $90 for a small item. Some weren't quite as blatant as that but for sure, a lot lowered the item price, then jacked up the postage a bit to lower ebay fees.
I don't know how other buyers felt but it annoyed me, it was misleading. I can almost guarantee it was a big turn off for buyers, made them resentful. People hate the impression they are overpaying for postage.
I'd say ebay woke up to that loophole and charging fees on postage pretty well put a stop to it.
Plus-ebay wanted to encourage sellers to offer free postage & no seller would be keen to do that if it just meant their competitors paid less fees if they had a separate postage cost, even if the total came to the same.
I can't see ebay changing it any time soon so if you are selling, I'd add a bit extra to the price of your item. You're actually entitled to add a bit to your postage cost too, if you use bubble wrap, paper etc. Those things aren't free so if you charge the exact cost of postage, you'd be out of pocket even without the ebay fees on postage. You need to cover yourself one way or the other.
