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@tazzieterror wrote:
How on earth did you arrive at a figure of 30%? I think it may be your arithmetic skills causing you to lose money on eBay, rather than the fees! 😄

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The ID you are responding too ( going*gone ) stated that with paypal fees included, their selling costs could be 30%. Agreed the way they reached this figure was slightly flawed, but for many sellers they are not far off the mark. Take the following real example from one of my best selling and cheapest items.

I get the item for free. I charge $9.95, but it is heavy and needs to be mailed in a 3 kg. satchel. With P&P I charge $14.50 postage on this item. Ebay commision fees ( not including any listing fees etc. ) at 9.9 % of total incl. postage are $2.42. ( 24% ) . If the ATO adds 10% GST to the ebay commissions component of the transaction, it will add another 24 cents, bringing the total in ebay fees to $2.66 ( over 26% ) Now add in paypal fees of 4 or 5 % of the total transaction cost ( I dont know the exact cost of paypals service ) and this adds around another $1.00 to the fee grab. Total fees paid for the sale of the $9.95 item will be around $3.66 or over 35% of the item cost.

Another real example. I have just done the tax for my two stores for the 2015-2016 financial year. My largest ebay store had ebay fees ( not including paypal ) of 22.3%. This store is a featured store and has more listings than its allocated freebies, so pays some listing fees. Add 10% GST to the current 22.3% fees gives total ebay fees of 24.53 %. Add in the paypal fees and we are very close to 30% total fees as stated by going*gone. This is on ebay sales of tens of thousands of dollars, so not scewed by nominal sales.

In essence going*gone was correct in stating that an item purchased for $80 and sold on ebay for $100 could end up costing more in stock purchase price and ebay / paypal  selling costs than is actually recieved for the item.

Many people would be suprised if they did their figures correctly on how much they are truly paying ebay and paypal for their services. Not really understanding the fees is one reason many sellers with slim profit margins struggle to make ebay pay.