There is a valid problem here. Ebay can charge what they want, and people can choose to use it or do something else. I'd prefer to use it than risk the Wild West of GumTree, and I'm ok paying a fee for the protection offered by ebay. Their reason including postage in the fee calculation, ie that people are selling for $1 and charging $99 postage, when in fact the goods are worth $90 and postage costs $10, seems a bit lame in this age of AI and machine learning, but again, I can either put up with it or go somewhere else.

The problem is that the seller's fee varies depending on where the goods are being shipped to, and by what method. I just sold something as a private seller, not a store seller, on ebay Australia for A$137.50 to someone in Canada. The buyer requested Express postage. I got a quote for A$36, plus an Australia Post packing box and insurance, total A$42. I discovered after everything had been agreed by the buyer, that sending Express bumped up ebay's fee to me, the seller, from 17% to 19% of the sale price. Had the buyer been in Australia and happy with a standard shipping service, my total fee would have been 16%. If he'd requested a courier to Canada, my fee would have been 25%! And none of this benefits me in the least. You might say ebay gave me access to an overseas buyer, but they also charged me 1% for that. Ok, so I've learned a valuable lesson.

I assumed that if I looked through goods for sale by private sellers that I would see people protecting themselves from these fee variations. I expected to see comments like "Ebay fees are calculated on the sale price plus the postage. If posting by Express or any service other than Standard, or if posting outside of Australia, the buyer will bear the additional ebay fees incurred". I can't see anything like that. Does anyone know if people protect themselves in this way?