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EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

Thinking very seriously about cancelling my account.:-(

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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

I cant afford ebay fees on shipping and paypal tax. I cant make enough money now and for car parts I sell on car web sites. For music I sell on music sites. The rest goes on Craigslist,. For car parts paying HUGE shipping fees makes it not worthwhile. And yes I lost money for the past year after 20 years of happy selling my inventory is just piling up in my garage. Was a good 20 years ebay! I canceled my last transaction and refunded. I was going to loose and make nothing so I stacked up my stuff.
Message 106 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

completely agreed. i think i'm done with ebay now as far as selling goes, they (+ paypal) took about $15 in fees combined from my most recent sale but i know others have experienced double or triple that at least. it's such a rip off. a lot of people myself included use this site because they need the extra cash for whatever reason(s), and an amount like that really is a big loss when it could've been put towards something else/useful. 

Message 107 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

sndeng
Adventurer

I've been on ebay since june of 1999. When I first signed up they were very pro towards the small seller, part time or small business. Today they are strictly for the big  stores. The big volume stores get the big breaks on selller fees. Us small time sellers are the chumps which, shows by there actions towards us. On paypal even you can opt in for a Paypal Business Payments. Shockingly or, perhaps not too, shockingly, since PayPal wants you to pay high fees it’s difficult to find much information online about how PayPal Business Payments work. There are a couple of sites that explain how it works. Under this system the paypal fee is 50 cents per tranaction no matter the amount. Drawback is, it is only useable if your customer has a Payapl balance or uses a bank account, no credit card can be used. If they can allow this kind of charge then, they are making a klilling off the unsuspecting seller and over chargibng to begin with. Ebay.... Ever since the Far East dealers caught on ebay only charged a sellers fee for the actual selling price, it's ruined it for everyone. They would list something for 99 cents but the shipping is where the actual selling cost was. Now everyone is caught in a percentage of the shipping cost included in the sellers fee. Fair? I don't think so. Only have to blame the big far east stores for there greedy actions. Noticed as of late how many Chinese dealer there are? I'd guesstimate around 70% of the stores are Chinese now. Dealing with them is difficult. They have an unfair advantage as there postage is really cheap. It's subsidized by the government. They pay pennies to ship while it costs us several dollars. Get the wrong item and want to return it. In most cases it will cost more to ship it back than what it's worth. You end up eating the cost and have a totally useless item. Ebay is very biased toward teh Chinese delaers. I had an item shipped to my grandson in Texas, I live in Oregon. It never arrives by USPS even though it said it was delivered. The Chinese dealer just came out and called me a liar. When I put in a request to ebay to dispute it, they came back with an answer in less than 5 minutes favoring the Chinese dealer. I raised holy hell with them and they finally relented and returned the payment. 

 

Message 108 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high


@sndeng wrote:

I've been on ebay since june of 1999. When I first signed up they were very pro towards the small seller, part time or small business. Today they are strictly for the big  stores. The big volume stores get the big breaks on selller fees. Us small time sellers are the chumps which, shows by there actions towards us. On paypal even you can opt in for a Paypal Business Payments. Shockingly or, perhaps not too, shockingly, since PayPal wants you to pay high fees it’s difficult to find much information online about how PayPal Business Payments work. There are a couple of sites that explain how it works. Under this system the paypal fee is 50 cents per tranaction no matter the amount. Drawback is, it is only useable if your customer has a Payapl balance or uses a bank account, no credit card can be used. If they can allow this kind of charge then, they are making a klilling off the unsuspecting seller and over chargibng to begin with. Ebay.... Ever since the Far East dealers caught on ebay only charged a sellers fee for the actual selling price, it's ruined it for everyone. They would list something for 99 cents but the shipping is where the actual selling cost was. Now everyone is caught in a percentage of the shipping cost included in the sellers fee. Fair? I don't think so. Only have to blame the big far east stores for there greedy actions. Noticed as of late how many Chinese dealer there are? I'd guesstimate around 70% of the stores are Chinese now. Dealing with them is difficult. They have an unfair advantage as there postage is really cheap. It's subsidized by the government. They pay pennies to ship while it costs us several dollars. Get the wrong item and want to return it. In most cases it will cost more to ship it back than what it's worth. You end up eating the cost and have a totally useless item. Ebay is very biased toward teh Chinese delaers. I had an item shipped to my grandson in Texas, I live in Oregon. It never arrives by USPS even though it said it was delivered. The Chinese dealer just came out and called me a liar. When I put in a request to ebay to dispute it, they came back with an answer in less than 5 minutes favoring the Chinese dealer. I raised holy hell with them and they finally relented and returned the payment. 

 


@sndeng

 

I tried to wade through your wall of text ... paragraphs would have made it a bit easier to read 😞  But here is some info for what I got out of it ...

 

PayPal never charges a buyer a fee. All fees are paid by the seller.

 

The PayPal fee is 2.9% + 0.30 for domestic transactions

For transactions in a foreign currency it is 3.9% + 0.30

 

PayPal allows processing of credit cards. 

 

PayPal business accounts are no different, fee-wise, than Personal accounts. I have a Business Account because it allows me to use my "business" name rather than my personal name, it gives me a bit more flexibility in invoicing (for non eBay sales) and it provides better reporting. And it's a FREE upgrade from a personal account ... no extra fees.

 

PayPal does offer Merchant Services for sellers that want to take credit cards in their offline business ... these services are reasonably priced and inline with other merchant account fees from other places.

 

The FVF on shipping was started to curb sellers who would sell an item for $1.00 with $100.00 shipping.  At the same time that eBay did this, they lowered other fees.  From all reports, this balanced out, mostly.

 

I don't understand your reference to a "seller's fee" ... no such thing.

 

I agree that the Chinese sellers have an unfair shipping advantage ... but the UPU may be addressing this in their upcoming meeting, hopefully. But as long as the Chinese government subsidizes shipping for their businesses, I don't think this will put any sort of dent in the Chinese junk proliferating here 😞

 

As for tracking .... If the tracking says DELIVERED to the correct zip code, your problem is with the Post office. Doesn't matter where the seller is.  This is one of the very few seller protections that actually work around here.

penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
Buying and Selling since 2013

Message 109 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

Obviously you don't sell on Ebay if you have no idea what a "sellers fee" is. They now charge you 10% of the total sale INCLUDING the shipping costs. So you end up paying and addidtional 10% of the shipping costs. Sell something for $100 + $15 for shipping. You pay $11.50 for the complete transaction to Ebay alone. The you have greedy paypal with there 2.9%+.30 fee on $115.00. That means $15.35 comes out of the $100.00 sale price. If you enjoy that I"ll have Ebay raise the fees higher jsut for you since you seem to enjoy handing over any profit you HAD. Paypal and Ebay could charge .5% fee, each, and still make a large profit. That's why i quit selling on ebay. What I used to sell was at a fair price and no markup, actual shipping costs. Now they want 10% of the shiping costs. You want to pay that for me? Ebay touted at one time, "sell items you don't need anymore and put some money in your pocket."  Not anymore. They take such a large portion of a sale it's not worth it. They are driving the small dealers and sometimes sellers out. The seller fee breaks they give the large stores is totally unfair. While I would have to pay 10%, they get deals for pennies. I'll buy from Ebay stores that can survive. Only time I'd use Ebay to sell something is if it's a totally unique product that can't sell elsewhere. That's once in a blue moon.

Message 110 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high


@sndeng wrote:

Obviously you don't sell on Ebay if you have no idea what a "sellers fee" is.

 

They now charge you 10% of the total sale INCLUDING the shipping costs. So you end up paying and addidtional 10% of the shipping costs. Sell something for $100 + $15 for shipping. You pay $11.50 for the complete transaction to Ebay alone.

 

The you have greedy paypal with there 2.9%+.30 fee on $115.00. That means $15.35 comes out of the $100.00 sale price.

 

If you enjoy that I"ll have Ebay raise the fees higher jsut for you since you seem to enjoy handing over any profit you HAD. Paypal and Ebay could charge .5% fee, each, and still make a large profit.

 

That's why i quit selling on ebay. What I used to sell was at a fair price and no markup, actual shipping costs. Now they want 10% of the shiping costs. You want to pay that for me?

 

Ebay touted at one time, "sell items you don't need anymore and put some money in your pocket."  Not anymore. They take such a large portion of a sale it's not worth it.

 

They are driving the small dealers and sometimes sellers out. The seller fee breaks they give the large stores is totally unfair. While I would have to pay 10%, they get deals for pennies.

 

I'll buy from Ebay stores that can survive. Only time I'd use Ebay to sell something is if it's a totally unique product that can't sell elsewhere. That's once in a blue moon.


Again, paragraphs help 😞

 

It's called a Final Value Fee (FVF) , not a seller's fee.  In your previous post you seemed to be saying that there was some separate "seller's fee".

 

I am not a large seller .. I have a store ...I am also lucky enough to have a separate space for my eBay office/storage ... not large ... 500 square feet.

I am also TRS ...

So I pay:

$59.95/month store fee

9% FVF on the Total amount of the sale (shipping included) to eBay

2.9% + 0.30 to PayPal on the Total amount of the sale (shipping included)

Rent on the space

Electricity on the space

The space is attached to my unit, so I can share my home internet ... but I have upgraded to premium service because of it.

Paper, ink, toner, packing supplies (this is a biggie - I sell fragiles), office supplies, cleaning supplies, organization supplies, etc, etc.

 

I charge my buyers Retail postage ... and pay Commercial Plus (TRS)

I get a 20% discount on my item FVFs

I pay my eBay invoice with my PayPal Debit Card for 1% Cash back

 

All of my expenses are built in to my pricing. I have gotten a lot better at BUYING for resale ... my average GPM (Gross Profit Margin) is 48% ... do I take a loss every once in a while? YES ... but those times are few and far between, and it's usually my fault ... I didn't research enough, I miscalculated shipping weight ...

 

All businesses have expenses ... If you anticipate them, you can price your items to cover them. If you have purchased wisely, the profit takes care of itself.

 

If I were not making a profit, I wouldn't be here.

 

I also sell locally. My average local sale price is $5 ... these are items that don't pass the eBay margin test, so I don't list them here. If I sell something larger, I take PayPal and pay the fee.

 

I looked into getting a booth at one of the antique malls around here ... the ones with the best traffic charge $100+ for a 7'x7' space, per month, AND a 10% fee, AND a 3% "Credit Card" surcharge if the buyer pays with a card. Plus you have to deal with breakage (fragiles, remember?) And "shrinkage" (shoplifting).

 

My Business Partner keeps talking about opening a "real" store ... I keep reminding her that a "real store" requires "real" expenses and "real" hours ... and "real" employees, because neither she nor I want to spend 12 hours a day, 6 days a week doing this ... we put in the hours, but it isn't on a regimented basis ... the only thing that absolutely MUST be done on time is shipping ... All else can be done at whatever time we feel like, however we feel like getting dressed, and can be accomplished while also doing laundry 😉

 

 

penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
Buying and Selling since 2013

Message 111 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

I wanted to add ...

 

Consignment Shops in this area charge 30% for clothes, 40-50% on antiques and collectibles.

 

The auction houses charge 30-40% to the seller and usually 13-15% to the buyer.

 

eBay is still ranked #7 in traffic for 3P (third party) sellers with over 7 million shoppers per month.

 

http://www.wheretosellonline.com/marketplace-comparisons/compare-marketplace-traffic/

 

Compare the traffic at that chart to the fees on this chart:

 

http://www.wheretosellonline.com/marketplace-comparisons/compare-fees-pricing/

 

Let's take ebid ...

3% fee ... (and you will pay a payment processor fee)

Rank.......monthly visitors

25,755  ..... 86.6 thousand

 

So yes, there are cheaper places to sell ... but can you get the traffic for your stuff?

penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
Buying and Selling since 2013

Message 112 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

Your corporate answer is not good enough, the fees are way too high and you pay very little tax and also allow Chinese sellers to pretend that they are not in China, its low budget

Message 113 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

Im totally with you.  And the return policy is a joke.  Ebay has just become a marketing tool for major and minor corporations to sell there products through because the average person selling goods on here can no longer profit with the on-going fees.  

Message 114 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high


@rosebertt wrote:

Im totally with you.  


Well, they posted five years ago. If they're still here, I guess the fees aren't that high after all.

Message 115 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

Is a five year old whine considered "Vintage"?... or just, yet another old whine?

Message 116 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high


@bronx-dog wrote:

Is a five year old whine considered "Vintage"?... or just, yet another old whine?


In this case, it's turned to vinegar.

Message 117 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

Kudos for being so nice to someone who was very rude to you. I would not have been so nice. My wish is that all the people complaining about ebay fees being so high and leaving, actually do leave so the rest of us that are not inclined to complain about every little thing can enjoy the boards again.
Message 118 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

To all, I know you don't know me and I doubt eBay will respond in a favorable way but I've run my stock down and am moving my business elsewhere due to the fees just being too high. I'm done. 

Message 119 of 145
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Re: EBAY and PAYPAL Fees too high

Amazon

Message 120 of 145
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