Has anyone heard of buyers premium?

[tweetystwades]

25% applied to winning bid. I've seen it on other sites, but not ebay.    

[southern*sweet*tea · Accepted solution]

Live auctions have those.  http://www.ebay.com/rpp/live-auctions

[tweetystwades]

Oh, got it. Thanks!!

[campesinoplastic2014]

Very common on a real auction, but not 25%. I usually see 7-10%.

When added to sales tax it adds up

[mistwomandancing]

Many of the big auction houses use the buyer's premium, but on eBay we don't.  I think mostly it is used by the auction house, itself, to cover their expenses in running the auction.  You know, still light bills to be paid and employees salaries to cover, etc. 

But on eBay, the sellers pay the *house* so no buyer's premiums charged on our auctions here.

[campesinoplastic2014]

They do that instead of charging the selling party a percentage. It is gaining popularity. The selling entity used to pay a fee or percentage more often than not and they never liked paying to sell their goods, especially municipal agencies dumping surplus. If you go to one of these auctions, you have to figure in sales tax and buyers premium, to come up with your max bid.  I used to have a pre-made chart in hand.

[sharingtheland]

I picked up widgets yesterday from two local online auctions (well,  I use the word "local" loosely in this metro area)  and paid 15% buyer's premium at one auction house and none at the other.

I've been buying from a national online auction house quite a bit and it's a lot more high end than the places I've used locally.  No buyer's premium at the national one, but they charge the sellers 35%.   Based on this site's reputation and prices realized, I will pay the 35% - I'm organizing things for their "people" to come here and take away.   Another service included in the 35% - I call; they appear*.

*Of course, I do live in that aforementioned humongo metro area.  Not sure if they'd send someone to Fargo to pick up a fabulous carved wooden Chinese screen that would sell for 33 cents, if at all, on this site.