"I can not speak for anyone else but to me this is a business not a charity."
Yes, eBay is a business. eBay offers their platform to sellers -- for a fee -- to at least try to sell items.
As eBay is a business, they are entitled to earn money, to make a profit.
eBay gets their earnings from fees that are charged to the sellers.
"For example, if it is going to cost you $20.00 to ship a package and you charge your buyer $20.00. eBay is going to take $2.58 of what the buyer paid leaving you with only $17.42 to buy the label."
That's not true. If your eBay listing was created correctly and your buyer pays the USPS postage cost, $20.00 in your own example, then that $20.00 will be required by the USPS to pay for their service. Other posters have referred to the amount your buyer pays for postage (and for sales tax, for that matter) as in-and-out.
Buddy Buyer pays Richard First $20.00, the amount that the USPS charges for postage through eBay. Then Richard uses that full $20.00 to pay the USPS for postage. Because that's what the USPS charges, in this hypothetical situation.
"That means you are losing money on every package you ship."
Nope. Not true. Not when the buyer pays the exact amount of money for postage that your listing called for -- which also assumes that your listing accurately allowed for the accurate calculation of that postage.
Allow me to use your example of $20.00 for USPS shipping for an unspecified Item you have listed on eBay and, for purposes of illustration, assume your Item sells for $30.00. That's $50.00 for the Item plus USPS costs. Assume your buyer lives in a state that charges 7% sales tax and does not charge sales tax on postage. Only the $30.00 Item is charged sales tax at 7% = $2.10 sales tax.
The total amount your buyer pays is $52.10: $30.00 Item + $2.10 sales tax + $20.00 postage.
The $20 postage and the $2.10 sales tax go directly to their destination: the USPS and the buyer's state's treasury. In And Out. This leaves $30.00 from which eBay will retain their fee.
As has been discussed nearly to death on these forums is the fact that eBay's final value fee (FVF) is a percentage of the total amount paid by the buyer. Again assuming a 12.9% FVF, plus 30 cents per order: $52.10 x .129 = $6.72 plus 30 cents = eBay retains Final Value Fees of $7.02.
$30.00 - $7.02 = $22.98. In this example, that is what your payout would be: $22.98.
Now, if you consider eBay's imposition of their fees to be a "loss of money" to you, the seller, that's a different thing altogether.
