Why does eBay slap “fees” on out of nowhere!

Question

I am a seller and a buyer who is getting very frustrated with this site. As a buyer you are fully set, everything is fine if you pick the right seller, but if you try your hand at selling your quality items on this site they sneak in as much fees as possible. I’ve never seen such small print deceitful frees. I’m thinking of finding another site that doesn’t do their sellers like this. And shipping with them is so much detail that they make it that way so they take more money from you. No wonder...

monroe67 · Answer

"As a buyer you are fully set, everything is fine if you pick the right seller, but if you try your hand at selling your quality items on this site they sneak in as much fees as possible. I’ve never seen such small print deceitful frees."

There is a lot for new eBay sellers to learn. eBay's fees can be complex, but they are neither hidden nor secret. The fees do not come from out of nowhere. ALL of eBay's fees are available for all eBay users to read. eBay's fees are all printed in the same font size.

Since you are new to selling on eBay, you would benefit from reading eBay's fee structure.

Granted, the link to those fees is printed in, as you say, small print, but here's how to find them:

On a computer, as opposed to a cell phone, scroll down to the bottom of any eBay page. You'll see a line of small print starting with the eBay copyright dates (1995-2026), followed by a list of underlined words in blue, indicating hyperlinks. Locate the words "User Agreement" and click anywhere within those two words.

The User Agreement will open up on your screen. Along the left side is a list of all the general subject titles in the User Agreement. The fees are all explained in Item 6, Fees and Taxes. Click anywhere within those words. eBay's policies on Fees and Taxes will open.

The first sentence of the second paragraph is: "The fees we charge sellers for using our Services to sell goods and services are listed on our  Selling fees pages." Again, "Selling fees", underlined and in blue, is a hyperlink. Click anywhere in those two words, and ALL of eBay's fees are right there, available to read and, ideally, to understand.

You can click on other hyperlinks within that section of the User Agreement for more details on fees and even sales taxes.

There's one fee you may not know about: The Reserve Price Fee.

Reserve price: When you, as the seller, decide to set a minimum price that must be met for your item to sell, eBay retains a fee of:

$5.00 or 7.5% of reserve price, whichever is greater (maximum fee $250)
Charged whether or not your item sells.

Several of your auction listings show that the reserve price has yet been met. Nobody knows that reserve price except you, the seller. Since that 7.5% fee applies whether your item sells or not, you are facing some significant fees.

You cannot remove the reserve price from an auction listing once it has gone "live." If there are no bids yet, you can end the listing -- but you'll still have to pay the reserve price fee on that listing. Then you can relist the item without a reserve price.

disneyshopper · Answer

If you create a listing with no optional features that cost extra, you are only charged the final value fee (which differs by category) based on item price + shipping + sales tax. If you happen to select a feature with an extra charge, you will see that charge just above the submit button. That gives you time to go back and remove that feature (subtitle, 2 categories, Bold title, 1-day and 3-day duration, reserve price, promoted listing).