I've given some thought to what I did on eBay 5+ years ago. What fees I had to pay, how much it cost to ship things, what buyers had to pay... and charges I incur as a seller. It seems like everyone is trying to get their hand in our business to take a cut of what we make leaving us with so little that it makes sense to give up on the eCommerce platform altogether. It started with sales taxes being added, slowly but surely more countries got on board with that (Canada did not, but we pay a fee and service charge at the time of delivery, it costs us the tax, possibly duty, and 9.95 to receive a package over our deminimis which I think is $40 CAD for online purchases). I noticed as I ship more international stuff, more and more countries collecting the tax... Australia, New Zealand, EU, UK, Switzerland, Malaysia, Singapore... There is only a few places I can think of that don't do that (Hong Kong which is a free port, plus I don't see taxes collected for Japan and South Korea, not sure what they're doing about it). Then after the taxes came about which make buyers pay less for the item because they're thinking of the big picture which includes taxes and shipping. The next thing to become out of hand was shipping costs. It's like the shipping companies are getting greedier and greedier (this is not a USPS vent, it's happening everywhere. I ship to other countries using non-USPS options). Then eBay gets in there with EIS limiting what's viable to ship outside the US. I wanted to buy a few vintage tupperware containers, they were $9, but then $43 CAD in shipping. Like that's happening. Around 5+ years ago, I was paying around 2.66 to ship across country (that's when I started in 2016), I think by 2020 it might have been around $4 (USD) to ship across country in the worst case scenario. Then USPS rates went up. Canada Post Rates went up. I'm honestly not sure what it costs to ship things anymore, it seems to be changing every week. It started to become ridiculous to order just about anything online, now when I want coins (to collect for myself), I'm buying from Portugal or Lithuania because the shipping rates are still reasonably priced for international shipping, and those Portugal shippers are offering a lot of stuff with shipping included in the price (which works out to what I pay at a local coin show, so it's like I get it delivered to me while shopping from the comfort of my bedroom and not feel like I'm paying extra shipping since the price shipped is the same as what I pay the local coin dealers). Then came all sorts of regulations, which pushed up a lot of shipping prices. We used to be able to use a service called APC (Asendia I think it's called) to ship internationally. I was able to get a coin to Australia for about $10 USD ($12-13 CAD) and new regulations came in making it illegal to have international packages transit the US from Canada. Then more regulations about how postage needs to be purchased by non-US residents who are using USPS, so now I can only get postage from my shipper (Stallion Express). All those competitive options are not options for me if I want to use USPS on account of regulations. Then came the tariffs. While a lot of what I ship is tariff free, since the tariffs came about I'm being charged an extra 1.49 per shipment to get my Canadian shipments into the US. If I do pay tariffs, it's currently at 10% (which is an improvement over previous tariffs which caused me to remove all my China, Switzerland, India, and Brazil items from my stores, they've been reinstated when the tariff situation got fixed, or at least improved). But it's not just the US... when I ship to the EU, it's 4.87 CAD (3 euro) per item in the package. The only way I see around it is if I'm shipping like items and label them as a "collection". But it still means it's $5 more to ship, that has to come from somewhere. Buyers don't want to pay, so we make less sales. I've had only one sale to Hungary since the EU duties became a thing. So with everyone sticking their hand in my cookie jar, I have to raise prices to make the kind of profits I've become accustomed to (which makes it worthwhile to sell here). I need to charge more for shipping to cover expenses relating to shipping, buyers are paying more for their item that advertised because of tax. And it's costing them more to pay for their shipping. As a result of all this increased pricing, I sell much less stuff. I'm down 65% in the last 90 days than I was a year ago (before a lot of the tariff stuff and increased shipping stuff started). It's really making selling here not viable for sellers anymore because everyone thinks they're entitled to a cut of what we make. I worked for a company once where every time they had some good revenue, people would stick their hands in the cookie jar to take some of it causing this company to end up with minimal profits (and eventually went under). I pointed out to the owner "ever notice every time a customer pays for one of your items (it was industrial software for larger systems), the office rent seems to increase, people need more money in benefits, they want more vacation time, and all sorts of expenses crop up, but only when the company is making money." It was kind of like everyone knew money was coming in and suddenly everyone needed some of it for something under the guise of "business expenses". (The company was not well managed, but as their admin I could see what was going on). It's like every time we adjust to a change, some new expense crops up that affects our prices, or increases what a customer has to pay for their item, so customers are not bothering with buying as much stuff because they're not getting value for what they pay for anything. Say I sell a $5 coin. At the coin show, that coin is $5, someone can buy it from me and walk away. To sell it here, it's $5 for the coin, $8 for shipping, $3 in tariffs, $2 in taxes, $2 in eBay fees... all having to be accounted for when we put in our selling price for the item. There's no value in that when most of what we get for our item is paying overhead. Anyway what brought this on, is someone said something to me today that really ticked me off and got me into thinking of what it's becoming like for online sellers (this platform and others), and why buyers are going away in droves and shopping locally for stuff to avoid all the overhead that comes with an online purchase. (Unless you're in a rural zipcode, then it might still be viable, but they've put a "tax" on that too). C.
