eBay fees

I find it quite disturbing that eBay charges their fee on sales tax and shipping. This decreases the seller's net sale. Fees should only be charged on the actual sale price. Agree?

sheryl2516

672 View listings

Posted 8 months ago·Last reply 8 months ago

14 comments

monroe67

·8 months ago

199 View listings

"I find it quite disturbing that eBay charges their fee on sales tax and shipping. This decreases the seller's net sale. Fees should only be charged on the actual sale price. Agree?"

No.

Even if you got a few thousand eBay sellers to agree with you, that would change nothing.
eBay isn't about to change their fee structure after decades just because you and some others find it disturbing.

As for a "decrease" in an eBay "seller's net sale," successful eBay sellers accept their system and work within it.

With so many variables in each sale -- such as the wide variation in sales tax percentages throughout the country, whether a state charges sales tax on shipping charges, not to mention calculated shipping when a seller doesn't know in advance where the sale will end up being sent -- with so many variables in each sale, it's virtually impossible to know for sure how much a seller could net from any one sale.

My selling ID estimates net proceeds as 70% of the price on her listings. (Most of my listings are in categories where the Final Value Fee (FVF) is 13.6%. If I list something in a higher-fee category, I'll estimate a little lower net proceeds.) However, on my most recent sale, eBay kept "only" about 20% of the listing price, meaning the net proceeds were about 80%. But that's just an estimate that I do in my own mind, to help me set prices.

Like you, many eBay sellers have had these moments of doubt and introspection. They have to go through a process of deciding whether to continue selling on eBay or not.

kibble-net

·8 months ago

8324 View listings

How many hours has it been since the last post about this very same topic? Maybe we can just make one mega-thread or something?

ryry-jj

·8 months ago

1913 View listings

I don't know anyone that processes money for free, regardless of whether its on taxes or not. Moving money cost money

totally_rad_movies

·8 months ago

2500 View listings

Yeah they have no choice but to charge on the shipping because sellers will just lower the price of the item and greatly increase the shipping cost to avoid the fees. The fee on sales tax is diabolical though.

stainlessenginecovers

·8 months ago

5572 View listings

@sheryl2516 so would you be less or more disturbed if they didn't charge that way, instead just charge you 25% FVF's?

gurlcat

·8 months ago

2004 View listings

Welcome to the Community @sheryl2516 ! You can get help with just about any trouble you ever run into here, in fact better than calling eBay. But just for future reference, you can save time by trying the search feature at the top of the page, to see if your question has been raised before. -This 'fees on shipping/taxes' one is kind of tedious because it has been brought up so frequently.

inhawaii

·8 months ago

Ebay's most handsome seller.4976 View listings

I find it disturbing that so many sellers find it disturbing.

bonjourami

·8 months ago

2513 View listings

You'd probably find it more disturbing to collect those sales taxes and dispurse each to the proper state..or better yet,pay an accountant do it for you.

jerseyboymusic

·8 months ago

256 View listings

@sheryl2516

If you want to pay an accountant to collect and remit sales tax from all 50 states, go for it. Probably more expensive than the small percentage Eaby takes

njtoyreseller

·8 months ago

12197 View listings

To keep it simple!

eBay charges fees on tax as their "processing fee" to do the collecting of sales tax so you as the seller dont have to worry about.

eBay charges fees on shipping because too many sellers used to try to avoid fees by selling a $100 item for only $0.01 and then charging $99.99 to ship. eBay figured this out and now charges fees to avoid this.