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See fees and shipping before accepting offers
How can we see fees ebay will charge for a sale along with the shipping the buyer will pay BEFORE accepting an offer? It is pretty ridiculously unprofessional that I have to use third party tools to find the cost of a sale to see if I will actually make a profit. Ebay has this information in their systems, how can we see it? Or is this just another ebay tactic to squeeze more money from us?
16 comments
kh-light
·7 months agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
toysaver
·1 year agoYou can't know exact fees because sales tax and shipping are location dependent. The feature that showed a buyer's zip code was removed from the system. I don't know if it was an oversight or done purposely to prevent sellers from catching people trying to circumvent blocks. It was a helpful tool. There can be a huge difference in shipping a 5 pound box to California than somewhere closer to home.
dhbookds
·1 year agoSo what is your strategy for cheaper items
Don't list cheap items.......
freepineapples
OP7 months agogo back to reddit
stainlessenginecovers
·1 year agoA 3rd Party Tool? You mean a simple calculator??
Item + Shipping + Tax
x 13.9%
Pretty simple to 'figure out'.
freepineapples
OP1 year agothis is ten characters
fm2000
·1 year agoIf a media mail package is opened and is not qualifying media, and the shipper buys the label on eBay or other online postage provider the USPS re-charges the seller the difference, they don't charge the recipient (postage due). They used to handle this by charging postage due to the recipient, but not anymore.
susanb1872
·1 year agoJust before you hit the button to list, click on "final value fee" to get an estimate of your fee. As others have explained, total fees can only be an estimate due to sales tax rates, variations in calculated shipping, if there is sales tax on shipping, or international fees charged.
freepineapples
OP1 year agothis is ten characters
reallynicestamps
·1 year agoUmm- don't offer anything for $2.99.
Remember that you will pay a fixed service fee of 30c + 13.5% of the selling price - and that's before shipping and tax fees.
So for any sale, your $2.99 is already just $2.29.
Then there is the procurement cost.
And the cost of packaging for shipment.
And of course your labour cost -- minimum wage where I live is 28c a MINUTE.
If it takes 10 minutes to photograph, describe, upload, file, find, and package your item, you made no money.
If it takes 15 minutes you are in the red.
freepineapples
OP1 year agoSo what is your strategy for cheaper items? I have an ice scraper for instance that nobody is going to pay $10 for when it is $3 in the store. Do you usually just do like 5 packs or something? There are always people undercutting.
pikabo-icu
·1 year ago@freepineapples In my head I do a nice round 20% off the total. It almost never equates to that much so I am pleasantly surprised instead of woefully disappointed.
Think: expect the worst and celebrate the best.
The fees are very fair. I've listed a lot of places, always sell more here on the 'bay and the final fees are lower. I've paid 30% before.
freepineapples
OP1 year agothis is ten characters
monroe67
·1 year ago"How can we see fees ebay will charge for a sale along with the shipping the buyer will pay BEFORE accepting an offer?"
You can't. eBay won't give you the shipping/delivery address until the buyer has paid you, through eBay.
Thus, you won't know whether you'll be sending a sold item to Des Moines, Iowa, or to Des Moines, Washington. When you create a listing with US Postal Service (USPS) Ground Advantage shipping, the distance from you can make a difference in the amount of postage that will be needed to deliver to the buyer. Obviously, Iowa is closer to you than Washington.
And you also won't know if your buyer will have to pay sales tax on the amount of postage he/she pays in addition to sales tax on the price of the item. Iowans don't, but Washingtonians do.
By the way -- please, please know that a Hallmark-brand Christmas tree ornament that looks like a small stack of books is not eligible for USPS' Media Mail rates. I know Media Mail may be cheaper than Ground Advantage, but Media Mail is for actual books, not miniature ones to hang on your Christmas tree. If your buyer pays Media Mail for that plastic or acrylic ornament and USPS opens it before delivery (which they are entitled to do), your buyer will have to pay postage due. Buyers don't like that, and might just refuse delivery.
You can find eBay's list of Final Value Fee (FVF) percentages in the User Agreement under the heading Fees and Taxes. You may have to click a hyper-link, but they are all there. I also hope that, with more than 1,000 sales made by your user ID, you are aware that eBay's FVF percentage is charged to the full amount paid by your buyer: the price of the item plus shipping and handling (if you add handling to your listings) and sales taxes.
slippinjimmy
·1 year agoI know the cost of eBay fees for any listing before I hit the list button except for a possible International fee. If you are using Calculated shipping then the buyer will be paying the appropriate amount irrespective of it being a sale under an offer. If you use flat rate or "free" shipping you should already be prepared for a variable shipping cost and until the buyer goes through checkout not even eBay can tell you what the shipping charge will be.
redmodelt
·1 year agoYou would have seen most of the fees when you placed the listing. Not all can be shown because would not know if going to a state that has sales tax or not and the amount of that tax along with how much the fee on the shipping will be esp. if zonal or calculated.
You should be able to do a ballpark estimate of the fees before accepting an offer. Or you could set the minimum you would accept as an offer when building the listing so you still can show profit guestamation what shipping or sales tax fees amounts might be.