Fees & Financials

[seller_update@ebay]

We continue to look for ways to improve our marketplace to help you manage your business more efficiently, accelerate your sales velocity, and bring more buyers to you. For example, we recently launched spendable funds, a new way for you to pay for items on eBay using proceeds from your sales, and introduced additional payment options for higher priced items.

To help support changes we’re making to our marketplace that benefit all eBay users, we're increasing some final value fees. At the same time, we’re decreasing the cost of some optional listing upgrades that give buyers more purchase options and make it easier for you to manage your listings.

We’re also expanding the fee credit we give you when you provide great service by fully refunding a buyer’s return. And as we continue to roll out eBay International Shipping, we handle the international logistics for you at no additional cost, while also waiving the International fee for sellers.

Edit: Please ensure that all questions and comments remain on topic. Any off topic posts will be moved to the appropriate board, so they can be answered by Community Members.

Please allow us 24-48 hours to provide an answer to your question.  

[forwardtechsurplus]

Anyone else notice how the first paragraph of the Winter seller update says they're going to "invest heavily in advertising on Google and in other major media channels to bring more buyers to you at NO ADDITIONAL COST",  and then the third paragraph proceeds to tell us how there will be an additional cost of 0.35% in fees?  Way to insult our intelligence, GreedBay.

What a load of **bleep**. Fees were just jacked up in March 2021, then again in March 2022, and now again in Feb 2023. A total of .85% since Managed Payments started in 2020!  How do you justify those increases??  As usual "feePay" is penny wise and pound foolish. You don't realize greater impact of what this does to your business as sellers look for other platforms, and/or stop listing lower priced items. Personally, this increase means after shipping costs (which have also increased substantially the last few years) I make exactly ZERO dollars on anything priced less than 20$, and if I actually want to be paid for time, it means anything under 35$ isn't worth bothering with.  So yeah, I will be ending all listings, and will never create another listing for anything under 35$ on ebay.  And I'll have to raise my prices across the board on everything else, thus passing the costs onto buyers, which will in turn lower sales volume. Multiply that by the thousands and thousands of sellers just like me, and try to wrap your head around all the lost business you are causing. Do you not see how hurting your sellers with these fee increases is in fact directly at odds with your own business interests?  Your bean counters seem to have been blinded by greed and not taken into account the broader impacts and LOST REVENUE that you will not be able to offset with the fee increases.  You are killing your sellers, and your own business in the process. Please reconsider these greedy fee increases and dial things back!

[valueaddedresource]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@wvgrouse wrote:

Happy Valentines Day  on February 14- here is your fee increase on February 15 😞

How is is it legal for ebay to charge their fees on the state sales tax our buyers pay???

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@wvgrouse 

It may be because it is state law that Ebay collect and remit the sales tax to the state if they have the law to require them to.  So if there is a federal law that prevents this from happening, no one has ever posted it, even when asked.  

I don't like it any better than anyone else but it is very unlikely to be illegal by federal law.

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@mam98031 @wvgrouse  - just to be clear here, state remote tax and marketplace facilitator laws do require eBay to collect and remit sales tax, however they do not have anything to say one way or the other about eBay charging their total final value fees on the sales tax amount.

It was and is 100% eBay's business decision to charge the full FVF on tax amounts.

Other payment processors and marketplaces have made different business decisions to cover their cost of compliance with these laws, typically charging a processing fee of around 3%.

eBay is the only marketplace (that I know of) that chooses to charge the full commission fee on the tax amount and at ~13%+ average they are way outside industry standard.

So yes, state laws require eBay to collect and remit the tax, but that has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it is legal for eBay to charge their full FVF on that amount.

The answer to that actual question is there are no explicit laws preventing it (again, that I know of) and, so far at least, eBay has not faced any successful legal challenges to the practice.

[stl_racer]

The practice is ludicrous, at such a high percentage.  Essentially eBay argument is "I am legally required to collect $1 in sales tax from a buyer for your listing, and pass that $1 along to the taxing agency.  For that service, I will charge you, as the seller, 14 cents."  Highway robbery.  I guarantee that at least 12 cents of that fee ends up as eBay profit, under the guise of having to collect sales tax.  Transparency into what it costs them to fulfill those sales tax transfers and appropriate fees on the sales tax portion of a sale are badly needed. 

[mam98031]

Thank you, but to be clear, I didn't say the federal government or any state government required it them to charge a fee.

To add, Etsy nor Amazon charge their fees on sales tax.

[mam98031]

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@stl_racer wrote:

The practice is ludicrous, at such a high percentage.  Essentially eBay argument is "I am legally required to collect $1 in sales tax from a buyer for your listing, and pass that $1 along to the taxing agency.  For that service, I will charge you, as the seller, 14 cents."  Highway robbery.  I guarantee that at least 12 cents of that fee ends up as eBay profit, under the guise of having to collect sales tax.  Transparency into what it costs them to fulfill those sales tax transfers and appropriate fees on the sales tax portion of a sale are badly needed. 

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As I said before, I don't disagree.

[rockpalacestore]

Yes agree. Why do we have to pay a fee on money we don't even see or handle?

[katertot1372]

As we are talking about fees and the final value fee it makes it hard for me to understand the promoted listings. It used to be that you could select whatever percentage but than a floor of 2% was introduced but not a ceiling. In an effort to reward top rated sellers would it not make sense to introduce a ceiling so those of us who continuously provide great service aren't outbid on sales by sellers who are substandard? 

When I say outbid on sales I'm specifically referring to promoting a listing. I would rather you just bump up the final value fee 1.5% and eliminate the promoted listing. Don't you want to steer Ebay Buyers to the best stores so you get repeat business?

At some point the promoted listings will be at 15% and than Sellers will really have to think about what is the best platform for the items they are selling. 

Respectfully,

katertot1372

[geniusboy91]

My biggest problem, and I have voiced this many times when I'm emailed asking for feedback, is the FVF calculation related to this:

• 12% on total amount of the sale up to $2,500 calculated per item
• 2.35% on the portion of the sale over $2,500

Per item is a stupid way to calculate this. It should be calculated per listing or per transaction. I often sell things in groups of two or four. So if a person buys a quantity of 1 for a listing titled "4 Widgets" and the total is $10,000 or a person buys a quantity of 4 for a listing titled "1 Widget" and the total is $10,000, I am selling the exact same thing to the same person in one transaction. In the 1st scenario, I pay $476.25 in fees. In the 2nd scenario, I pay $1200 in fees. 

In summary, by allowing my buyers to choose the quantity they want to buy, I am being heavily punished in fees for no reason. Please fix this!

[sir.koinz]

This all sounds great but what is ebay doing about buyers who outbid all the other bidders then just go dark? It has happened to almost every auction seller on eBay and I know it's a problem. Why couldn't we make a bidder prove payment resources before being allowed to bid on items, and if they require more time to pay have them divulge that and work it out with the seller before being allowed to bid, rather than surprising them with it after they have no choice but to accept whatever terms the buyer requires. 

[katertot1372]

I agree. They should make the buyer commit to a pre-authorization of a payment type based on the bid they submit.

[golfingaddict]

My question is about the fees as it relates to the shipping fees.

Recently we had another rate increase by USPS.  

We also had a "silent increase" when the USPS removed the regional rate boxes A and B. 

First class package mail went up. 

• First-Class Package Service prices would increase by 7.8 percent 

I need to raise prices/shipping whatever to meet the increases that the carrier is imposing and now, the fee increases.  It seems to me that eBay has a built in "fee increase" every single time the carriers increase their prices.  A good little bump, I would imagine.

My question however relates to the discounted rates that we get for using eBay shipping.  Now that we no longer have the regional rate boxes, couldn't we get the Cubic Rate pricing on eBay shipping labels.

This would help to offset some of these increases.

Thank you.

[sir.koinz]

YES! Absolutely! After instituting all the new bells and whistles and added fees for the sellers, why not add one small thing to help protect those sellers, or an additional thing I should say because the safeguard for best offer is a great idea.

[tsme35]

I'm pretty sure the feds are taxing fees ebay is collecting, just it would be a tax on ebay, seeing its considered income, unless its considered a service not taxable.

 Not happy about it but then again better then having to pay thousands of tax identity's across the country BUT I don't believe it should be 12%. Should be closer to 2-3% and don't forget, ebay gets a discount for collecting taxes for the government.

[ladyleiaknight]

Oh joy! More increases!

[kathieskorner]

I suggest ebay actually ask ALL sellers what would improve the marketplace and help manage their businesses more efficiently.    My sales velocity and number of buyers have decreased since 2020, and the changes ebay has made including the new listing format (which have made a lot of extra work for many sellers) and the manipulation of eyes.  

Instead of focusing on Gen Zs and the parts of the marketplace being appropriated by the likes of etsy, Mercari, Poshmark, Carvana, etc perhaps ebay should be paying more attention to what has differentiated it from other sites and do some promotion other than on streaming services.    New poorly made merchandise is plentiful and available anywhere - vintage made to last items are not.