Managed Payments is more expensive than Paypal for Fashion Powerseller

[aruraclothing]

I am a one man operation fashion powerseller having sold over 65,000 items the past 6 years. I have seen nearly an increase of 25-50% in eBay listing fees over that period of time. Here are some of the things I have noticed eBay doing to there Top Rated Sellers.....

Eliminating 20% final value fee discounts (First it was reduced to 10% then only given to sellers who offered free returns, personally free returns does not increase traffic for me, my buyers prefer a lower price over free returns). I was paying eBay 7.2% in final value fees when I started my business. Now it's over 10%. If you use promoted listings which I will talk more about below it is significantly higher. 

Increasing metrics and eliminating benefits / discounts if strict metrics are not met. I have always been in the top tier of the metric structure but there have been cases where during my peak season I may be near a category cutoff. Not a big deal, but when 95% of those cases are incorrectly filed by a customer (for example calling an item "not authentic" when I purchased it directly from the retailer myself is ludacris). 

The eBay / Paypal relationship went out in blowout fashion with Paypal keeping all cancelled / returned item processing fees costing me thousands in a short period of time. Thanks for that! 

Stating "most sellers" will see a savings with managed payments is false advertising in my opinion, I do not know anyone who is seeing a savings, the final value fee now includes the total purchase price which is cost of the item, shipping paid and taxes. Due to the final value fees on the tax your total percentage can vary greatly depending on the state you sold that item too. Several southern states have very high sales taxes over 9%. Paying a final value fee on sales taxes means that I will easily pay an additional $5,000-$10,000 a year in final value fees a 5-10% increase.  They also top that off with a .30 per transaction fee easily topping Paypal fees by 1-2% on average. 

Managed payment sellers now pay a flat rate international final value fee of 1.65% on top of the .30 transaction fee and the normal final value fee for your category which for fashion with my eBay store is 9%.

The implementation of the promoting listing tool is not good for eBay sellers. I have used the promoted listing tool but have since stopped my participation with that. Yes, you do get more sales but why make less money just to sell something faster? I'd rather get top dollar for my merchandise as its getting harder and harder to source that merchandise these days. Or spend my time filling the gaps in eBay and find merchandise no sellers or few sellers have and became ranked in those categories of items. I have found myself working harder and harder for less margin. In my opinion, eBay should focus on promoting listings of its top rated sellers for free as a benefit for top performers.  

I very much dislike the way final value fees are stated on the customer order details. These fees need to be itemized. Instead of one grouped "final value fee". 

For example current fees looks like this: 

Final Value Fee

Applies to Total Amount of the Sale Final amount: $85.54.

Final Value Fee

Per order fixed fee

-$9.84

-$0.30

Subtotal: -$10.14

Total fees: -$10.14

When they should look like this with each fee itemized..... This would be for my fashion category and eBay store level.....

Final value fee for category (dollar amount and 9% fashion final value fee) 

Final value fee transaction charge and processing fee 2.7%, dollar amount and flat service charge of .30

Final value fee on international sale if applicable (dollar amount and 1.65%) 

Final value fee on taxes (dollar amount and percentage for that customers state) 

Promoted listing fee if applicable (dollar amount and percentage promoted fee paid)

With the current system I don't think there is even a breakdown of promoted listing fees from final value fees so you have a hard time knowing which orders sold via promoting listings and how much you paid for promoting listings for that order. 

I don't know about you but I am still getting used to having my money tied up in ACH processing for several business days. I ran my business on tight cash flow with Paypal, so not having funds now means I currently carry a balance on some of my credit lines thus costing me more money in interest payments. Whereas before I never carried a balance or had to pay interest. I am still trying to adjust my business to the new payout schedule and it has been quite a headache.

Anyways just some thoughts feel free to provide input or suggestions......

[cata-ro2014]

Is it just me or ebay has just turned into an Amazon v2 ?

-$11.25 on $61 sale ? I always thought ebay's cut was more like 10%.

Add the **bleep** exchange rate to that (ebay will not allow me to add my USD account) and it is more like a 20% loss nowadays. I am now upping all my .com prices accordingly.

On a sidenote, you all know that deep blue state where stealing from brick&mortar venues up to around $900 has been legalized, yes ? It is coming folks, we shall all be trapped in the virtual world of the interwebs.

[micsab_315]

Its just plain highway robbery.  Here is a good example.  I see an item for 0.99

  Here is the corresponding Fee schedule with this order:

Essentially, it cost me $ 0.21 to sell my item.  Sorry, not doing it anymore.

I recommend not listing items on this service. 

[trippssey]

I completely agree. As a small independent seller, I make little to nothing on any of my sales now that payments are managed. I highly resent that eBay takes their percentage off of the total amount and subtracts that amount from the lesser amount that you recieve. For example: my buyer will pay say, $22.13 for a piece of clothing in total, eBay will take their 12.55% +.30 cents off that total, ($3.08) but they will subract it from the $21.00 I get from it. I don't know if that's considered normal or fair practice,but in my view it is not . Plus, eBay did not give me an option, they forced my account into managed payments stating everyone would eventually be a managed payments seller. And with large companies like this any continued use of their service is consent to everything they do. So it's take it or leave eBay completely. Love ultimatums. Contracts are negotiable unless you're small and they're big.

[trippssey]

I thought I was going crazy, calculating my fees and amounts with each sale being left confused every time how they got there but you're right they don't have a breakdown of how they calculate anything. 

[vladmirt]

I have noticed a huge spike in my fees, I sell hobby stuff usually and noticed when I sold something for 570 USD that eBay took almost 70 USD which is ridiculous, hell even today I sold something hobby related and they took 56 USD. Makes me miss the days of Paypal and the ease of getting paid out by them.