eBay couldn't make Managed Payments more confusing & more misleading if they tried,

[adkhighker]

especially if you're trying to figure out how much you actually got for  any particular item you sold and what the REAL percentage was that you paid for the fees. 

On one hand they tell you that you're being charged a certain percentage for whatever you happen to have sold, but when you do the math, taking into account everything they tell you including sales tax, shipping, etc, the net result just does not match what they are telling you. Why can't eBay just tell us EXACTLY how much we are actually getting for each sale, rather than beating around the bush with all their jargon about "order total", "order earnings", and "net proceeds" that don't match up to the percentage they're supposed to be charging? They don't even have an official eBay fee and profit calculator anymore, at least none that I could find, that tells you what your bottom line net proceeds for any given sale are after pluggin in all the values including sales tax and shipping costs.

Even on the "Payout" page where they tell you how much money they have sent to the bank, ya gotta love how they have the "Amount" and the "Net" for each item at a higher price than what the item actually sold for, just so they can get their figures to come out in eBay's favor when they charge you a higher percentage fee than what they tell you in their fees section.

Don't get me wrong. I like selling stuff here, but please, eBay, just tell me for each item that I sell exactly how much I am getting for that item after my fees are taken out, instead of beating around the bush with having us look at several different pages of fee calculations you supply us where it's still impossible to tell how much we are actually netting for any particular item.

[lesegouts]

It's really not that hard. I made a spreadsheet which works very well. It's yours if you want.

[heckofagame]

You can go into each sale and there is a nice breakdown of all money collected, fees, etc. 

[adkhighker]

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@heckofagame wrote:

You can go into each sale and there is a nice breakdown of all money collected, fees, etc. 

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Thanks, but I've done that time and time again and nothing matches up.   And when you go to their page they send you where they tell you how much they sent to your bank, they do not even tell you there how much you are actually getting for each item when you go to the "details" when they should be telling you exactly that.

[monroe67]

"Why can't eBay just tell us EXACTLY how much we are actually getting for each sale, rather than beating around the bush with all their jargon about "order total", "order earnings", and "net proceeds" that don't match up to the percentage they're supposed to be charging?"

How can eBay tell any seller, at the time an item is listed, exactly how much the seller will receive from each sale?  

There are waaaay too many variables.   

What type of Thing is being sold?  eBay has several dozen categories of items with many more sub-categories within each category.   Category-specific fee percentages vary between about 3% and 15%.  The Final Value Fee is the percentage of the total amount paid by the buyer, plus $0.30.  Thirty cents.

By the way, that percentage IS  "the REAL percentage . . . that you [pay] for the fees."

Is the listing an auction?  Yes, some auctions still do very well, and there is no way anybody can determine what the winning bid will be.  

Does the seller offer options for delivery, where the buyer can choose between USPS and a more expensive two-day delivery service? 
The sales tax, which is always paid by the buyer, can vary from -- as another poster stated today in another thread -- 0% (Delaware and Oregon, to name two states) to 13%.  
Is the item being sent to a state, like Texas, that charges sales tax on the postage that the buyer pays?
Did the seller add a handling charge when he/she created the listing?  

All those things -- postage, sales tax, handling charges -- are added in to the price of the Item.  THEN that total has the variable fee percentage applied to it.   The result is the Final Value Fee -- plus 30 cents per order. 

[adkhighker]

LOL, monroe67, I wasn't asking eBay to predict the future, just to tell us what we are netting, EXACTLY,  per piece AFTER the item is sold, not BEFORE, as you are suggesting in your post.

[fern*wood]

When I look under "Order Details" for an item I sold, it breaks down all the deductions to show me "Order Earnings".  It even deducted my shipping label for me to show what I actually ended up with.

[ebooksdiva]

In the order details of every item I sell it gives me a breakdown of all fees paid, promoted  listing fee and shipping from the total the buyer has paid me and is never a penny off. 

[monica-sells]

are you looking in the right place for the details...

it really is very transparent and easy to decipher......

there are many ways to see the numbers...one of the easiest is

https://www.ebay.com/sh/ord/?filter=status:PAID_SHIPPED

click the order number and everything you need is right there...

lower right of the page is the details.....

[dhbookds]

Order details:

Payout will show earnings PLUS shipping paid by buyer.......

Then (IF you bought shipping on ebay), it will show a separate line item deduction for shipping.....if you bought shipping elsewhere......there will be no deduction for that........

what's hard to understand?

[monroe67]

Here's an Order Details calculation from a recent sale by my selling ID:

I can explain every item in this list of numbers, if you need me to.
I think it is quite self-explanatory.  Even my math-challenged brain can follow all this adding and taking-away.  
Buyer bought the Thing for $29.75, plus the postage for Priority Mail that was his own choice to do, plus the low sales tax percentage required by his state.  I "netted exactly" $25.25.  Everything in-between is all spelled out.  

If you were to post eBay's calculations from one of your recent sales, I am sure one or two other posters could help you understand them.  

[inhawaii]

All the info you're complaining about not having is right there, just a click away.

[adkhighker]

Thanks, everyone, for your replies and offers of helping and posting examples of the payment details and being so nice about it...well most of you anyway.  I've already gone through  the payment details of my own sales many time over by checking out my order details page just like you do, and I know what each item in each line means, but thank you for helping. 

The main problem I have with them, besides not making it clear what your real net proceeds are, is when they tell you that you're getting charged 13.25% to sell something in that category, only to find out the actual percentage you're paying them to sell that item is significantly higher.  For example, on one item I just sold, all I have to do is take the fees and divide it by the price it sold it for to find out they're charging 14.79%, not 13.25% .   

[fern*wood]

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@adkhighker wrote:

Thanks, everyone, for your replies and offers of helping and posting examples of the payment details and being so nice about it...well most of you anyway.  I've already gone through  the payment details of my own sales many time over by checking out my order details page just like you do, and I know what each item in each line means, but thank you for helping. 

The main problem I have with them, besides not making it clear what your real net proceeds are, is when they tell you that you're getting charged 13.25% to sell something in that category, only to find out the actual percentage you're paying them to sell that item is significantly higher.  For example, on one item I just sold, all I have to do is take the fees and divide it by the price it sold it for to find out they're charging 14.79%, not 13.25% .   

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The fee amount they charge is 13.25% of the price of item + sales tax + shipping, so if you in turn take the fee amount and divide by only the price of the item, then it will skew the percentage higher.

If ebay was charging 14.79%, they would charge that on the total payment of item price + sales tax + shipping, so it would be even a higher amount taken.  You are getting a higher percentage in your calculation only because you have changed the equation.

[heckofagame]

I disagree. They could make the whole program way more confusing and misleading if they were so inclined.