01-31-2021 11:32 PM
I have been in Managed Payments for 9 days. I have a Basic Store and sell postcards in Collectibles, so my FVF is
11.5% of the price, tax, and shipping cost. Today I had a combined sale of 7 postcards for $7.50 with sales tax of $.69 and free shipping. The FVF should have been $.94. ($8.19 X .115) + $.30 transaction fee = eBay fee $1.24. My payout should have been $6.26 ($7.50 - $1.24). Instead eBay calculated a payout of $6.23, leaving me $.03 short and giving eBay an extra $.03, a 2.5% increase in fees on this transaction due to an error in eBay's computation.
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02-03-2021 09:28 AM - edited 02-03-2021 09:29 AM
OK, the link showed me the problem. Instead of one calculation for the standard variable in this combined shipment 7 items, eBay calculated the standard variable for each of the 7 items. Items that sold for $1.00 with a tax of $.09 calculated to a variable fee of $.13 ($1.09 x .115 = 0.12535) rounding up. Items that sold for $1.25 with a tax of $.11 calculated to a variable fee of $.16 ($1.36 x .115 = 0.1564) rounding up. 5 x $.13 = $.65 plus 2 x $.16 = $.32, so total variable fees $.97. If the standard variable had been calculated for the total amount the variable fee would be $.94. So the difference is due to rounding up on individual items.
02-01-2021 09:56 AM
Interesting error, certainly could add up.
payments_team@ebay Any explanation as to what is happening here?
02-02-2021 03:32 PM
Thanks for the tag @rfmtm - we are not able to address account specific questions. In this case, the best course of action will be to request a call back from a payments-trained teammate who can review your account in-depth.
You can also review the total fees charged per transaction in the Expenses tab (link here) with the order id.
02-02-2021 03:44 PM
@somanypcs I can't address account specific issues either, but I can at least give you an idea of a couple possible explanations. 🤣
*Disclaimer: right now there are multiple phases of Managed Payments and things may be different depending on what phase you are in.*
Do you use Promoted Listings at all and if so, were any of those items a Promoted Listing sale? Depending on what phase you are in, ad fees may be netted from your Managed Payments account rather than the monthly invoice.
There can also be an international fee of 1.65% if your buyer is international (even if they are shipping to a US based freight forwarder). I doesn't sound like the math adds up for that, but just throwing it out there as something to look for.
Hopefully you can find the answer in the Expenses section the payments team linked to because if you have to request a call back, it could be a very long wait from the reports I am hearing. ☹️
02-03-2021 09:28 AM - edited 02-03-2021 09:29 AM
OK, the link showed me the problem. Instead of one calculation for the standard variable in this combined shipment 7 items, eBay calculated the standard variable for each of the 7 items. Items that sold for $1.00 with a tax of $.09 calculated to a variable fee of $.13 ($1.09 x .115 = 0.12535) rounding up. Items that sold for $1.25 with a tax of $.11 calculated to a variable fee of $.16 ($1.36 x .115 = 0.1564) rounding up. 5 x $.13 = $.65 plus 2 x $.16 = $.32, so total variable fees $.97. If the standard variable had been calculated for the total amount the variable fee would be $.94. So the difference is due to rounding up on individual items.
02-03-2021 09:48 AM
Yes, that's seems to be what happened. Don't know who if anyone requires it to be calculated that way, but I have seen others do it as well, rather than on the total purchase. Guess it keeps ebay from coming up short on collected taxes. At least ebay doesn't get to keep it, because states require payment of the higher of either what's calculated or what is actually paid by the buyer.