Absolute Nonsense

[capital_nick]

Made a sale and noticed the deduction in fees seems higher than it should be.  I checked the sale stats and noticed an "International Fee" because the buyer's registered address is in Canada.  The shipping address is to Montana!  I specifically have sales to the US only, for this exact reason.  How was I supposed to know?  I wouldn't have made the sale if I had known ebay was going to take another chunk out of what they already take.  Just venting.  Buyers should not be able to have a different ship-to country than the one they're registered to.  Is there no recourse?

[dbfolks166mt]

It was free shipping....... lol
And this sale was for a friend.
What was $900 turned out to be $736.  It's sad.  Someone once said, ebay is eventually going to get 100% of your sale.

Back my original point.  A buyer should not be able to have a shipping address different than their registered address.  Otherwise, what's the point?  How is the seller to know anything until the sale is made.

Having the same shipping address and the same registered address would be a difficult one to standardize. There are LOTS of buyers that have a foreign registered address and utilize freight forwarders to consolidate and save on shipping. Those FF'ers have US shipping addresses.

     Registered foreign users may be temporarily living or working in the US and have a US shipping address. The same would apply to US registered sellers that are temporarily living or working overseas and have a foreign mailing address. 

     Some foreign registered users purchase items and send to friends or family living or working in the US. The same would apply to US registered users who are buying and sending items to friends and family located outside the US. 

     Forcing the registered address and the shipping address to be the same, even if you restricted it to the country, would imped a lot of buyer flexibility in the buying and shipping capability. It would be easier to just  eliminate the darn fee. 

[marnotom!]

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@capital_nick wrote:

How can someone bid if I have their registered country blocked?  Just because the ship-to country is the US?  It's dumb and needs to change.

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Blocks are based on the buyer's primary shipping address, not their country of registration.  Sellers can pick and choose where they ship to, but they can't pick and choose the nationality of their buyers.

[capital_nick]

That's fair.  However, if the item is being shipped within the US, the international fee should not apply.  Otherwise the international fee just ends up being a bonus for ebay.  What is that fee even going toward just because it's a different country?

[inhawaii]

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@capital_nick wrote:

A buyer should not be able to have a shipping address different than their registered address. 

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 So you would have rather not had the sale?

Ok fair enough.

[marnotom!]

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@capital_nick wrote:

If the item is being shipped within the US, the international fee should not apply.  Otherwise the international fee just ends up being a bonus for ebay.  What is that fee even going toward just because it's a different country?

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The payment comes from outside the US, though, and you’re dealing with two different branches of a credit card issuer to get a credit card payment to you; in this case a Canadian bank and a US bank.  I get hit with fees buried in the exchange rate when I use my Canadian MasterCard to pay for an item that’s selling in a currency other than Canadian dollars, so buyers get hit with fees, too.

Fun fact: PayPal also charges international fees but they don’t list them as a line item in the transaction details the way Adyen/eBay do

Fun fact 2: Because your buyer had the item sent to Montana, they didn’t have tax charged on it and you didn’t have to pay FVF on sales tax.  (Sub-fun fact: Sales taxes in Québec are almost 15%.)

[capital_nick]

There's always at least one in the group that has to swing the pendulum to the other extreme of compromise and outside the realm of practicality.  And at the same time, totally miss the point.

[capital_nick]

Understood.  Thank you.

[slippinjimmy]

There are about 4 million temporary resident visas issued each year (stays longer than 6 months) In addition other than the Covid period there about about 70 Million foreign tourists (stays less than 6 months) each year (3 Million of those are Canadian that generally spend  4 - 6 months in FL, AZ, NM where many own property).

These foreign workers and visitors generally include a lot of shopping and they are usually using foreign credit cards which DOES incur extra costs for eBay to process these payments.

In any event, refusing to ship International is one thing but shipping to non-permanent residents/visitors within the US brings a lot of important revenue to both eBay AND eBay sellers with a very minimal cost. The happy buyers will continue to shop on eBay when they get back home.

It would not make any financial sense to restrict buyers to only use their primary residence location.

Virtually all your listings are Auctions, how many bidders did you have on this $900 item? Would it have sold if not for the foreign buyer?. Out of 31 listings in the last 90 days only 2 sold and they both were listed many times and finally sold with a single bid.

[joliztoyco]

So the advice on here is to raise the price on all my auctions to account for buyers trying to evade my U.S only policy?
Gee...that should be good for sales.
Just brilliant.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

If it makes you feel any better, the CEO of eBay Jamie Iannone, will only be receiving $17 million this year instead of the originally projected $22 million.

[slippinjimmy]

My advice would be to accept slightly higher expenses on a probably small number of sales over not getting the sale at all.

Now if you are a seller who listings always sell fast and a rate you can't keep up with in terms of active inventory maybe you a right to grumble slightly. On the other hand if you are like a majority of sellers who are dying from lack of sales you would be happy for any sales even if it costs you an extra 1.65%.

[the-hook-and-the-loop]

You also need to tack on for shrinkage, returns, MBG abuse, Promoted Listings, handling charge and insurance. This is why prices are higher on eBay than anywhere else.

[wastingtime101]

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@capital_nick wrote:

How was I supposed to know?  I wouldn't have made the sale if I had known ebay was going to take another chunk out of what they already take.

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The only advance notice is on the fees page explaining how/when the fee occurs. But no, there's no way to know beforehand if a specific sale will incur the fee unless you notice a buyer's registered location on an offer or auction bid before a sale is finalized.

It can hit hard when hobby/casual sellers list high priced items and are caught off guard. I suggest reviewing eBay's fee structure before listing anything else to make sure you aren't hit with any more surprises: 

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4822

@marnotom!'s post above offered a great explanation of why the fee exists, and others explained scenarios why international buyers might use a US address. Just last week I made a sale to a buyer in the UK, shipping a gift directly to their friend that moved to the US. International buyer, domestic shipping, international fee.

By the way - you know that $900 sale will appear on your 1099-K tax form, right? Keep that in mind when you give your friend the sale proceeds. Hope the rest of the transaction goes smoothly.

[toysaver]

"It's 1.65% of the total sale.  The sale was $900.  So yeah I'd like that $15 back."

Selling for others is risky.  What if you give the friend the money and 2 months from now the buyer wants a refund?   Is the friend willing to cover your added income for the $900 eBay will report to the IRS? 

[richard1rst]

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@capital_nick wrote:

Made a sale and noticed the deduction in fees seems higher than it should be.  I checked the sale stats and noticed an "International Fee" because the buyer's registered address is in Canada.  The shipping address is to Montana!  I specifically have sales to the US only, for this exact reason.  How was I supposed to know?  I wouldn't have made the sale if I had known ebay was going to take another chunk out of what they already take.  Just venting.  Buyers should not be able to have a different ship-to country than the one they're registered to.  Is there no recourse?

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Don't be too quick to cancel the sale or bemoan the $15.00 just yet.  Look carefully and you may find that you were NOT charged a 13.25% FVF on the shipping, or at least on part of the shipping. Fact is if I make an international sale I wind up paying LESS on FVF than if that sale was made to a U S buyer because I pay ZERO FVF on the international shipping whereas I do pay FVF on domestic shipping. So I pay a 1.65% international fee INSTEAD of a 13.25% FVF on the shipping.