Crazy seller costs

[jamie_1184]

I'm just curious if I am the only one who see's a major issue with the selling costs/seller fees and final value fees.

I have been looking over my total sales compared to net selling costs and in the past 2 months have noticed over half of my profit has been going to ebay fees. ( 55.2% in feb, and 57.1% IN Jan ). I honestly do not think this is fair to the sellers who are paying all the costs to get the inventory and paying for office supplies and doing all the work of listing these items and yet we are paying ebay over half of our profits just to use their site?...  I think that it should be one or the other, If you are paying a monthly fee to have a store than that should be all we are charged other than shipping costs. we should not have to pay to have a store plus pay for every item we sell out of the store. I can understand if you don't pay a monthly fee for a store then you can get charged per item listed and sold. ( you don't rent a building from someone to start a business and have to pay them monthly rent on the building plus give the building owner a percentage of every dollar you make out of that building ). Please if their is anyone out there who can relate or if I am simply doing something wrong, please enlighten me. 

[southern*sweet*tea]

The selling costs that Ebay shows INCLUDE SHIPPING COSTS. If buyers are paying shipping, that is not a selling cost to you, since THEY are paying.   You have to keep your own records.

The highest your Ebay FVF will ever be if you are above standard or higher will be 10%, except 12% for media (books, CDs, DVDs).  If you are below standard there is a 5% extra penalty fee. Then add in Paypal - 30 cents + 2.9% or 5 cents + 5% depending on your account.  Then you add in a store fee, if any.   Those are your selling costs here. You can't add in buyer paid shipping since it's buyer paid - it is not a cost to you.

Your expenses include your selling costs, ink, paper, item cost, profit, time, self insurance, Paypal fees, etc.

[nuclearomen]

@kawcuriosities wrote:

I have been an Ebay seller since 2011 but I have recently pulled all of my listings and am testing a pilot on the Mercari site. They charge a flat 10% and offer easy to print, prepaid shipping labels.

they also don't allow quantity in listings, your charged $2 to get your money on instant transfer, and they over charge for shipping. But what they do right is feedback, seller doesn't rate til the buyer gets package and rates you, if they don't rate in 3 days the transaction auto closes, you don't have to rate them, your money becomes available. The real down side to Mercari is everyone tries to low ball you to pay nothing and many think free shipping is really free. 

[fashunu4eeuh]

@jamie_1184 wrote:

”...(you don't rent a building from someone to start a business and have to pay them monthly rent on the building plus give the building owner a percentage of every dollar you make out of that building ).

Hi, i was in the mall management business for a number of years, as a marketing director for super-regional shopping centers. Anchor store leases normally were exempt from paying a percentage of sales, but most in-line stores did pay a percentage of sales plus monthly rent. This was an industry standard.

[clu3]

My total selling costs average about 25% (including shipping which I charge the customer for). Ebay & paypal fees run about 12% to 15% combined). I have a starter store, $5 month. The maximum rate I apply for promoted listings is 1.5% and I use that sparingly and only for listings that have been up awhile.

[bghunter916]

There are sellers still doing it, mostly China..

[luckythewinner]

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@clu3 wrote:
My total selling costs average about 25% (including shipping which I charge the customer for). Ebay & paypal fees run about 12% to 15% combined). I have a starter store, $5 month. The maximum rate I apply for promoted listings is 1.5% and I use that sparingly and only for listings that have been up awhile.

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25% of what?

The total amount you receive?

The selling price?

Your profit after selling costs?

[artifact_watch]

I can't speak for the other poster but here are my stats:

29% net selling costs
______________________
11.5% eBay fees (Inc store discount and credits, promotions)
12.6% shipping costs, including seller-paid returns and free shipping all items
4.4% PayPal fees

[nuclearomen]

really none of this matters, these figures change daily based off amount of sales you have (or haven't) done in the past 30 days so what everyone is reporting can be different a few days from now.

[artifact_watch]

Not really, eBay fees are ~10% + promoted , PayPal is ~3.5%, store fee is fixed, and I target my shipping to be ~10-20% so these figures have been pretty consistent with varying sales volume.

My shipping costs used to be MUCH worse as I didn't know what I was doing and overused small FRB out of laziness. Getting strategic w/ shipping has made a huge deal. I target single items to stay under the 16oz first class limit, and ideally under the jump in rates at 8oz and 12oz. Between 12-> 13 oz it jumps more than a dollar! Not a big deal until you spend that extra dollar 100x a month.

[nuclearomen]

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@artifact_watch wrote:
Not really, eBay fees are ~10% + promoted , PayPal is ~3.5%, store fee is fixed, and I target my shipping to be ~10-20% so these figures have been pretty consistent with varying sales volume.

My shipping costs used to be MUCH worse as I didn't know what I was doing and overused small FRB out of laziness. Getting strategic w/ shipping has made a huge deal. I target single items to stay under the 16oz first class limit, and ideally under the jump in rates at 8oz and 12oz. Between 12-> 13 oz it jumps more than a dollar! Not a big deal until you spend that extra dollar 100x a month.

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paypal fees are 2.9% not 3.5... and yes, really, these change all time on your performance report, the one that stays same is your subscription fee everything else is based on your past 30 day sales . If you haven't been strategic with your shipping methods then you've been losing extra money all along, online sales is all about shipping so depending on what you sell, how much you can get for it and the cost to ship that item. I have been doing online mail order sales for over 20 years. I give free shipping, but that cost is added into the price of course, and I make more that way as all costs are in that price including packaging supplies, taxes, handling, ebay/paypal fees, cost of item and profit. 

[artifact_watch]

PayPal is 2.9% + $.30 which is 3.5% on $50 transactions, so I rough it out as 3.5%. And since the majority of the fees are primarily percentage driven they DO stay pretty consistent no matter which 30 day interval you look at.

As for the rest, I don't think I was clear maybe? Because unless I'm misreading, you repeated the same thing I already said, which is you can waste a lot of money if you don't know how to manage your shipping costs.

[nuclearomen]

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@southern*sweet*tea wrote:

The selling costs that Ebay shows INCLUDE SHIPPING COSTS. If buyers are paying shipping, that is not a selling cost to you, since THEY are paying.   You have to keep your own records.

The highest your Ebay FVF will ever be if you are above standard or higher will be 10%, except 12% for media (books, CDs, DVDs).  If you are below standard there is a 5% extra penalty fee. Then add in Paypal - 30 cents + 2.9% or 5 cents + 5% depending on your account.  Then you add in a store fee, if any.   Those are your selling costs here. You can't add in buyer paid shipping since it's buyer paid - it is not a cost to you.

Your expenses include your selling costs, ink, paper, item cost, profit, time, self insurance, Paypal fees, etc.

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this is what I meant in sense, the figures one sees on their performance is past 30 day, but to have an accurate assessment of costs you need to keep your own records and figure it for the year total... some programs for accounting does this for you as enter data too. 

[nuclearomen]

I liked your post, was just expressing it my own terms 😉

[artifact_watch]

I see what you're saying, however I do "free shipping" (priced in to selling price) on all but international, so the numbers work for me.

[artifact_watch]

I get it now, it's hard to tell online if someone is agreeing or arguing sometimes 🙂