eBay

reb177 · ‎02-01-2023

If you read the Winter Seller Update newsletter, you hopefully noticed that eBay is raising most Final Fees from 12.9% to 13.25%. That plus the addition of State Sales Tax is ballooning the cost of selling on eBay by upwards of 20%. Sorry, but they are driving me away--it's too expensive!

714ricki · ‎02-01-2023

Adjust & adapt!!! The sales tax issue has been discussed on numerous threads & unfortunately all financial institutions charge busineses a commission even on sales tax. Hence, that shouldn't be a shock to anyone. Plus, ebay remites all the sales tax to the apporpriate state agencies on your behalf. Well worth the extra cents for that administrative task.

Hang in there!

1786davycrockett · ‎02-01-2023

Sellers do not pay the state sales tax on buyer's purchases -- the buyers pay the sales tax on purchases sent to their states.

Anonymous · ‎02-01-2023

you are right BUT the fee is also based on the sales tax

my.chic.boutique · ‎02-01-2023

Bottom line is - you still couldn't make as much as you do on eBay with a brick & mortar store or even with another online selling venue. I get angry at all the increases too, but eBay will always be the granddaddy which is why they keep raising rates. And that is pure greed because they ARE the biggest with their sellers and customers base, so you know they are raking in the big bucks while we struggle to deal with making enough sales and not knowing if our items are even being seen.

I've been here selling for 23 years steady and have come through all the changes and increases. I'm a one-person, small at-home seller ready to retire but have too much inventory to stop yet. It's frustrating and disheartening. I used to LOVE selling here.

luckythewinner · ‎02-01-2023

@reb177 wrote:
If you read the Winter Seller Update newsletter, you hopefully noticed that eBay is raising most Final Fees from 12.9% to 13.25%. That plus the addition of State Sales Tax is ballooning the cost of selling on eBay by upwards of 20%. Sorry, but they are driving me away--it's too expensive!

If I sell an item for $18 total and the selling costs are $12, the costs are 67% of the total and I make $6.

If I sell an item for $10 total and the selling costs are $5, the costs are 50% of the total and I make $5.

So comparing these two transactions, paying 67% in costs is more profitable than paying 50% in costs, because in the end I make 20% more money.

I stopped focusing on costs and started focusing on profits. In the end, the only number that matters to me is how many dollars I make per hour of effort.

aprilmoviebuf2000 · ‎02-01-2023

It's not surprising really, everything is going up.

Like another poster said, adjust and adapt or sell elsewhere.
Take for example a coin that sells for $70 with f/s.
Assuming the buyer is in a state that has 8% sales tax = $75.60
The old fvf would be approx $10.05
New fvf will be approx $10.32...a difference of 27 cents.
Sellers that have a lot of volume, significant yes. Every time fees go up, the concerns are posted. Not a bad thing, but instead of being driven away most long time sellers adjust in some way to accommodate the increase. And a lot of the time sellers who say they've had enough and are leaving don't really leave.
The coins category is one of those where it pays to have a basic store or above, the fvf would only be 9%. However, you do have that monthly store cost to factor in of course. Not feasible for everyone.

argy_eyes · ‎02-01-2023

@reb177

EBay is caught in something of a downward spiral here. Gross Merchandize Value (GMV) and Active Users are declining, but they need to maintain earnings as best they can. The most basic thing they can do is to increase fees. The problem is of course that this exacerbates the GMV/active user problem — not a good way to stabilize profits.

The switch to Managed Payments was used to impose a 12.9% FVF on sales tax payments, far greater than the 2-3% charge that merchants pay credit card companies. EBay didn't have to do this, and (as others have noted) it generated considerable criticism on this forum. But it made a big difference in eBay's bottom line, considerably more than the latest 0.35% fee increase. As stated in eBay's 2021 10K filing:

"Net transaction revenues increased $1.5 billion in 2021 compared to 2020 primarily due to the migration of managed payments on a global basis and the associated higher take rate as well as the growth of Promoted Listings." [Note that eBay's net yearly earnings are on the order of $5 billion, so $1.5 billion added to the top line is a big deal.]

EBay provides a valuable service to hundreds of millions of people, and is trying to stay in business, so it's hard to be critical. I would miss eBay more than I miss what I pay them in fees, but of course not everyone has that luxury.

Mike

From marketplacepulse.com:

reb177 · ‎02-01-2023

Ok, I understand all you've said. I'm a casual seller; I've sold for many years. I used to keep up to 50 items posted, but let it run down to a handful. Thus, I've hardly sold anything for the past 3 or so years. Upon selling a higher end item, I was just surprised how much things have changed at eBay. It seems I didn't keep up well, but had no need to b/c i wasn't selling or listing much.

anjieharrisostrem · ‎02-02-2023

If you haven’t already, look into Facebook Marketplace.

bplugcast · ‎02-02-2023

Very interesting. Does or have anyone had or have experience in selling items low in cost, but high in shipping and handling. Psychologically, most buyers do not like, or actually hate the high shipping costs, so they will hesitate to buy. But what I have noticed (or my math is bad) is that the sales tax is low for low cost items but they have high shipping costs. Those items with a higher selling price and low shipping cost, the buyer sees a high sales tax. Those buyers, just eat that sales tax, mainly since we can't get around that.

On the other hand, if the seller sells at a lower cost but has higher shipping costs, although the buyer doesn't recognize it, their sales tax is low. The seller reaps the benefit of juggling that high shipping cost which could be used to pay for Ebay's new fees. It sounds unscrupulous to save the buyer from high sales tax but be assured the tax on shipping isn't cheap either. The next question that comes to mind is, Can the seller state that the cost of shipping is to reduce the sales tax that the buyer ultimately will have to pay?

...just second guessing the system.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎02-02-2023

Many states do charge sales tax on shipping. IMHO your strategy is unnecessary.

ca_reibo · ‎02-18-2023

@714ricki wrote:
Plus, ebay remites all the sales tax to the apporpriate state agencies on your behalf. Well worth the extra cents for that administrative task.

Actually, ebay is not doing us a favor at all, because we do not have to charge sales tax on items that are shipped out of state. (If shipped to our own state, we would have to charge sales tax, however.)
My profit margin is too small, after ebay's fees and free shipping (with astronomical shipping increases), and my taxes are soon to be too complicated when the $600 threshold for a 1099-K kicks in for 2023. So I gradually have been moving away from selling on ebay to private sales on my own web site. I'm sure I'm not alone.

ca_reibo · ‎02-18-2023

I missed that in the newsletter, but noticed it when I checked the "payment details" for a recent sale.

ebay raises its final value fee again, but leaves the Top Rated Plus Seller discount at 10%. How convenient for them.

People blame inflation on the government, but it's really largely about price gouging-- and ebay just showed us that it is one of the biggest offenders. Now, to make the same profit, I will have to raise my prices. This is how inflation happens, people!

quicksilverdiecast · ‎02-18-2023

Ebay uses the easiest way to increase their revenue, however they also let 10's of thousands of dollars slip thru their hands each day as a collective whole across the platform by not fixing an issue they have that few know about, and before those chime in trying to explain some other remedy there has been numerous IT tickets written on it and sent to the brainiacs to fix. Here is the problem: Ebays shopping cart.... and here is why...

Buyer comes to your store which is set up with calculated shipping. He chooses a number of items and put in the cart. Now here is where it starts to go sideways....the buyer attempts to get a combined shipping total and cannot, the buyer assumes you know what he has in the cart ready to check out. Well the seller has no indication that there is a cart, nor what is in it, ebay does NOT inform the seller either! So the buyers sets there waiting. Since the buyer get NO RESPONSE from the seller(remember the seller has no idea of said cart) the buyer A. assumes the seller is ignoring him and mostly likely will never come back. B. Gets tired of waiting or trying to figure it out and goes away. C. The buyer send a message thru the ebay message system wanting to know what is up? (now this is the ONLY way a seller is made aware that there is a cart from a buyer, yet still no indication message wise or in the seller hub that this cart exists!) D. After advising the buyer of the problems ebay has created, he then request the seller to "Invoice" him, which the seller has no way of doing(thanks again ebay). NOW in order to salvage this sale and provide a "Good ebay experience" the seller will request the buyer to provide the item numbers and qtys of each item, then the seller can take more time and create an entire new listing (a package deal if you will) and send the new item number(with all the items he wanted to buy in it) so he can make the purchase and complete the transaction with a fair and reasonable shipping cost. HOWEVER on the buyers carts where the buyer DOES NOT message the seller the cart remains in the unknown limbo and the transaction is never completed, which leave a "BAD ebay experience for both the seller and ebay".... and goes away to possibly another platform like the big A or even etsy(who do not have this issue). RESULT the seller LOSES a sale and potential repeat customer, AND ebay also loses all fees connected with that potential sale from that seller. NOW if is happens to one seller it happens across the board( you say well it does not happen to me....REALLY? how do you know it hasn't? because you are NEVER made aware of it by ebay and as such you do not know you lost a potential sale!) hence multiply this loss across the platform and in the course of just ONE day ebay has lost a substantial amount of income due to lost sales. I have had ebay tech say well we do not get many complaints of this to which I responded that is ONLY because the sellers are not aware, if they were you would know loud and clear and have more complaints that you could handle and would fix the problem...but hey it is just easier to ignore it and raise the fees to generate capital....TRUST ME it happens daily. So you are losing income and at the same time ebay is charging you more....to do so.