Final value fees on shipping and taxes

[vidsolutionsllc]

Does anyone else find it odd that ebay is charging a final value fee on shipping and sales taxes.  I understand that some people May charge excessive shipping in order to make up for a low selling price. But no one has any control over sales taxes. That's money that never under any circumstances goes to the cellar, and as a matter of fact the cellar has no hand in determining what the sales taxes are.  

[hartungcards]

Here in Pennsylvania, most of what we pay in sales taxes does in fact wind up in the cellar, never to be seen or heard from again.  Unless they're using it to pay 12 guys to fix one pothole.

[monica-sells]

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@vidsolutionsllc wrote:

Does anyone else find it odd that ebay is charging a final value fee on shipping and sales taxes.  I understand that some people May charge excessive shipping in order to make up for a low selling price. 

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OK...so you find it odd, but you answered your own question on shipping? So why would you include that in your post?

As far as sales tax goes....

some platforms do, some platforms don't.....but, in real life, the total transaction (the amount the buyer pays) has always been subject to the processing fee(s) of the entity that provides the service (i.e. Visa, MC, Discover, etc....)

......I am off to the wine cellar.....

[an-36344]

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@vidsolutionsllc wrote:

Does anyone else find it odd that ebay is charging a final value fee on shipping and sales taxes.  

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What's incomprehensible is my credit card has to pay me 5% cashback on the shipping and sales tax. Why am I being rewarded for paying sales tax, that just doesn't make sense!

[tchk75]

I do not find it odd in the slightest.  Indeed, I would not at all be surprised to wake up one morning to find that eBay levies a 50% charge on the 10% final value credit that it gives top rated plus sellers.

And why should that bother anyone here?  eBay maintains a massive IT platform that must be up 24/7 and work flawlessly.  That cannot be cheap.  

As far as I am concerned it is up to us sellers to work these fees into our prices so that buyers end up paying eBay for our rental of server space.

[monica-sells]

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@an-36344 wrote:

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@vidsolutionsllc wrote:

Does anyone else find it odd that ebay is charging a final value fee on shipping and sales taxes.  

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What's incomprehensible is my credit card has to pay me 5% cashback on the shipping and sales tax. Why am I being rewarded for paying sales tax, that just doesn't make sense!

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That is an interesting point......

[dubsteesllc]

Ebay will do whatever they can, in any scenario, to take a bigger slice of the pie away from the Seller.

It's absolutely repulsive.

[monroe67]

"......I am off to the wine cellar....."

I'll meet you in the wine cellar.

[hartungcards]

Yeah, no.  In this case, eBay is doing exactly what it has to do.

[femmefan1946]

This has been Standard Practice in the payment processing industry at least since we got our first merchant credit card account in the late 70s/early 80s.  (with Moneris https://www.moneris.com/)

I understand the practice of charging the merchant fees on the ENTIRE customer payment goes back at least as far as the 1940s and the introduction of the Diners Club card.

[soh.maryl]

The state sales tax rate is set by each individual state, or governmental district.

eBay has the duty to make sure the correct tax is applied to each sale and to send those funds on to the correct entity.  Regardless of what anyone thinks, it costs eBay money to do so, so it's logical that eBay would charge a fee to do that.  

Cellar:  basement.

Seller:  Someone who sells.  

[chapeau-noir]

Groundhog day all over again.

[slippinjimmy]

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@dubsteesllc wrote:

Ebay will do whatever they can, in any scenario, to take a bigger slice of the pie away from the Seller.

It's absolutely repulsive.

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And eBay sellers will do whatever they can in any scenario to take a bigger slice of the pie away from eBay, Is that equally "repulsive"?

Meanwhile eBay buyers want the entire pie and will do whatever they can to make sure that both eBay and eBay sellers only get crumbs.

Personally I could care less how eBay calculates their fees, the bottom line is all I care about and the same could be said for buyers and sellers.

[tchk75]

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@dubsteesllc wrote:

Ebay will do whatever they can, in any scenario, to take a bigger slice of the pie away from the Seller.

It's absolutely repulsive.

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No, its "business."

It seems to me that it is up to each of us as sellers to make sure that buyers compensate for the ever increasing size of the slice to which you allude.  Regards  

[monroe67]

"Does anyone else find it odd that ebay is charging a final value fee on shipping and sales taxes."  

I am sure there are many people in the world who find eBay's standard operating procedures to be odd.  
Most of the people who do not find eBay's procedures and policies to be odd have been eBay members for more than three months.  

"I understand that some people May charge excessive shipping in order to make up for a low selling price."

eBay began imposing Final Value Fees on shipping costs many, many years ago, specifically because eBay realized they were getting ripped off by those types of "fee avoidance" tricks.  

"But no one has any control over sales taxes. That's money that never under any circumstances goes to the cellar, and as a matter of fact the cellar has no hand in determining what the sales taxes are."

Well, there may also be people in the nation who believe that sales taxes go to the "cellar," in reference to their own state's government and treasury, but those are personal opinions . . . . .
A cellar is a basement, below the ground level of a building.  
It is true that sales taxes, paid by eBay buyers, do not go to eBay's sellers.  Note the correct spelling.  

My selling ID recently had a sale in which the buyer paid a whole 25 cents for sales tax to his/her state.  
eBay's Final Value Fee (13.25%) on those 25 cents is -- let's see -- $0.25 x .1325 = $0.033125. 
Worst case, eBay might have rounded that up to $0.04.  

Let's say eBay earned Four Cents in Final Value Fees on that 25 cent sales tax.  Four Shiny Pennies.  

In my opinion, eBay earned every penny and mill (one-tenth of one cent) of those four cents.  
If the laws required me (the seller) to calculate, collect, and send that buyer's 25 cents of sales tax to the buyer's state, the pain and suffering I would have experienced would be worth a lot more than four cents.  The cost of a postage stamp alone is more than 25 cents.  
But the laws require eBay to do all that work.  And eBay should get to keep a few coins from each sale for doing that work. 
In my opinion.