eBay

max4770 · ‎04-14-2023

Haven't sold on ebay in over a year. Have been selling on other local social media sites. Had a Nikon camera for sell and decided to try eBay. Sold the camera only to discover that eBay now charges a 13.25% selling fee. Sold the camera for $450. EBay charged a $67 selling fee. What is worse, they charged the 13.25% on shipping and sales tax. What a rip-off. I know they have a link to disclose their cheesy selling fee tactics, but they should at least show those selling fees BEFORE you list an item and give the seller a choice if they want to proceed with the listing. Had they done so, I would not have listed on eBay and gone with another selling site. Which is why they don't reveal these fees any more than they have to. Will NEVER sell another item on eBay. Plenty of other sites to choose from - Facebook, Next Door, Offer Up, etc. Shame on you eBay for not being more transparent with what the true costs are going to be to a seller once they sell an item. Never again.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎04-15-2023

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
There are several aspects to this the first being from the sellers side. The eBay fees and how they are applied have remained pretty constant for quite some time. ....

This bears repeating. Back in 2013, eBay was charging sellers a final value fee rate of just 10%, but then there was also a PayPal fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents, for a total of 12.9% (plus 30 cents). Nowadays with Managed Payments, there is no PayPal fee but the eBay fee is 13.25% plus 30 cents. That's a difference of .35%, which on a $100 transaction would be 35 cents; on a $450 transaction, $1.58.

rosszonebricks · ‎04-15-2023

@nobody*s_perfect wrote:
@dbfolks166mt wrote:
There are several aspects to this the first being from the sellers side. The eBay fees and how they are applied have remained pretty constant for quite some time. ....
... there was also a PayPal fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents...

And PayPal is now 3.5% plus 45 cents. But yes, Do the math on a variety of scenarios and eBay Managed payments often comes out cheaper (even with charging the stated fee on sales tax).

But 100% agree. All told, fees have not significantly changed their percentages in the 8 years I've been back selling full time. Always came out to about the same 13-14% it is now.

Perhaps just a little more noticeable now with higher postal rates and dramatically more states charging sales tax for internet sales.

byrd69er · ‎04-15-2023

Did you read and understand the cheesy selling fee tactics before listing your item? If not, why not? And if so, why did you proceed? So you could complain?

byrd69er · ‎04-16-2023

Good point....and most auction venues charge a 15% or more buyer's fee. Then they also get a percentage of the sale proceeds, and the crappy hot dogs and dried out hamburgers that Jr. cooked on the Weber grill he bought on eBay.

babyers88 · ‎04-16-2023

Ebay fee's are historically around 12.5% and have been since forever, even a year later the only thing that has changed is how they take it out which is how it should have been from the beginning. Completely ridiculous to charge a seller at the end of the month when they can just take there fee's and pay you flat out. about time!!!

the fee's and tax on shipping has been instituted for many years now because sellers think they are being sneaky by selling at a cheap price and charging excessive shipping, thinking they are being slick. Still see people charging crazy shipping cost. the trick is on them.

you have to calculate ebay's fee's and acceptable market price into your listings for anything, if it doesn't make sense then it's not worth selling it.

isaiah53-57 · ‎04-16-2023

@max4770 wrote:
Haven't sold on ebay in over a year. Have been selling on other local social media sites. Had a Nikon camera for sell and decided to try eBay. Sold the camera only to discover that eBay now charges a 13.25% selling fee. Sold the camera for $450. EBay charged a $67 selling fee. What is worse, they charged the 13.25% on shipping and sales tax. What a rip-off. I know they have a link to disclose their cheesy selling fee tactics, but they should at least show those selling fees BEFORE you list an item and give the seller a choice if they want to proceed with the listing. Had they done so, I would not have listed on eBay and gone with another selling site. Which is why they don't reveal these fees any more than they have to. Will NEVER sell another item on eBay. Plenty of other sites to choose from - Facebook, Next Door, Offer Up, etc. Shame on you eBay for not being more transparent with what the true costs are going to be to a seller once they sell an item. Never again.

Nice....Another seller seeing through the smoke and mirror of creative accounting used here. It is getting harder to hide that sellers fees represent close to, or even more than, 20% RIGHT OFF THE TOP of an items selling price... And now you see they are "recommending" that you give them another 8% to 10% more of the TOTAL SALE to promote your item(which amounts to another 10% to 15% of the items selling price). Thing is, I believe an unintended result of promoted listings is that they are causing sellers to scrutinize their fees more than they used to and now you are seeing a lot more posts about people "discovering"(even after years of sales) how much of their items price the fees truly represent...

isaiah53-57 · ‎04-16-2023

@babyers88 wrote:
Ebay fee's are historically around 12.5% and have been since forever, even a year later the only thing that has changed is how they take it out which is how it should have been from the beginning. Completely ridiculous to charge a seller at the end of the month when they can just take there fee's and pay you flat out. about time!!! The fee's and tax on shipping has been instituted for many years now because sellers think they are being sneaky by selling at a cheap price and charging excessive shipping , thinking they are being slick. Still see people charging crazy shipping cost. the trick is on them.
you have to calculate ebay's fee's and acceptable market price into your listings for anything, if it doesn't make sense then it's not worth selling it.

Couple of things about this post...

1st: "Ebay fee's are historically around 12.5% and have been since forever"

Guess you weren't around when Final value fees were somewhere between 1.9% and 5.9% OF THE ITEMS SELLING PRICE, not the TOTAL SALE in the mid to later 2000's decade.

2nd: "the fee's and tax on shipping has been instituted for many years now because sellers think they are being sneaky by selling at a cheap price and charging excessive shipping". Another pass given to the site after instituting FVF's on shipping due to shipping manipulation by sellers - First off, we're talking about a small amount of unscrupulous sellers who did this, though I'm sure the site was right for coming up with a plan to protect their current and future interests - But If you dont think ebay had other options available to them, like standardizing shipping as many other venues do/did, and come up with a more fair way of charging their users, then I guess you'll keep on laying blame where you will...

toysaver · ‎04-16-2023

"I know they have a link to disclose their cheesy selling fee tactics, but they should at least show those selling fees BEFORE you list an item and give the seller a choice if they want to proceed with the listing."

Even a worldwide business as gigantic as eBay can't predict what state the buyer will come from so have no idea what the sales tax and subsequent fees will be.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎04-16-2023

@isaiah53-57 wrote: ... Couple of things about this post...
1st: "Ebay fee's are historically around 12.5% and have been since forever"
Guess you weren't around when Final value fees were somewhere between 1.9% and 5.9% OF THE ITEMS SELLING PRICE, not the TOTAL SALE in the mid to later 2000's decade......

But that was during the era when there were no free insertions. We had to pay for every insertion, every image, every Gallery option.

When eBay started charging FVF on the buyer's entire payment including shipping, in 2011, they set the FVF (for most categories, for sellers who don't have a Store) at 9%. They raised it to 10% in 2013, and there it stayed until Managed Payments arrived.

isaiah53-57 · ‎04-16-2023

@nobody*s_perfect wrote:
@isaiah53-57 wrote: ... Couple of things about this post...
1st: "Ebay fee's are historically around 12.5% and have been since forever"
Guess you weren't around when Final value fees were somewhere between 1.9% and 5.9% OF THE ITEMS SELLING PRICE, not the TOTAL SALE in the mid to later 2000's decade......
But that was during the era when there were no free insertions. We had to pay for every insertion, every image, every Gallery option.

Your Point Being?????

That was also back when you had an 85% sell through rate - When there was absolutely no reason to pay for any optional listing items - When GOOD SELLERS received a constant barrage of free listing offers from 100 to 1000 2 to 4 times a month... When the buyer fraud was NONEXISTENT.. when, when, when,...

dbfolks166mt · ‎04-16-2023

Couple of things about this post... A couple things about your responses.

1st: "Ebay fee's are historically around 12.5% and have been since forever"

Guess you weren't around when Final value fees were somewhere between 1.9% and 5.9% OF THE ITEMS SELLING PRICE, not the TOTAL SALE in the mid to later 2000's decade.

I have been around that long and while I can't remember exactly what the eBay fees were in the 2000's I do remember gas being around @$2.00, a gallon of milk was about $2.50 and the minimum wage in 2005 was $5.15. Prices and costs on everything have gone up in the last 20 years and at the moment inflation is outpacing workers earnings and their dollars are buying less and less. Frankly I am surprised eBay has not increased fees anymore than what they have.

2nd: "the fee's and tax on shipping has been instituted for many years now because sellers think they are being sneaky by selling at a cheap price and charging excessive shipping". Another pass given to the site after instituting FVF's on shipping due to shipping manipulation by sellers - First off, we're talking about a small amount of unscrupulous sellers who did this, though I'm sure the site was right for coming up with a plan to protect their current and future interests - But If you dont think ebay had other options available to them, like standardizing shipping as many other venues do/did, and come up with a more fair way of charging their users, then I guess you'll keep on laying blame where you will...

One of the other adverse impacts of removing the FVF's on shipping costs would be the quick adjustment by a lot of sellers to no longer offer free shipping. If a seller was not paying FVF's on shipping why would they include the shipping into their cost and offer free shipping when any such FVF's calculations would have not way to determine what portion of the cost was shipping.

I doubt very much if eBay is going to change the way it applies fees and I adapted long ago and my shipping costs and or the added handling charge are generally enough to cover the FVF's on the shipping. So like the shipping costs the buyer is the one paying those fees, not me.

dbfolks166mt · ‎04-16-2023

Your Point Being?????

That was also back when you had an 85% sell through rate - When there was absolutely no reason to pay for any optional listing items - When GOOD SELLERS received a constant barrage of free listing offers from 100 to 1000 2 to 4 times a month... When the buyer fraud was NONEXISTENT.. when, when, when,...

It's history, things change. I can remember when Sears, JC Penny, IBM, Blockbuster, Borders, Texaco were all major companies. Amazon was an online bookstore and TWA and PanAm were airlines. EBay exists for one reason and one reason only and that is to maximize the profit of their shareholders. If they fail to do that they fail as a publically traded company.

Just curious why you continue to list/sell on eBay when there are thousands of other sites you can utilize these days.

isaiah53-57 · ‎04-17-2023

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
Couple of things about this post... A couple things about your responses.

1st: "Ebay fee's are historically around 12.5% and have been since forever"
Guess you weren't around when Final value fees were somewhere between 1.9% and 5.9% OF THE ITEMS SELLING PRICE, not the TOTAL SALE in the mid to later 2000's decade.

I have been around that long and while I can't remember exactly what the eBay fees were in the 2000's I do remember gas being around @$2.00, a gallon of milk was about $2.50 and the minimum wage in 2005 was $5.15. Prices and costs on everything have gone up in the last 20 years and at the moment inflation is outpacing workers earnings and their dollars are buying less and less. Frankly I am surprised eBay has not increased fees anymore than what they have.

@dbfolks166mt

Wow - You basically proved my point in your statement - The avg price of gas in 2005-2009 was approximately $2.30 to $3.30 a gallon, now its $3.40 - The price of milk is now $2.60 a gallon - to continue, the est avg cost of airfare in 2005 was about $350, now its about $400 ...Most prices have not increased exorbitantly during that time frame - while ebay fees have increased approximately 8 FOLD! Applying that increase to a gallon of gas, would put gas at $24 a gallon - and "frankly you are surprised ebay has not increased its fees more than they have"? - Well I'm surprised also, since it appears their only source of revenue generation IS an unhealthy and constant raising of fees in a reactive response to the reduction in market share from about 12% in 2010 to about 3.5% in 2022...which is also meant as a counter to your "EBay exists for one reason and one reason only and that is to maximize the profit of their shareholders. If they fail to do that they fail as a publically traded company." statement...Good thing this isn't a debate...

isaiah53-57 · ‎04-17-2023

@dbfolks166mt wrote:
Just curious why you continue to list/sell on eBay when there are thousands of other sites you can utilize these days.

@dbfolks166mt

I guess I would ask that same question back to you? In looking at your prices, its easy to see the results of your statement "my shipping costs and or the added handling charge are generally enough to cover the FVF's on the shipping. So like the shipping costs the buyer is the one paying those fees, not me." It does not appear that plan is working all that well for you considering what you have sold over the last 6 months. In relation to the time involved in selling-listing-managing-shipping-communicating-sourcing, It would appear you will need to raise your prices more to keep your head above water....hmmm kinda like a certain company we know...

But to answer your question...I sold appox 2000 items from 2016 to 2019 on this account and stopped listing when I could see the true nature of the company I was dealing with when they implemented the Promoted Listings program... What listings you see that I have remaining is the last of the what I had running when I stopped listing. I keep this last account open of the 3 I had running, because I believe ebay will need to do an about face at some point and I would consider selling here if they did since I have a love hate relationship with them - I enjoyed selling here when things were reasonable, but I hate they way they squandered their market foothold with, in my opinion, one bad decision after another and make their users pay for their mistakes...