eBay

romo.designerbags · ‎06-23-2021

Hi,

I just got off the phone with a eBay and the Rep. did confirm you are now paying 12.5% on your shipping total.

Therefore if you charge $16 for shipping they take 12.5%. eBay is taking money for a service that you don't make money off of. Now, if you do make money on the overage of the shipping label price than I could see that being a part of the 12.5% . So you charge the above $16 under shipping but the label you purchase is actually $10. Then the difference of $6 should be under the 12.5% not the hole price. You would loose $1.25.

$16 x 12.5% = $2.00

$6 x 12.5% = $0.75

Two eBay Reps have confirmed this. If you know anything different please let me know. I would love to be wrong!

allthingssurplus · ‎06-24-2021

First off the beating of the drum for how Seller switched the cost of the item to the shipping stopped many years ago and is not a factor today. When Amazon came in that stopped all of that. You may think you pay the lowest rates. The deals we have with FedEx, USPS, DHL and UPS. will beat eBay most times. We ship 30-60 packages a day. eBay ships many hundreds of thousands a day and should be able to beat my rates hands down and they do not. Contact me anytime and I would be more than happy to show you how you are being over charged. Also are you of the same belief that you are paying the best possible rate on return labels? If so you really are sadly mistaken.

a_c_green · ‎06-24-2021

@allthingssurplus wrote:
After reading your eBay employee post on the way of eBay charging FVF on shipping I about came out of my chair. I have been on this site five years longer than you. I have seen all of the crazy stuff being done by eBay and the shipping aspect is by far the largest money grab. The only true and real statement you made about shipping is, yes the Seller a long time ago ( like 15 years) were making a killing on shipping. You seem to have forgotten that a little seller called AMAZON came into play offering very fast and most times free shipping. That stopped the overcharge by eBay Sellers with shipping.

"eBay employee"? Moi? I think a lot of others who know me here spewed their coffee over that one. 😊

No, the reason that eBay extended the FVF calculations to the Shipping area was simply because sellers were (and occasionally still are) using it as an additional profit center, especially because of where the FVFs did or did not apply before then. I seriously doubt that Amazon's pricing structure factored into it at all.

Sellers can always offer Free Shipping, but that doesn't address the unfairness of the current FVF structure at all. It not only charges the seller a percentage of his postage expense, but because the cost of postage is not deducted from the sale before Final Value Fees are calculated, it even penalizes sellers of heavier objects more than light ones, as higher postage costs result in a higher percentage of FVFs on the remaining balance actually received by the buyer.

allthingssurplus · ‎06-24-2021

You seem to think shipping is free. If a Seller does free shipping its only because they have factored in the shipping for the zip code as far away from where they are located into the sales price and I stated in my view that would be a good reason to charge FVF, not for listings that add shipping to the sale in order to compete with our Sellers selling the same item. I don't get why you feel eBay should be entitled to FVF on shipping. They do nothing for the shipping unlike sales tax where they have an accounting issue and payment of funds to the various states. Do you think eBay would have gone to all the trouble to allow Sellers to buy shipping labels on the platform if they were not receiving income. You still have not addressed the money grab on the return shipping labels. Come on if you going to defend eBay with the outbound labels, be a man/woman and attempt to defend the high priced return labels. Be real.

sparklingservice · ‎06-24-2021

IMHO

The change ebay made by charging a percentage of shipping fees was, exactly as you said.

Items that were being shipped, especially from China, were being listed at 1 cent with shipping cost in the hundreds of dollars. Of course it depended on that actual item. Like a big screen TV for 1 cent and 2-3 hundred dollars to ship. It was very obvious what was going on.

I think they should have cracked down on offenders rather than punish the whole community. Then again, they are in the business of making money.

marnotom! · ‎06-24-2021

@allthingssurplus wrote:

You seem to think shipping is free.

You seem to be misunderstanding my post.

eBay charging FVF on shipping means that sellers that offer "free" shipping (which really isn't) are on a level playing field with sellers who charge shipping as a separate line item. As an item with "free" shipping has its shipping costs already factored in, it's not fair to have those sellers pay FVF on their buried shipping costs while sellers who have shipping charges don't pay anything in fees on the shipping.

I never even brought up the issue of return shipping labels so I'm not sure why I'm being bullied into defending eBay's charges for them, particularly as I'm in Canada and I don't use USPS or the American services of FedEx, UPS, et al.

releasethekraken_1 · ‎06-25-2021

@allthingssurplus wrote:
First off the beating of the drum for how Seller switched the cost of the item to the shipping stopped many years ago and is not a factor today. When Amazon came in that stopped all of that

Please explain how Amazon's presence stops sellers from reallocating the price of an item (i.e. NOT overcharging). You still don't get it.

You may think you pay the lowest rates. The deals we have with FedEx, USPS, DHL and UPS. will beat eBay most times. We ship 30-60 packages a day. eBay ships many hundreds of thousands a day and should be able to beat my rates hands down and they do not.

eBay doesn't ship anything. You truly don't understand eBay, or how and why shipping discounts are given.

allthingssurplus · ‎06-25-2021

I sell item 5-50lbs on a daily basis and it is a huge impact to the bottom line. Its why eBay has become a 17-23% partner in this business. I started and sold my interest in another eBay company that at its peak was doing around 3.8mil on the site. I have seen all the crazy things eBay tires in the attempt to increase profit, not build the site. They do a great selling job on how wonderfully hard they are working to help the Sellers, their partners. Its just not true, all of their programs are designed to generate a new fee of some kind. This company I started in 2012 is a 2.4mil company. Folks on these threads have said if you don't like it leave. Well we still do that 2.4 however on 400K on the site now. With 4200 listings you can't just flip the switch.

In regard to shipping if all you are doing is USPS First Class the rates are pennies cheaper, if that, on eBay. The money grab begins past 2.5lbs or past a 12x12x12 DIMM. I think the goal for eBay is to really get rid of companies like mine. We present as being too demanding and require more maintenance. Now we have no Concierge service, where you could call and talk with people, about half the time, that knew what was going on and how to resolve issues. eBay replace that service with Premium Service, which is a nice way of saying okay volume Seller you are now talking with an agent we have in the system only you go to the top of the call waiting list. Again a systematic way of easing out Seller you don't want.

In closing you still have not addressed the return shipping eBay money grab. Do you agree or not?

allthingssurplus · ‎06-25-2021

Amazon has made the buying public focus on shipping. With online purchasing the size it is today. It is clear that a $10 item price and a $100 shipping cost is a scam. Back in the day when Seller took advantage I don't think people noticed. Today they do. As stated this is not an issue today. On the main Sellers do not take advantage with regard to shipping. Online selling has become a profession not a hobby or scam. You are living in the past with how things used to be. You are correct eBay does not ship anything and I don't know why you bring it up. However eBay sells shipping labels and is getting paid to do so. That is true and I never said eBay ships anything by the way.

I've been doing this for 21 years. Had one company doing 3.8mil on eBay and now this one with volume of 2.4mil and only doing 400K on eBay. I fully understand how eBay works. Exactly what do you do on eBay. Looks like you use a ghost ID. I always worry about people that are willing to make statements and not be transparent. Something to hide??

allthingssurplus · ‎06-25-2021

I think you are misunderstanding my issue all together. It is: eBay should not be charging FVF on any shipping. They don't do anything with shipping to get paid for it. Its just a money grab. As I said, if a Seller wishes to sell their items free shipping than yes they pay the FVF. Free shipping looks good to Buyers. However as you say free shipping is not free. So the Seller should have FVF and shipping cost built into the listing.

You may not have the high return label cost through eBay as we do here. If I were you I would check when you do purchase a return label through eBay in Canada, check to see if in fact it is a good rate. You might see that the practice in the USA is the same in Canada.

releasethekraken_1 · ‎06-25-2021

@allthingssurplus wrote:
Amazon has made the buying public focus on shipping. With online purchasing the size it is today. It is clear that a $10 item price and a $100 shipping cost is a scam.

$10 price plus $100 shipping for an item that can legitimately be sold for $100 with $10 shipping wasn't and still isn't a scam; it was a fee dodge, and the total cost to the buyer was the same either way. Now it would just be an attempted dodge by a clueless seller who hasn't kept up with the fee structure. We have one of those sellers posting to another recent thread, claiming they just cancelled 2,500 listings because eBay is charging FVF on shipping. They were totally unaware that eBay has been doing that since 2011.

However eBay sells shipping labels and is getting paid to do so. That is true and I never said eBay ships anything by the way.

Direct quote from your post: "eBay ships many hundreds of thousands a day".

You're an expert, but you can't even keep track of what you say. Instead, my posting ID is somehow an issue. LOL.

stephenmorgan · ‎06-25-2021

Are you saying the volume of shipping Labels sold thru eBay should yield eBay a much better discount then the discounts you receive for your much lower volume of purchasing of shipping labels?

I do not ship any sort of volume that would net me a discount. I have only used USPS and for the USPS Services that eBay offers I have found eBay to be the cheapest, but only by pennies. There are USPS Services offered by other sellers of USPS Shipping that are not offered by eBay. These services can be a significant cost savings over using the USPS Services offered by eBay.

eBay does offer their own shipping for International Shipping with two of their own programs. It is the best price I have found, however many times a International Buyer will use a shipper of their own choosing because it is cheaper than eBay.

dbfolks166mt · ‎06-25-2021

I have no idea what eBay's long term goals are and often wonder if they have a clue. It sometimes appears they want to be Amazon which they will never even be close to. You are correct about the company doing everything they can to increase their profit but that is what all companies do and it is their one and ONLY goal. Shareholders soon dump stock in companies that are not providing good returns on their investment.

Like most I hate paying the fees on shipping and sales tax and like you and a few others I long ago started diversifying across multiple platforms. While eBay once had a quasi monopoly on the online auction, and in some respects the ecommerce marketplace, that is no longer the case. There are just too many other sites with lower fees and better seller protection that also have rapidly increasing buyer bases. With all the complaints about the low sales I am waiting to see the eBay second quarter report to see if there is/has been a corporate wide impact.

Ironically I am able to adjust the pricing on the products I list across the multiple venues based on the fees and other costs charged by those sites. Every item I have listed on eBay I have listed elsewhere for at least 10% less, and up to 20% in some cases, than I have to price it for on eBay. While eBay may be trying to keep its shareholders happy in the long run it may have an adverse impact on the bottom line. While eBay could care less about the buyers and sellers when the stockholders become unhappy they are in deep sh....

marnotom! · ‎06-25-2021

@allthingssurplus wrote:

I think you are misunderstanding my issue all together. It is: eBay should not be charging FVF on any shipping.

Nope, there's no misunderstanding at all. What I'm doing is disagreeing with you. Not charging FVF on shipping has had unintended and unpleasant consequences in the past and it's not going to be some magic cure-all if it's implemented again.

@allthingssurplus wrote:

They don't do anything with shipping to get paid for it. Its just a money grab.

Consider that under Managed Payments, FVF and payment fees are now smershed together. Tell me one credit card merchant processor that's not going to charge an e-tailer merchant fees on shipping.

@allthingssurplus wrote:

As I said, if a Seller wishes to sell their items free shipping than yes they pay the FVF. Free shipping looks good to Buyers. However as you say free shipping is not free. So the Seller should have FVF and shipping cost built into the listing.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here. You seem to be contradicting your belief that sellers shouldn't pay FVF on shipping and adding that sellers should add their FVF to the item price, which then increases the FVF even more, doesn't it?

downunder-61 · ‎06-25-2021

I find it astounding that sellers are unaware of something that has been happening since 2011.

How on earth do they create or follow a business model without all relevant information?

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I have been imported from Australia and this is my posting ID

allthingssurplus · ‎06-26-2021

Please be clear how not being charged a fee and increasing profit can have unintended and unpleasant consequences to the Seller? I guess you are anti money or really pro all of eBay's programs.

eBay had no problem combining the FVF and the processing Fees, should not be an issue only taking their cut of the total fees collected. Yes I know credit card processors will always collect on the total. They are fronting the transaction and entitled to a fee. I'm only speaking of the FVF.

I was very clear about Sellers that choose to have free shipping should be charged FVF on the whole sale. It would their choice to do so. I get this type of sale eBay would not be able to figure out how much was shipping and how much was the item. As stated the Seller included all of their costs in his/her free shipping price. We do free shipping on most items that go USPS First Class. Its easier for our accounting and is more presentable to the Buyer. In our business the larger heavier item those Buyers assume they will pay shipping. This is where paying FVF on shipping reduces our profits and eBay gains for no reason. Sellers should have options on how they would like to be charged. In order to be competitive we have to show the real cost of the item to the Buyer in order for them to know exactly what they are paying. On larger DIMM and weight items shipping will vary greatly all over the country so selling with free shipping is doing a disservice to both the Seller and Buyer.