Surprised by high fees

[unforgettablejerseys]

Hello,

I apologize in advance if my doubts and questions are too arrogant or just plain stupid.

I'll be honest and say that my store is just a supplement to my regular work and for a long time I turned a blind eye to the commissions that eBay and PayPal take, I realized that these services are great windows to the world and I felt that giving them 10-15% of the total amount from sales is quite right.

But recently, after switching from Paypal to Managed Payments, and after my first two sales on that system, I felt robbed of money, because from my estimates it appears that I am currently being charged over 20% commission on total sales.

To clarify - I'm from Eastern Europe (I'm Polish and live in Poland), I sell my items in US dollars, 80% of my sales go to the US, the rest is Asia and Europe.

In the attachments I show commissions from my last two sales.

So after changing the payment system, it turned out that currently eBay charges about 20% of the total sale amount + additionally doubles the currency conversion of the money at a very favorable rate for itself.... I used to have a dollar account with Paypal and didn't have to worry about the currency conversion, but now that eBay pays directly to my bank account in Poland I have to take into account that if someone buys in dollars, since I'm from Europe eBay converts the dollars to euros, and since my bank is in Poland and it's in the Polish currency, it's another conversion from euros to the Polish currency. I was able to eliminate one conversion by adding a currency card held in Euros at my bank, but it still seems to me that the fees charged by ebay are very high.

I would be very grateful if someone could tell me if there is a chance to eliminate some of these fees to eBay so that a little more can stay in my pocket. I would like to continue to sell in dollars and be most visible on ebay.com if possible, because as I said my items are most popular in the US market.

Thank you for reading this and I will be very grateful if anyone will try to help me. Please find attached some examples of the commissions eBay has recently charged me to confirm my words. Best regards!

[soh.maryl]

Am not wanting to get into a discussion about eBay fees with you; however, if you're using currency conversion fees and/or VAT to compute what eBay's Final Value for sellers actually is, then you're doing it wrong.  

[nobody*s_perfect]

The apparent fee rate is inflated by the VAT, which eBay has no control over.  

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@unforgettablejerseys 

I'm with one of our leaders here @soh.maryl , I know nothing about Poland or your added international fees. But your post was neither arrogant or stupid, I find you pleasant.

    Fees are what they are, ebay does all the maintenance, staffing, advertising, payment processing, phone lines, I could go on and on. You are allowed to use their site that's reaches the globe for a price. 

     I live in a state in the USA in which fees are ridiculous. We do not have state tax though. We have fees on top of fees and if that's not enough fees they'll add another fee to cover last two fees.

     Sorry I wasn't much help to you. Please take care.

[itscalledapostingid]

You need to raise your prices to cover all the fees.

That is the only logical solution.

I also raised my prices this week because postage rates went up here in the USA.

I keep all the fees in mind when sourcing products to sell on ebay.

[luckythewinner]

Your eBay fees are 30 cents plus 14.15% of the total amount of $209.41, just as eBay advertises they will be for international transactions.

A couple notes:

On eBay, it is an unfortunate fact that the more you collect and pay in shipping the higher your fees will be relative to your item price. This has always been the reality on eBay.

The VAT you are being charged is not an eBay fee, it is a tax that is imposed by the government that has jurisdiction over the sale. IMHO this is a business expense just like packaging materials or inventory cost or overhead.

Ditto for the currency conversion costs. If you are selling in a currency that is different than the selling price, there is going to leakage. But IMHO that is an expense rather than an eBay fee.