"Surely people have already pointed this out before."
NO! You're the First !!!!! . . . . . . . . within this hour . . . . . . .
Seriously -- it seems like you have fallen into a very common trap.
"Ebay's so-called "13%" final value fee (12.9% to be precise) is for some reason applied to ALL of that amount, shipping and tax included. Which means Ebay took $1.17 in fees for this order. (Then there's the extra fixed amount of $0.30 per order which they add on for fun, so the final fees were $1.47). The reason this is very strange to me is because the only amount I received on this order which can actually be called MINE is the item price of $4.99. The shipping money I received is not income for me, because obviously I have to pay back that exact amount in order to print a shipping label. And of course the sales tax is not part of my income either: that's just a tax the buyer paid to Ebay."
Where to begin? Yes, eBay applies their Final Value Fee (FVF) to the full amount that the buyer pays.
The Final Value Fee has two elements: (1) a percentage of the total paid by the buyer plus (2) thirty cents ($0.30) per order -- not just for fun. You have explained it pretty well, so it sounds like you understand it. But you don't seem to have accepted it. Most of us sellers have accepted the fees that eBay charges.
The shipping money that your buyer pays is income to you. But you have agreed, per the terms of your listing, to use that income to buy the postage/label so that the item can be delivered to your buyer.
And the sales tax is not paid to eBay by the buyer. Sales taxes are paid to the US State to which the item will be delivered. eBay collects it, as they are required to do by the Marketplace Facilitator laws, and then eBay sorts out all that money to the various states and sends it on to the states at the appropriate time.
"But nonetheless, Ebay is taking:
13% of the item price (which IS my money, so this makes sense).
13% of the shipping price (which is NOT my money, so this doesn't make sense).
13% of the sales tax (which is NOT my money, so this doesn't make sense)."
Unfortunately for you, I don't think eBay cares whether their fee structure makes sense to you. In True Fact, the moment you click the LIST button on any listing you are deemed to have accepted, and agreed to be bound by, eBay's policies and procedures, including the Fee Structures.
"So where is Ebay's 13% cut for shipping and sales tax actually coming from? It's ultimately coming out of the item price, the $4.99 I made on the item. And $1.17 is 23.5% of $4.99, not 13%. And again, once you factor in the $0.30 just-for-fun fee, then they took $1.47 which is 29.5%. This is the percentage Ebay actually takes from the sellers themselves."
See, this is where you fall into a very common trap, when you say the 12.9% (to be precise) fee comes "out of the item price." Yes, the fee comes from the item price PLUS from the amount of postage and amount of sales tax.
As you said, yourself, early in your post: "Ebay's so-called "13%" final value fee (12.9% to be precise) is for some reason applied to ALL of that amount, shipping and tax included." Remember? And I stated earlier in this post "Yes, eBay applies their Final Value Fee (FVF) to the full amount that the buyer pays."
A lot of people on this Board have posted -- a lot -- their calculation of eBay's fees based on only the price of the item. A lot of words have been used, like scam and steal and illegal and immoral and references to failed political movements that waged war throughout the world during the 20th century. Some other posters seem to agree with them.
Personally, I do not subscribe to that theory. I accept that eBay's fee, in categories where my selling ID has listings, is 12.9% of the total paid by the buyer, plus thirty cents per order.
"And I guess you just have to deal with it, or go sell stuff somewhere else. But it's pretty irritating that Ebay would advertise "13% selling fees," when in reality the percentage is more than double that, almost 30%. In my opinion, companies should have more respect for their users (and more self-respect for that matter). This legitimately has me wondering whether Ebay is worth using."
Yes, all potential sellers who want to (try to) sell on eBay have to make that decision for themselves.
