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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

I thought I was doing people a solid by listing auctions starting at $0.01. I thought it would be nice to sell something for a penny if no one else bid besides the first person. I listed MANY DOZENS of auctions. I then started noticing I was PAYING eBay money, not RECEIVING it.

 

An auction for a book sold at 1 cent plus $3.19 (the minimum shipping amount for media mail) and eBay charged me a 14.6% fee INCLUDING fees based on SHIPPING! So I have to pay 80 cents, PLUS the $3.19 shipping to earn one penny. Auctioning that book COST ME 79 cents (as the buyer paid the shipping).

 

First, it's insane to charge 14.6% of anything less than what it would COST you to auction something.

Second, charging a final fee on the SHIPPING?!?!

 

Am I the only one? Am I missing something? This seems very bad.

Message 1 of 66
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65 REPLIES 65

eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

No one here has called you stupid.

You asked if you were missing something.  People responded by answering your question. 

 

Message 46 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

VERY helpful. I will get off the "auction" thing as soon as I can.

Message 47 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Hadn't considered that, thank you.

Message 48 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Directly at YOUR sarcasm?

Message 49 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Yes. I really need to take a hard look at this. THANK YOU!

Message 50 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Seems you are absolutely correct. I made A TON of money in the 90s. Now it seems the only people making money is eBay. Ha!

Message 51 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

@rob2e  Back in the 90s/early oughts eBay was the only show in town for this kind of thing.

 

Now there are selling  venues everywhere - some don't have much of an impact, but the newer mobile sites are really taking off, plus fakebook, etc.,  All of this means smaller slices of the pie.  A lot of eBay's success is that it was really the first into the online marketplace and there was only a small pool of us selling.  Those days are long gone, now it's just a big muddy swamp.


“The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” - Henry Kissinger

"Wherever law ends, tyranny begins" - John Locke (Don't get distracted).
Message 52 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?


@rob2e wrote:

For your under $85 items, what do you do? Throw them out? Donate them? Keep them until they ARE worth $85? What is your solution? It seems like a good idea to have a higher threshold, but I personally can't bring myself to throw out things I purchased. So how do you handle that?


I do not sell my personal items on eBay.  I give them away, donate them, or sell them locally.  I'm old now, and I have little left in the way of excess personal possessions, anyhow, and I never did have a lot.

 

My selling days are, happily, about over as the substantial inventory I had to dispose of is now nearly gone.  It was and is all slow dime stuff.  Through the years, of course, the minimum changed. as my costs increased.  Once upon a time, when I started, I could make enough with a $25 dollar minimum.

 

As I said, each seller has to decide what works for him, financially and in terms of time and energy invested in selling.

 

And before you lay into me based on this ID, this is a posting ID, used to protect the selling ID after some bad experiences with disgruntled posters to the forums.  And I buy with a third ID, by the way.

 

-

Message 53 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

No no. I REALLY appreciate your insight. I wouldn't lay into anyone about their seller ID and experience, unless (as you obviously saw) someone was being "less than nice" and wasting everyone's time. Thanks again!

Message 54 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?


@rob2e wrote:

I thought I was doing people a solid by listing auctions starting at $0.01. I thought it would be nice to sell something for a penny if no one else bid besides the first person. I listed MANY DOZENS of auctions. I then started noticing I was PAYING eBay money, not RECEIVING it.

 

An auction for a book sold at 1 cent plus $3.19 (the minimum shipping amount for media mail) and eBay charged me a 14.6% fee INCLUDING fees based on SHIPPING! So I have to pay 80 cents, PLUS the $3.19 shipping to earn one penny. Auctioning that book COST ME 79 cents (as the buyer paid the shipping).

 

First, it's insane to charge 14.6% of anything less than what it would COST you to auction something.

Second, charging a final fee on the SHIPPING?!?!

 

Am I the only one? Am I missing something? This seems very bad.


A little bit of a pile-on here.. You did a very smart thing by reaching out, and you clearly have thick skin. On the bright side it sounds like your net losses were relatively minute, better than learning this lesson on big ticket items. 

Message 55 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Ya, I only realized I was losing money when I started losing it. It wasn't several months or anything like that. And the advice here (from the good people) is REALLY helping me.

Message 56 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

FYI those  watchers can be other  sellers selling the  same or similar item, people that a just watching to book mark your listing and keep search for the  same item from other sellers -it is  easy to go back and look up  an items they might be interested in - I do it  all the time or they might be paraphrasing some of your description jargon for  there own listing use - I used to do that too.

"I have the right to remain silent but I didn't have the ability." Ron White, Fritch, Texas
"Stay away from negative people, they have a problem for every solution." A. Einstein
"The Devil made me do it!" - Flip Wilson
"If the band can only play loud - they ain't no good - peps too!" J.R. Johnson
Message 57 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Frankly, nothing is more insane to me than to list something for 1 cent.  Even 99 cents.  People , ebay is not like it was in the 1990s.  There are so many options for buyers to buy stuff.  Whatever your starting price is , make sure that at the end of the transaction you have made some profit. Otherwise, do NOT bother listing.   

 

Ebay fees are NOT insane.  It would cost you more in overhead if you had a store to sell stuff.

Message 58 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Ok, I hit send button too soon. To the newer ebayers out there,  what I meant about ebay is not the same as in the 1990s is back then they were the only game in town.  You listed something for a cent and there were many , many bidders for that item.   Back then if you saw a Star Wars figure and you needed it, you bid alot and you bid high because you wanted that item.  You have no idea if another seller would list the same item.  Today,  bidders know that if they lose an item today or don't hit the buy it now button, some other seller will eventually list the same item.

 

Finally,  NEVER EVER start an auction with a price that ebay suggests.  Ebay does NOT care if you make money or not.  They are satisfied with a sale. They get something.  They will tell their stockholders that  million items were sold last Friday.  Of course, they won't say that many sellers did NOT make a profit.  So please,  do NOT listen to Ebay 's suggestions for a price.   Remember , they also push FREE Shipping too.  

Message 59 of 66
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eBay fees are INSANITY! Am I the only one?

Some people like me would have never seen it if you started the auction at a penny.  We don't look at cheapest junk first. 

Message 60 of 66
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