eBay is a rip off and fraud.

[peppernatl]

What a total rip off!!! How many times does one have to pay sales tax on an item. I bought and resold this item because it was the wrong part. Look at the fees ebay charged me!! 150 bucks on a 650 dollar item. What a complete scam. We’re not partners. You don’t get a cut of 25% of my item. That’s ridiculous. I could understand maybe 15-25 bucks max!! Never again!! Beware people. Use marketplace. It’s free!!!!

What you earned

Order total

eBay collected from buyer

Sales tax

Selling costs

Transaction fees

Ad Fee Standard

$698.31

-$53.31

Order earnings.

• $92.83
• $62.85

$489.32

[inhawaii]

Let's not forget about shoplifting and pilferage.

[monroe67]

"What a total rip off!!! How many times does one have to pay sales tax on an item. I bought and resold this item because it was the wrong part. Look at the fees ebay charged me!! 150 bucks on a 650 dollar item. What a complete scam. We’re not partners. You don’t get a cut of 25% of my item. That’s ridiculous."

One:  Your buyer pays the sales taxes based on the percentage currently in effect at his/her delivery address.   eBay sends that sales tax money to the taxing authority of the state where it was delivered.  Yes, eBay includes sales tax when they (eBay) calculate the fees you owe to eBay.  

Your grille sold for $645.  Assuming a high sales tax rate of 11%, your seller paid sales tax -- which goes to his own state -- of $70.95.  Assuming, again, eBay's Final Value Fee (FVF) percentage of 13.25%, eBay's gross earning on that sales tax is $9.40.  But that's a very high estimate.  I think the average sales tax for the nation hovers somewhere more around 8%.  I just used 11% as a worst-case scenario.  

Two:  You are calculating eBay's FVF as a percentage of the grille's selling price only.   Seems that many sellers do that, and post their rants about it here semi-regularly, but that is not the way eBay calculates the FVF.   

eBay adds together everything the buyer pays:  Cost of the item + postage + sales tax + any handling charge the seller adds to the listing + any specific charges required by the buyer's state.   eBay's fee percentage is applied to that total.  AND eBay's FVF includes a whopping $0.30 per order.  Three whole dimes.

However:  many sellers, including me, do in fact estimate in our own minds how much any item will "net" to us based on past eBay sales experience.  Your net was roughly 75% of the item's price, meaning eBay retained roughly 25%.  This is reasonable.  Those numbers are -- your experience is -- not unusual.  

Three:  I notice your listing to sell that grille included Free Shipping.  I hope your listing price of $645.00 included some sort of estimate of postage.  Please tell us you didn't think USPS would deliver it to your buyer literally for !! FREE !! just because you're a nice guy.  

Four:  Did you use Promoted Listings?  Did eBay actually show any dollar amount in the "Ad Fee Standard" field?  If so, that is a fee that you actually chose to pay.  Like you told eBay, "Here, keep this money, and in return you agree to give my listing some sort of priority."  You can't agree to something and then gripe about it later on.  

Five:  No, eBay and the sellers who use their platform are not partners.  If they were, I am sure the User Agreement would be much much more complicated.  Speaking of which, you really should take a few minutes and read the User Agreement, especially Item 5, Fees and Taxes.  There's a link to the User Agreement at the bottom of each eBay page when you access it on a computer.  

[pennysdream]

Thank you for todays Smile.  

Oh my

[maxine*j]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

@isaiah53-57 they always gush how cheap ebay fees are compared to storefront rental or lease costs - SORRY - if you are running a well managed B&M store, your rental cost should be about 10% of your items sales -

@dqdistribution If rental costs you suspect around 10%. You still have credit processing fees of Id say 2-3%

Add to that municipal business taxes. And utilities. And business insurance including liability. And garbage pickup (not covered by municipal tax).
And possibly employees to cover lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, and vacation time, which means payroll taxes  on wages.

---

And in every city in which we ever had a B&M, the "commercial rate" for all utilities was higher than the residential rate.  Why did they charge more?  Because the utility companies could.

And the last city in which we had a B&M came up with a lovely "sign fee."  Yes, for each sign we had that was visible from the street, we were assessed an annual fee.  Why?  Because some cleverboots found a little gold mine for the city in that.

The liability portion of our commercial insurance increased by substantial amounts every year, as more and more people found a way to be "injured" in retail stores.  So many folks were "scalded by hot water from the taps," or "slipped on the wet floor," or were "cut on fragments from a broken mirror," or found some other way to become practically disabled  in the restrooms of commercial establishments that to avoid one huge increase in insurance premiums, and possibly deal with such claims, we made the restroom off limits. 

Not to mention that every youth group, youth and amateur sports team, school marching band, amateur dramatic society, and you-name-the-nonprofit within a 50-mile radius expected donations and sponsorships from every business, every day.

Oh, did I mention the costs of advertising and promotion?  They were not small!

I could go on, but YOU have been there, and you know what I mean.  A lot of people just have no idea. 

-

[dqdistribution]

I like how you spend time to use colors, makes it nice to read.

[onthescrews]

I agree to the extent some sellers on the board have become condescending when someone posts a complaint or is just whining. There is however a fine line between empathy and enabling. In terms of the actual running of a business, empathy doesn’t help. The struggling seller/business owner is better served by brutally honest answers, even if snarky. Empathy is for after they go under and don’t want to try again. Human nature is to wallow in self-pity. Business doesn’t care about your self-pity and will hurt you even more if you stay mired in it.

[sincitygpk]

You’re wrong. They are taking a percentage of the tax which ends up coming out of the sellers pocket, so we ARE being overtaxed every time! Shipping, especially when purchasing eBays labels, should also be exempt from the final value because it is paid right back out, it’s not a tip or added profit. 

[sincitygpk]

Why is that insane? eBay tries to make it appear as tho you can list items for FREE, and that you’ll be able to get paid almost instantly. They present a false information to lure in new sellers so why is it so hard to believe that people feel deceived and ripped off? 

[sincitygpk]

But they try to make it seem like it is

[mam98031]

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@sincitygpk wrote:

You’re wrong. They are taking a percentage of the tax which ends up coming out of the sellers pocket, so we ARE being overtaxed every time! Shipping, especially when purchasing eBays labels, should also be exempt from the final value because it is paid right back out, it’s not a tip or added profit. 

---

Sellers should be pricing their products taking into consideration all costs of that item which includes estimated selling fees.  If you aren't doing that, you should consider taking another look at your process.

As I've said, I don't like the FVF on sales tax any better than anyone else.  We have always paid a fee for money processing on the sales tax.  We did with PayPal and if that was all MP was charging us, I wouldn't have a problem with it.  But Ebay went to a Simplified Fee so they could apply the entire fee against the sales tax.  When we were with PP it was 2.9%.  

The FVF on shipping has been around for a whole lot of years.  It is something that all similar sites do as well.  It doesn't matter if you use Ebay shipping labels or not.  It is NOT charged on the cost of shipping, it is charged on how much you charged the buyer FOR shipping.

[onthescrews]

What specifically did you see that made you think selling was free? 

[yuzuha]

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@sincitygpk wrote:

Why is that insane? eBay tries to make it appear as tho you can list items for FREE

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There's nothing incorrect about that. You can LIST items for free, you only pay the fees when they sell.

[ten_o_nine]

Where's the advice in your response? I don't see no straight answers, thus my question.

[inhawaii]

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@ten_o_nine wrote:

Where's the advice in your response? I don't see no straight answers, thus my question.

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What advice are you asking for or what question do you want answered?

I would love to respond.

[isaiah53-57]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

@isaiah53-57 they always gush how cheap ebay fees are compared to storefront rental or lease costs - SORRY - if you are running a well managed B&M store, your rental cost should be about 10% of your items sales -

@dqdistribution If rental costs you suspect around 10%. You still have credit processing fees of Id say 2-3%

Add to that municipal business taxes. And utilities. And business insurance including liability. And garbage pickup (not covered by municipal tax).
And possibly employees to cover lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, and vacation time, which means payroll taxes  on wages.

---

Are you kidding me? - AGAIN virtually EVERYTHING you mentioned as a cost in your post are costs that people who have a real business have, whether they are selling online or B&M - Literally EVERYTHING you mentioned, and you insinuate as though they are exclusive to only B&M stores -

Do you think everybody selling here is like you guys posting who are selling like 20 items a month? Everybody who has a REAL BUSINESS in online sales has the costs you mention and more, PLUS ebay fees on top of it - PLUS you have to ship EVERYTHING - do you realize how much time and money it takes for a business that ships thousands of items a month selling online? - I've been there, both in B&M and with a medium-sized online presence selling thousands of items a month. You are posting fake news.