final value fees

[jametod-518]

How on  earth is ebay able to charge final value fees on the sales tax they collect, and supposedly send to the appropriate states??  I know, I know, I haven't been paying attention - but my fvf's have skyrocketed - usually way over 20%

[monroe67]

"Most of the items I sell are at 14.95% + $.40 per sale?.? ---just commenting."

Your comment is true; no question marks are needed. 

eBay's percentage Final Value Fee (FVF) for books, magazines, movies and TV ("except Movie NFTs") is 14.95% of the total amount of the sale.  The total amount of the sale includes (1) the price of the item + (2) any sales taxes your buyer is required to pay based on the delivery address + (3) the shipping/delivery cost paid by your buyer.  

eBay also charges a per-order fee of 40 cents when the total amount of the sale is $10.01 and more.  (It's only 30 cents when the total amount of the sale is $10.00 or less.)  

One other thing:  the state laws of 45 of the United States require eBay to send sales taxes to their treasury/taxing authority/appropriate department.  This is not "supposed."  It's the law.  

[soh.maryl]

To the best of my knowledge, in most eBay categories, the FVF is 13.25%.

Can you show us an example of a recent sale of yours where it was over 20%? 

And, yes, you're right--perhaps you've not been paying attention.    

[janet9988]

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@jametod-518 wrote:

How on  earth is ebay able to charge final value fees on the sales tax they collect, and supposedly send to the appropriate states??  I know, I know, I haven't been paying attention - but my fvf's have skyrocketed - usually way over 20%

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Final value fees are still the same for books It is 14.95%. How did yours go up? Did you fall below standard?

[dbfolks166mt]

Have you ever thought about selling a group of two books or more or maybe free shipping with the added shipping built in the sale...for sale. I know this doesn't affect anything related to the sales tax but selling more might be less of a pain of sales tax collected which we all cry about.

     Actually using free shipping does potentially impact the sales tax collected and the FVF's assessed in some cases. About 1/2 of the states do not charge sales tax on shipping when the shipping cost can be identified separately. While it may be minimal buyers in those states save some change when they are not paying sales tax on the shipping and the seller saves a little bit since they are not paying FVF's on any sales tax for the shipping since none is being levied. 

'Repeat buyers' is usually a good business plan...relating to selling same items in the same category.

The key is selling more and not looking at fees...which we all cry about.

Because of the category you probably can get books cheap at shops like Goodwill and such and group them together and sell them. Think outside the box and how can I increase my sales.

We all hate paying for anything these days...

Maybe throw a post card or greeting card related to your category with the books for sale.

Or sell them as well...you probably have a 'repeat buyers' list unlike these other sellers on eBay who sell buttons and toasters in their store and don't stick to one category or subject matter...stick to one specific subject category and increase the sales.

Rather than ranting on like 'others' here I try to improve WHAT you can do to increase profits.

Good luck.

[itsjustasprain]

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@jametod-518 wrote:

How on  earth is ebay able to charge final value fees on the sales tax they collect, and supposedly send to the appropriate states??

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Well... they have these things called computers that are capable of doing all KINDS of stuff. Sales tax is applied according to the buyer location (not the seller) so they must maintain a database of the correct tax to be applied for every locality in the country. That is a major job that none of us could handle but Ebay is able to work it out.

They can have that job - I would definitely not want it but the gummint requires someone involved in each transaction to track and pay the relevant tax.

[mam98031]

@jametod-518 

I'm unsure how many times we have to have this conversation.  Ebay has charged FVFs on Sales tax since August of 2020 When they started onboard ALL seller to Managed Payments and became our Money Processor.  So as sellers entered MP between August of 2020 and the end of 2021, they started paying Ebay FVFs on sales tax.

BEFORE that, you paid PayPal fees on the sales tax.

Ebay does NOT have any category with 20% fees.  So your calculation could have only gotten that high if YOUR voluntarily decided you were willing to pay more fees to Ebay for a sale and are using Promoted Listings.  That is a decision for each seller to make for themselves, but then don't turn around and blame Ebay for your high fees, when YOU voluntarily increased them.

Then there are some sellers that add in the cost of shipping with their FVFs and call it Ebay fees which is incorrect.  Shipping is a cost of sale, but no a cost that Ebay gets to keep.