eBay - Fees and shipping.

[ripley802]

Just a general rant and to see if anyone else has issues with this too. So I just sold some things and was getting them all packed up ready to ship. I went to print the shipping labels and was shocked to see the prices raised again for priority mail. It seems like Flat Rate and regular priority also first class went up. Even with an eBay discount I was still over about $.50 - $.75 per package. Now I am not entirely upset with that, as it is the post office and I should have checked and priced the shipping out before hand, but what I know is coming is the eBay fee and the Final Fee value on shipping.

The eBay fee 10% seems to have gone up over time but can really hurt your profits when selling . And it seems in recent past there is a fee on shipping? What is that. So for the example above not only will I have lost $.50 - .75 on each item but there will probably be a fee of that or more per item of final fee shipping. $1 - $2 can add up too when you have several items that are sold.

Ok.. rant over.

[Super]

I agree
Ebay started charging that Fee on shipping many years ago and it was to combat the rampant misuse of the Auction site. You see the bad guys were listing their BIN's for .99 (Ebay charged no Fees under a dollar) then making up the difference of what the value of the item is by over charging on the shipping, which at that time, they did not charge commission Fees on. So the Buyer got the item for its total value, the Seller got what they wanted and avoided all Fees, and Ebay was left out in the cold. Sort of like listing a new car at .99 BIN and charging $40,000 shipping. So to take care of the bad guys who were ruing it for all, Ebay had to punish everyone. Also, this was way before Sellers could get and print their Postage through Ebay so they had no way to Police it.

With so much thievery, if let go, Ebay would have probably gone down the tubes since they were losing so much. So as usual, it takes the actions of a few to ruin it for everybody. I got a kick out of one answer Ebay had for the complaints of how unfair the new Fees were was for the Sellers the raise the asking price to account for the Shipping Fee....well...duh....you charge the same percentage for Final Value Fees on the item as you do on the shipping...duh! So we are still paying the same in Fees and if the USPS shipping rates keep rising then Ebay keeps making more with no way for the Seller to recoup any of that. Well, you say...Ebay gives its Sellers a discount return on the shipping to its sellers...yes they do...AFTER they calculate the shipping Fee and that discount does not come close to the Final Shipping Value Fees. So its a lose - loser for the seller and win - win for Ebay...blame it all on the bad guys...

Yup, this is the downside of selling on eBay these days, it can work out way too expensive to sell small value items as you end up paying almost as much in fees as you get for the items...