I just got off the chat with a billing support guy at Ebay after having a final value fee dispute. This is how the payment structure normally works at ebay:
$0.01 - $25
8.75% of the closing value
$25.01 - $1000
8.75% of the first $25 ($2.19) and then 3.5% of the rest
over $1000.01
8.75% of the first $25 ($2.19), 3.5% of of 25.01 - 1000 ($34.12), and then 1.5% of the rest
So, normally on my $210 Wii that I just sold, it would be $8.67, but… I was charged $18.38. It didn’t seem right, that is the full 8.75%. So, I contacted ebay, and was told this:
Since I had the free insertion fee promotion, they charge the full 8.75% of the entire purchase. The insertion fee is only $0.25, but in my case, that fucked me, and was the equivalent of $10 to list it.
So, be careful! Read the small print carefully. Ebay is now giving the first 5 auctions of each month free insertion, but this means that you will be paying 8.75% of the entire sale price, not just the first $25. This is going to make it harder and harder to make money on eBay for the average Joe. Costumer service refunded me the difference, but this requires extra work for each sale.
It started off as a great thing… now… it’s useless for what it was originally designed for. Person to person auctions; not business flood auctions. The fees just get insane and you can get better deals 1/2 the time from a normal store.
It sucks for me too. I have hundreds of ebay sales. I haven’t caught this until now, I normally just pay my fee’s and don’t think twice. This has only been going on since June 28th or whatever the billing rep told me, but imagine if it was years. This could kill someone’s profit margin, since internet sales profits are low as it is.
I was reading that the ebay China site has far lower fees than the US site. That would explain how many of the items on ebay are being direct shipped one at a time from CHINA.
I bought a 4 dollar mouse pad with a Audi logo on it for my cousin, they had free shipping, and it was shipped direct from China.
You tell me what their profit margin is. I couldn’t even ship an empty box to china for 4 dollars, let alone include any kind of a product in it.
Typically now, I will search for only US sellers. It takes 2 weeks to get an item here from China, which is too long in most cases.
It is a race to the bottom, I was looking that some sellers are even selling nuts and bolts ($2 items), and shipping it direct from China.
American sellers can not compete with this at all.
I also just tried to change a listing title since I typed Town instead of Tow. I couldn’t do it since there was a bid on it, so I contacted the Live Help to see if they can remove the letter (since it changes the meaning of the listing a lot and is one of the key words)
What I was told is that since there were bids on it, that i couldn’t change the title (even though it was like 12 hrs from when i LISTED it.) and that I had to end my listing and then re-list it. I asked them why it wasn’t possible for him to go in and remove the ‘N’ from the word for me and he said he couldn’t, but he would give me a one time credit for the Relistinf Fee. So apparently you’ll have to pay the fee twice if you mis-spell something with a bid on it.
lol… Ebay is really fucking downhill.
I used to use it all the time… but now it’s just dumb.
Typically, the only way I’d buy something I find on ebay, is to mail the seller and ask if they have a website they’re selling it on… or just search something similar to their user name and see what pops up.
Typically I can find the item for a lot less.
(Miller trailblazer was 3,950 on ebay w/ free ship… went on their site and it was 3,700 w/ free ship… They even told me I should go order it from their site if i wanted it cheaper after I mailed them… heh)
I refused to sell shit on ebay
i sold a turbo, wastegate, and bov on ebay and i was absolutely raped in fees. Relisting fees, paypal fees, then fees because i sold it. :WTFISTHISSHIT: , picture fees
Its bad enough paypal rapes me when i sell shit on hondatech, ive prob paid over 1k in stupid ass paypal fees
edit: prob not 1000$ lol, i havent sold 30k worth of shit, but prob close to 400-500 in fees
i just paid a 40$ fee on my wheels i sold and they were only rotas :bloated:
I don’t even want to think of what I pay those bastards every year. But for some there is no viable alternative, YET. Like others said, the best thing for a seller is when people email to buy something that’s not listed, and you can get them to buy outside of eBay. I still have to pay PayPal, but still save so much in fees, and I can give the person a better deal to boot. Every year it gets worse and worse- more fees, more bullshit rules to make them more money, and less rights for sellers to do business as they want. Sellers HAVE to go with buy-it-nows or they risk losing money if bids don’t go high.