Ebay fees, is this right?

[Pennstater]

Ok, this cannot be right, but maybe it is


If you sell an item for $1.50 with free shipping and it fits in an envie that costs you .44 to ship, these are the fees you pay on ebay if it's not a BIN auction

Ebay fees

10 cents insert fee
9% final value fee includes item price and shipping, so 14 cents

PP fees
2.9% plus 30 cents so .34

stamp .44


total cost to seller $1.02
so you make less than .50 cents on a $1.50 item

Could this be right?? Or is my math wrong?

[dookersmom]

Yuck! No wonder I quit selling on ebay! I never do free shipping, unless it's something I REALLY want to get rid of! I only list stuff when I get the emails that say it's free to list, and start them at 99 cents. I think that's right, unfortunately. I have a ton of antique buttons I'd like to list, but I don't want to pay a fourth of what I make to ebay! Stupid fees!

[Gertie2u]

I know Ebay needs to make money to keep thriving, but that seems awfully excessive. I know your example pertains to something with a low price, but many of those fees are percentage, so that means even if you sold something more expensive they would still be biting just as deeply. Yuck!

[fungirl2727]

That sound like to many fees for me!

[shelleyf]

You are correct, it is ridiculous. Also now since some sellers were cheating and making the shipping high everyone is punished:( For instance they had people selling shoes for .99 and the shipping was $100 so they only paid the fees on the .99! So to stop that they are charging everyone fees on the shipping and it is not fair. So you have to raise the price of your shipping to include the fees but if you do then you might get bad feedback because you charge too much for the fees! It is a hard situation and I find it wrong but until everyone stops selling on there it will continue. I sell some on there because it is better than nothing but it is hard to make money and the fees keep getting worse all the time. And the rules change often too. You have to keep up with it constantly.

[aimeebee]

If you are selling items for under $5-10 it really isn't worth it to offer free shipping. There are just too many fees involved. At one time I had an ebay store. This is exactly why I shut it down. So many sellers have high handling charges to make up for those fees. But, there is a point where you won't get bids if you are passing too many of the fees on to the buyers.

[mzbeers]

Don't they have some sort of free listing thing going on right now? The first 50 auction-style listings (any starting price) is free.

[shelleyf]

Don't they have some sort of free listing thing going on right now? The first 50 auction-style listings (any starting price) is free.

Yes every month you get 50 free on the listings. You only have to pay the other fees if your items sell so that part is good. Today only they are letting you list for .01 each item and they do that at random every couple weeks lately but only tell you the night before.