These are pretty common fees and really not all that high compared to what they have been during the “transition phase”.
Now days they basically let you list for free or almost free and charge all the fees on the final selling price. A flat 10% off the top. Which is bad but not all that bad when compared to commission sales.
The real issue with ebay is that there is ZERO seller protection at all and they also hide small sellers items making it hard for them to even sell something.
As far as the shipping goes, ebay and many others have made people think that shipping is free and they punish people that do not offer free shipping by burying their listings.
I still refuse to offer free shipping on anything but tiny items and obviously you have to build the shipping cost into the item cost.
In your case the shipping price is exactly what it should be and a lot cheaper then if you went to the post office. Next time just build the shipping cost into the price of the item.
You could have shipped it via first class mail at that weight and saved a lot but it would take longer and not sure if they have signature confirmation online for first class.
I could rant and rant about ebay but basically it is a great place to buy but forget selling there unless you have to. Not so much because of the fees, they are a bit high but not insane but because of everything else they screw sellers over with.
Here’s the thing with ebay, compare how much your local newpapers charge for a classified ad these days, it’s not cheap anymore.
And then how many people who are interested in what you are selling are actually going to see that ad?
Pictures? Not in the paper unless you are willing to pony up for a box ad.
Yeah the fees suck, but millions of eyeballs on what you need to move , all listed from the comfort of your own home and discounts on the USPS fees, it is the best game in town so to speak.
If someone with the capital can challenge epay, then I’m all for that. But so far Google hasn’t found the need to do so.
As far as shipping fees, most buyers will pay a small amount and you have to kick in the rest. I am seeing much less free shipping from a lot of epay sellers that have offered free shipping in the past. And they still seem to be moving product.
The sellers are starting to get over the “free shipping” thing lately although ebay is still trying to ram it down their throats.
Fact is that shipping is not free and since the rate hikes last year sellers are feeling it more then ever.
It is really annoying when buyers complain about high shipping prices when you charge them actual shipping cost + $1 handling and packaging (which is less then most things should cost honestly).
Packaging, this is another reason Amazon prime comes in so handy, I recycle all the boxes and that saves money for sure.
No one likes paying any shipping, me included, but it is a fact of life.
Really if you compare shipping price increases to epay increases, shipping has risen more as a percentage by far in the past 5 years.
One other thing and then I will let this go, when epay has no charge for listing, what do you have to lose?
Try to get your newspaper to run ads for free provided your item didn’t sell. LMK how that works out for ya’
Sometimes you just have to relist items, change up the wording, maybe change the pictures and just lower the price little by little until you find what the market will bear.
Wait a week between re listing, sometimes a buyer who was watching your item earlier but forgot it was ending will swoop right in shortly after the re-list and buy it.
It’s all a game but when you sell something that has sat in in drawer or on a shelf for 5 years (all the while paying you no rent) it is like found money when it sells and turns into cash.
Makes you want to go through drawers again!
Disclaimer; I do not work for epay or any other sales site, just another average over buying American.
Later,
I can honestly say i made alot of cash on ebay over ten years ago…
Friends used to joke around that i would have to put a banner on my house saying “bought with ebay”. Then they started changing all the rules and charging huge amounts for user fees and especially shipping charges went through the roof. It used to be so good and i love buying and selling weekly if not daily sometimes.
Sad state its in now i havent bought something in years off ebay and dont think i will.
Yeah, back 10-15 years ago ebay was a whole different place.
Instead of fearing anytime someone sent you a message you would actually get in conversations with people. Now the goal is to just make them go away without filing a claim (that they will automatically win, no matter how wrong they are) and a sense of dread falls over anyone that should happen to see a new message from a buyer in their inbox.
Not to mention the inability for low volume and low value sellers to compete. Ebay is setup so that large volume sellers that are not flat out ripping people off can stay around for years and get promoted but if a small seller has one cranky buyer open a claim it can ruin that sellers account for over a year even if the seller was 100% in the right (been there, had that happen).
The one thing I have got out of ebay the last few years is a complete loss of any and all fear of buying anything. There is zero risk to buying anything on ebay, even stuff that says no returns, broken, for parts ect are open game, no worries about coming out on the short end at all.
I hate to say it, but most sellers are from outside the US (selling into the US). That is how they can sell at reasonable prices and still have a margin even after the 20% hit from eBay fees. Just how cheaply some things can be made and shipped is amazing. For example, I purchased several give away lights (the little zoomable C5 AA/14500) for as little as $1.50 including shipping from China! They must churn those things out by the million.
Buyer beware, though. I’ve purchased, or tried to purchase at least 5 Nitecore and a couple Jetbeams from auctions. Invariably the China based seller quotes some ridiculous shipping time (up to 90 days) and provides no tracking number. If you look just at their feedback record it looks good, until you dig a little deeper and see most items previously sold were <$1 and now they are selling $75 lights for $35 (won on auction). You’ll see them disappear after a few dozen sales then are forced to wait to the day after the last possible Receive By date before filing a claim. It’s only that occasionally you really do get a screaming deal that makes the gamble worth it. You do get a refund eventually but it ties up funds for months at a time.
Free shipping is actually a good marketing move. But you tend to raise the prices of item just to compensate on shipping. A lot of buyers still fall for this, but some don’t. In my opinion, it’s a good move just to get over the hassle of computing shipping fees, etc.
There are many issues with free shipping, the only positive is that stupid people think that free shipping is somehow a better deal.
When you charge for shipping (with fair rates obviously) then lots of good things come out of it for both the seller and the buyer.
First the seller can price the item at what they actually want to make off it without having to account for someone in Hawaii buying it with extreme shipping costs.
Second it encourages the buyer to buy multiple items together instead of either just buying a single item or buying multiple small orders. This works out better for all involved.
Third it gives those that live closer to the seller the appropriate shipping discount and those that live further away their appropriate shipping price. Thus everyone pays their own way instead of a socialists shipping policy where those close by cover the extra for those further away. This also puts sellers on the coats at a significant disadvantage.
Lastly it encourages buyers to pick the shipping option they desire. If they want it faster they can chose to pay more for that, if they don’t need it quickly they can save money by going with a slower option. This vastly reduces complaints about shipping time as they understand they had a choice. With “free shipping” no one ever upgrades the shipping to faster service but they still complain constantly about slow shipping.
So yeah, Free shipping sucks and is nothing more then a marketing gimmick with zero real world use other then tricking people.
Ebay tries to force it down sellers throats by hiding listing that charge for shipping and promoting those with free shipping and as such when selling on ebay now days you do get an advantage in listing placement with free shipping.
That doesn’t make it better in any way, shape or form.
many years ago when you could select shipping options without penalties I experimented extensively with free shipping vs calculated.
I ALWAYS had better sales, more orders and made more total money when I charged for shipping. With free shipping I hardly ever get multiple items orders, when charging for shipping I would get about 10-20% of orders would have multiple items in order to save on shipping. Right there that is 10-20% more sales.
Plus with “free shipping” you have to try to account for the highest possible shipping cost in the price hike but a lot of times you can’t actually charge that much due to other people undercutting you (particularly china sellers). So you are forced to drop the price to the point where you are not making what you want or need with most of the orders.
By charging for shipping though, those close to you see your item as the cheapest and will buy from you. Which is nice since shipping is faster as well.
There is nothing at all that I like about free shipping but then I don’t market to things in such a way to take advantage of the fact people are stupid not business savvy.
You need to a shipping cost, even if it`s not the full price every little bit helps, Do eBay include shipping cost in your chargable amount, As you see some buy it now items, with a low purchase cost but a high shipping cost.
The the old days of ebay there was a loop hole that where shipping fees were not counted towards the total order and were exempt from fees. This led to issues with a $1 item and $100 in shipping to avoid the fees.
This is long gone now though, now ebay charges the fees for EVERYTHING. No more loop holes so there is no reason to over charge on shipping anymore and you do not see it much anymore as a result.
I think they are doing this to get rid of the small sellers. Most of their business comes from china sellers and re-sellers. Fees drop when the volume goes up. Unfortunately for the rest of us, nothing else has the volume of buyers so you have the choice of dealing with it or never selling your item. Craigslist only works for popular or large items and most people try to scam you.
You can’t even leave negative feedback for power sellers until 7 days pass and they are free to commit sales tax fraud or just flat out ship trash for a very long time before anything is done. For those guys giving the buyer all the power evens the odds.
The “free” shipping is another high volume seller thing. If you have a large business you can get discounts from the carriers themselves. Something costs you $15 to ship and the guy with the FedEx account gets to pay $8. They can’t really hide your listings if there are only 5 people selling the same thing, however. Its go big or be unique.
I agree that there’s no such thing as “free” shipping, but as a buyer, I look for it when I’m buying something.
The problem where I live (Canada), is that shipping costs are very high. If I have to pay the true cost of shipping, it usually makes the item not worth buying (unless it is an expensive item to begin with).
I have a belief that large sellers which advertise “free” shipping, actually do have a much lower shipping cost than sellers that charge for shipping. They fall into two categories:
1. Free shippers that have their government subsidize them. China is the prime example.
2. Free shippers that have huge volume discounts on their shipping prices. Amazon is an example.
In both cases, as a buyer I’m happy letting either a foreign government pay for my shipping, or a company using its bargaining power to give me cheap shipping.
So, free shipping? Yeah, I like it!
I know it’s not really “free”, but I simply won’t pay for shipping if I’m buying a $20 item. If instead they charge me $40 for a $20 item but call it free shipping, it’s easy to spot that price difference.
In the vast majority of cases unless it is a china seller or someplace like amazon, the shipping discounts for “normal” sellers, even high volume ones, is not nearly what people think it is.
Really free shipping is socialist shipping. Those close to the seller pay the extra to cover the losses on those that live far away. Great for those that live far away, really sucky for those that live close.
