eBay Fees

I was wondering how many people actually know what the real cost of selling gear online is?, as apposed to selling in the traditional way, Local newspapers, Sunday Times, Quokka etc.

A while back I decided to sell a detector on EBay, after watching the listing for a couple of days I decided as there were not any others of that model listed at that time I would then list it, no competition I thought so it should sell no worries. 

Ok so on it goes, then some "clever Dick" whacks his on a bit cheaper, then another, so now there's three the same on there, mine being the most expensive, anyway of course they sell there's for what I thinks too cheap, the listing runs its course and mine does not sell, so I re list it again and then it sells second time round and I get my price as there were no more of the same model listed this time round:lol: 

It occurs to me that the "clever dicks" that list there's smugly thinking that they have undercut me and have had a win because there's have sold quickly, have actually outsmarted themselves because the reality of it is they have not done the sums to see what they will actually get for their machine once the dust settles.  

It does not matter I guess if you don't care what you get for it and you just want to get it out of the way, but we should be able to get a fair price that's reasonably close to what our gear is really worth and not go backwards doing it,  

Here's an example of what the cost's are to sell online


Sale price: $1350 (example)

a) Free listing (0)
b) Final value fee (9.9%) of $1350 = $133.65 (charge based on final price only but not post cost)
c) Postage $85 (example)
c) PayPal fee (2.4%) of $1435 = $34.65 (charged based on gross amount including post cost)

Sale amount: $1,435. gross (including postage)

Fees charged: $168.

Bal: $1,267.00

Less post: $85.


$1,182.00 This is what you will end up with at the end of the day for your $1350 detector. 


So the moral of the story is don't be too hasty to sell at a cut price as the only winners will be the buyer and the online auction site, and I bet a lot of people would only come to realise this at a later date.

The up side is that online you get your gear listed in Australia and world wide if you want, but it comes at a cost, there are options to this like Gumtree but I have found that its far more difficult to sell on there due to a higher amount of tyre kickers, time wasters, and scam artist, although the upside is there are no fees to pay so that's a plus.

You can sell on Gumtree and if a buyer would prefer to use the safety net of PayPal rather than pay by direct deposit then you can always agree they can buy that way as long as they pay the 2.4% fee charged, or you can just suck it up its up to you, its still going to be a cheaper option.


au-fever

nothing free anymore--good post on reality

regards
oneday

sold one of my Extreme's on Ebay, by auction. Worse thing I ever did. Once they all got their cut (charges), I lost.
I learnt fast, put the price up high as a starting price for auction, if it doesn't sell, you can always haggle with a buyer for a decent selling price.
My motto, "F" their selling rules. We are trying to get a good price for our gear. Not give it away.
That's why forums have a sell and buy section. Then you can deal between yourselves.

so can someone tell me what are the exact costs and variations of selling something-anything for that matter on eBay

paypal
listing fees
auction fees
other fees

regards
oneday

Hi Oneday,

Have a look here for the info:

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/sell/fees.html

so on items over a couple of grand then the fee would be $250.00 but what about using paypal--

regards
oneday

If I remember correctly, if you list on Ebay you get hit with a charge for items sold, what the charge is I can't remember.
If you use paypal, I think the seller cops a charge but how much I don't know.
It's been a while since I sold something but I know I lost about $200 in charges on a sale of $2100

From what I understand PayPal own eBay & give no concession to
the seller regardless of what payment system is used!!!!!
There are times when they do advertise concession rates to those
who are regulars on ebay to sell items.

That's interesting Topcat coz I got separate invoices for charges. I checked my selling/buying history, one was for approx $125 and the other was about $57
One was from Ebay and the other was from Paypal. I wonder if they used to double dip ?
buggered if I know but I wasn't happy with the end result.

I put up a previous post on this subject "the real cost of selling online" if you have read of that it will give you a better idea.

Now with eBay you can get so many free listings but when they did that they whacked up the final value fee to 9.9%, its charged on the final price of the item sold, but not including the postage cost.

If the buyer pays by PayPal (which is also owned by eBay I believe) they will slug you a 2.4% fee to process it, and its calculated on the whole amount including the postage.

Also if you sell to an overseas buyer that pays by PayPal then you will also get hit with fees for exchange rates in the currency.

At the end of the day you have to be careful to factor in the costs if you want to get what your gear is worth but sometimes you can be seen to be overpriced on your item as invariably someone will list the same item cheaper, so that they think they will sell there's before you, mostly this will happen with inexperienced sellers as they don't realise that there are so many costs involved until after the sale.

au-fever

i have merged those topics together, keeps it neat.