How the fuck do people make money selling on eBay? By the time you pay insertion fees (N,J), final value fees (which includes a cut of the postage cost - wtf*), and PayPal fees,  a ten quid profit turns into less than 3 quid. Barely worth the cost of driving to the post office to send it.


*When I go to post something and the postman says "that'll be three pounds please" am I meant to say "OK, here's £2.70"? Don't think Pat will accept that somehow.

I didn't think they took a cut from the P&P. Has that changed then?

They take 10% of the final price, including postage.

http://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/introduction-ebay-fees

(also, they set a limit on how much you can charge for postage in some categories (like DVDs, Games) that often is lower than the cost of posting the item)

I remember there being a limit on phones. Fuckers.

When I want to sell something, I inspect it for quality, figure out shipping materials, pack it up, then take it to the post office and pay the postage. Once I have all the information I need, I just add the shipping into the overall price, and use the free ship option. I always explain in the description the shipping has been added into the price.

A lot of people will pass right by things with a shipping price listed separately, and go to an item marked as Free Shipping. Even if you explain the cost of shipping has been added into the price.

I don't know if they think they're getting a better deal, just because it 'says' free shipping, or what, but I do tend to sell more items and they sell faster if I list them that way. And if I'm correct, such a listing has fewer and lower fees.

Something else I do is if the shipping is something like $2.37 I round it up to $2.50. I go up to the next nearest quarter. If it's something like $2.25 I leave it as such. It seems odd prices like $6.37 seem to throw some people off as well. I'm not sure why.

Hope that helps a bit. :)

I guess that's why ebay added the Sort by Price + P&P option. That's the only one I use to sort prices by. I guess not everyone else does the same!

People just like seeing teh price they pay, I think, rather than having to OMG MATHS to work it out.


>> And if I'm correct, such a listing has fewer and lower fees.

eBay have two fees (three if you include Paypal): insertion fee for making your listing, that varies by category, starting price, extras like galleries etc. and auction/Buy it Now. Not sure if shipping has an impact on it, but don't think so. The other fee is the final value fee, which is 10% of the total cost of the item.

So if you've valued your item at $10 and you add on $2.50 for postage, and list it as a BIN for $12.50, ebay will take $1.25 off you when it sells (same amount as if you'd listed it as $10 + postage). Plus the insertion fee (I think you get 20 free listings per month). Paypal then take a cut for processing the money (here it's £0.20 + 3.4% of the transaction value).

I did a wee spreadsheet to see if it was worth buying a bunch of stuff to sell on eBay, was quite shocked at how much the fees take out. There are better options if you're selling in bulk, but this gives a decent baseline to work from:
 

Cost	Sell	eBay Fee	Paypall Fee	Postage	Profit
£8.96	£17.00	£1.49	£0.78	£2.80	£2.96

 

That does look pretty bad when you compare the cost to the selling price.

But overall that's a 33% margin. Very basic calculations say you'd need to shift about 40 per day of whatever it is you're selling to make anywhere near a decent living from it.

(I've had a little look into setting up some sort of ebay business but I think my simple calculations meant the volumes I'd need to move would be quite silly. I was basing this on buying very cheap stuff - the sort of things we would buy for 99p each on ebay from China).

Yeah, I guess it's do-able if it's your full time job. Just.

But the idea that ebay is an open marketplace where anyone can compete is very much dead, I think. When ebay's combined take (keeping in mind eBay own Paypal) is almost the same as much as my profit, that's taking the piss.

If I had any clue where to start, and a few tens of millions in private equity backing, I'd setup a rivial eBay with actually decent fee structure. Essentially all you need to do is cover server costs and a few staff. I'd probably favour a fee system where you pay *either* a listing fee *or* a final value fee. Like if you were pretty sure your item was certain to sell, a fixed listing fee of 50p. Or you could take a gamble and list for free, but be charged 5% of the final sale.

Even at a 5% cut, with ebay processing around $181m of sales per day (according to the google search I just did), that'd be $9m a day for them. No fucking /way/ it costs them anything like $9m a day for staff and servers :C

Just done some calculations for a £2 Arduino relay board based on being a Basic business account to see if people are actually making any money.

9p per listing
9.6% final value - 19.2p
PayPal - 26.8p
Postage - 53p

If I've calculated it right, to make 50p per relay I'd need to be able to get them for 42p each, delivered and duty paid. Selling around 250 per day to make any reasonable money. Obviously you'd have other product lines. But 50p profit per item would still mean shifting 250 items in total.

I've not even included packing materials there so it would have to be less than 42p DDP.

So realistically no one is making more than £1 per item, and probably not more than 50p either.

I sort by sellers in countries I know don't use child or slave labor and aren't prone to stealing from other countries, free shipping, Paypal, and I don't deal with anyone lower an a 99% seller rating.

I also check out the product on other websites for quality and price comparison.

I'm a big customers' ratings fan. :)

You might consider adding the fees into the price, or at least your shipping. I know I'm not the only who does it. I've talked with other sellers over the years and found it a system more used than I would have at first believed.

I sell things I'm just finished using, provided their in at least very nice condition, but usually it's something I've made myself. I'm a crafter. :)

I don't make much, but then I don't sell much anymore either. The old hands and fingers just aren't what they used to be anymore. :)

I don't see me ever being able to produce enough sparklies to ever sell in bulk. They're too time consuming to create.

Yeah there's a few things I've found that, after fees, I could make a few quid profit per item, and although I'm confident I'd sell a few I'm no where near confident that I'd be able to sell in enough volume to even make £100 a week.

>>You might consider adding the fees into the price, or at least your shipping

The trouble is when the same, or very similar, items are readily available on ebay for a given price, that sets your sale price.

 can't sell item X at £17 + ebay and shipping fees, because they'll just buy it from someone else who's selling it for £17 all in.

 

"A lot of people will pass right by things with a shipping price listed separately, and go to an item marked as Free Shipping"

That's because a lot of things are listed with low prices, until you factor in separate P&P. Then they are way higher than the ones that include it in the listing price. Everyone knows it isn't "free", but they also know what the real price is up front. Some company here in NA just got fined for defrauding people into paying a lot more than the advertised price http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/snuggie-magic-mesh-other-as-seen-on-tv-hit-with-8-million-fine-030515.html

I think they did this to prevent people banging buyers on shipping charges, but I could be wrong.

More likely to stop people avoiding ebay fees by selling an item for cheap but with inflated postage costs.

That definitely used to happen. I remember seeing loads of items for 99p with £50 shipping.

Yep - I remember selling a printer for £199 a good few years ago, ended up with around £170 (possibly less) after p&p. Needless to say, I took that as an offense and avoided selling stuff on there whenever possible.