eBay fees are too high

Is it just me, or are eBay getting just a little bit greedy when it comes to the high fees levied at sellers these days?  Also, I think that the final fees you may end up paying exactly obvious from the outset.

For example, if you want to sell an item and you want to make sure that you don't just give it away it is a good idea to stick a reserve or an initial bid on to make sure you get something reasonable.  You are immediately whacked by a £2.00 insertion fee - and that's before your item has even sold!

Then there are the various listing enhancements.  Okay, if you describe your item well and "design" the title you can probably forget most of the superfluous extras, but sometimes its a good idea to add a few photos and brighten your ad up a little bit as there is a lot of competition.  You don't want to loose that £2 insertion fee now do you?

eBay's hefty fees... a licence to print money

Once you've sold (hopefully) your item, you get another nice surprise.  The final value fees.  These are often not considered by sellers, but it is seriously worth taking your potential final value fees into account when deciding on your reserve or initial bid as these fees are actually quite steep in my opinion.  For a £300 item such as my example, you pay a flat £1.57 (for the first £29.99), then a rosy 3.25% on the remaining closing value balance.  That takes your final value fees up to around £10.35

So there you go, you've sold your widget for £300 and you hand over £12.35 to eBay straight away.  So what happens if the buyer decides to pay through PayPal?  Yet more fees, that's what! With the number of people using eBay these days (let's face it, there isn't really a worthwhile alternative to eBay at the moment) they must be absolutely coining it in!  eBay's hefty fees are practically a licence to print money.

By: Disgruntled eBay Seller