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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
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That's why I never sell on eBay. Use gumtree etc. or advertise in your local supermarket's notice board.
06/02/14 Dave
0
I have been in eBay for just a month and the total I sold to date is £378.72 and I have received a email with my invoice from eBay of £247. I am out raged how can anyone ever make any money on there. I'm not even a business seller. I'm going to call them and demand a complete list detailing every item I sold and there fees. Honestly I may as well give all my stuff away to them it's ridiculous. Someone needs to come up with a site that is better than eBay where sellers just pay a small one off few for the year for using the site like £20 and that's it no extra fees no nothing, just a one of yearly fee I'm sure no one would object to that, and what planet is eBay on seriously taking fee from your postage cost to try and get sellers to do free postage. Postage is not free for god sake, once item is over 2kg it quite expensive even 2nd class not recorded and this is what buyers need to realise, take a book for example to a buyer there thinking £3 postage, but no it's not as depending on weight size of book and packing bubble wrap and box it all cost, I posted one item and it was to dear sending it 2nd class believe it or not so I was advised 48 express service was cheaper at £11 and on eBay I charged £7 postage so I lost out. Buyers think postage is free but all they need to do is go post office get a price list And it will show how much it is. Anyway back to eBay I will call them tomorrow but I have feeling I'm going to shut my account down as there not getting my stuff for free no way and I'm not paying £247 Are they insane !!! Because I'm not. I'm going to find another site or have my own. eBay must think were really thick there on another planet I think, it just not possible to make any money on there with that kind of fees.
06/02/14 Cheryl
1
I keep getting little messages from eBay asking me to consider lowering my prices, suggesting offering free postage and also a list of 'tips' so I can sell more. Quite honestly, I am barely breaking even and feel I may as well just donate the stuff to charity shops. I have my own little message for eBay - why not consider lowering fees? How about getting rid of final value fees on POSTAGE - the ultimate ripoff?
24/01/14 whatajoke
1
I am totally with you - I am a web designer and undestand the basic economics of web hosting etc. ebay fees are a total rip-off - what is the cost of ebay to say add a reserve price - answer ZERO. All such charges bang-up the final rate and are a complete marketing scam totally unrelated to the costs incurred by ebay.
ebasy is basically a hosted web-programme - I buy and sell precious metals and I am charged 0.5% which is fair i.e. ebay charge 18 times for the final fee alone - There are free on-line software auction packages and in 2014 I am adding one to my web site. OK I might not have the ebay sales audience but I don't care and I work toohard to be fleeced by these greedy incompetent rip-off monkeys
26/12/13 Adrian
ebasy is basically a hosted web-programme - I buy and sell precious metals and I am charged 0.5% which is fair i.e. ebay charge 18 times for the final fee alone - There are free on-line software auction packages and in 2014 I am adding one to my web site. OK I might not have the ebay sales audience but I don't care and I work toohard to be fleeced by these greedy incompetent rip-off monkeys
-2
I've decided to stop using eBay as the system seems loaded against me. As a seller, I make sure clothes are washed, sent out on time and inform the buyer I have posted the item. I still get negative feedback for the slightest problem - once because the photo didn't show the exact colour (which I mentioned in the listing). BUT as a buyer, I have received dirty, smelly clothes, with hems falling down, that took 4 weeks to arrive from an uncooperative seller. I then get locked into dispute that goes on for ages. Easier to just close my account - I've had enough.
14/12/13 SarahT
0
This article is out of date. You were grumbling about paying £12 odd on something that sells at £300 well now you would be talking £30 final value fees and £10.40 PayPal fee. Now you only got £259.60 in your back pocket. Now how do you feel?
01/09/13 daro2096
-7
I am a big ebay user and so therefore a PayPal user. I've been selling on ebay for a couple of years now and over the last 6 months have realised how much seller fees can really amount to. It's almost like I'm paying rent to run a online shop it costs so much. Now I could ignore this if it were the only issue but it really angered me when ebay refused to help me with a discrepancy I had with a buyer. I will spare the details but ended up with me having false negative feedback on 2 separate and one of my items was not paid for. The item sold for £40. The buyer did not make any payment nor reply to any of my messages. Instead I was left bad feedback suggesting I harassed said buyer. Of course I wanted to leave my own feedback to warn others of this person. However I discovered I could not leave any feedback until I marked the item as paid. I didn't really understand this and so after a month of waiting for ebay to help me all they suggested was to contact the buyer. Not only that but they could not remove the false negative feedback on my profile. Now considering I have been a trusted seller for over 2 years and have given them so much money through seller fees I almost felt betrayed. It seems to me ebay has become so big they don't really have to care about the individuals that use the site.
I have done some research and come across many people with same problem as well as others, high seller fees, ebay is hand in hand with PayPal and there are very scant alternatives provided by ebay, accounts behind shut down for no good reason, these are but a few of the gripes I have found on the Internet about ebay.
I want an alternative where I don't get charged absurd seller fees, where I get rewarded for being a trusted seller. I have looked into other auction sites and while there are many good ones (Ebid.net, bonanza.com), I am currently in the profess to make my own site. I want to get a better understanding of what people don't like about ebay, what people would change if they could even past disputes people have had with ebay. Please respond to this with any problems you've had, anything you don't like about the site big or small. My aim is to make a haven for people fed up with ebay and I thought the best place to start is with potential users.
20/03/13 The Pursuit of Excellence
I have done some research and come across many people with same problem as well as others, high seller fees, ebay is hand in hand with PayPal and there are very scant alternatives provided by ebay, accounts behind shut down for no good reason, these are but a few of the gripes I have found on the Internet about ebay.
I want an alternative where I don't get charged absurd seller fees, where I get rewarded for being a trusted seller. I have looked into other auction sites and while there are many good ones (Ebid.net, bonanza.com), I am currently in the profess to make my own site. I want to get a better understanding of what people don't like about ebay, what people would change if they could even past disputes people have had with ebay. Please respond to this with any problems you've had, anything you don't like about the site big or small. My aim is to make a haven for people fed up with ebay and I thought the best place to start is with potential users.
-8
Calm down and try and forget it. It is all part of the learning process of using ebay and paypal. I have bought about 300 items and sold about 10. I have been unhappy and lost my money once costing me £35. How much money have I saved on the other purchases and sales? Must run into the hundreds if not thousands of pounds. Paypal charge high fees on their transactions and they should take a hit on chargebacks but they won't. You can't do anything legally because they will say you have agreed to their terms and conditions. You have learned your lesson on a £23 watch, be thankful it wasn't a £500 laptop.
09/10/12 Fred E
-4
I am back locking horns with ebay/paypal. A scam artist buyer has relieved me of a silver watch. Paypal asked for the scam artist’s address, paypal gave me his address in the first place as verified. Both ebay & paypal use none monitored sites to advise you of their actions, thereby preventing you from answering their emails. On their customer support or help sites that are monitored, they give you a series of irrelevant questions to answer. All Ebay did was advise me to contact the scammer. The bank that snatched back the money remains anonymous. Apparently chargebacks are an easy scam on ebay. All you have to do is ring your bank & say someone has used your card without authority & you get your money back from paypal, you keep the goods as a bonus. So between ebay/paypal, crooked banks & crooked buyers what chance has an honest person got. I am collecting evidence to bring a conspiracy to defraud the public charge, citing the Bank, the scammer, & ebay/paypal. All being willing parties to defraud me of a pathetic £23 second hand silver watch. Any advice would be appreciated.
09/10/12 boblet
-1
eBay are a complete joke... They rip sellers off - http://youtu.be/vwJT-3m-Dcw
08/10/12 Hop1
-2
I have criticised Ebay in the past, I now have a chance to pat them on the back. I sold an item that was broken, I listed & pictured it as broken, however it had an intrinsic value & if repaired would be worth good money. The buyer still complained on receipt. Rather than enter into a dialogue I offered them their money back, with a remark. They did not understand my remark & took it as an insult. I chose not to enlighten them, they misunderstood a further remark. As a result I withdrew my money back offer. Ebay jumped into the breach & gave them their money back with no detriment to me. Well done Ebay.
07/08/12 boblet
-14
i listed the same car 5 times and was charged £191 !!! thats WITHOUT it selling lol
watch out for tpcbay.com and .co.uk coming soon with NO final value fees!
Time to hit back at ebay i think :)
06/08/12 tpcbay
watch out for tpcbay.com and .co.uk coming soon with NO final value fees!
Time to hit back at ebay i think :)
-8
What a sharp insight of others you have Erik. You make a packet out of ebay, I do not. I could be one of those plain stupid & incompetant sellers. Do you have any advice for me?
26/07/12 boblet
-5
I make a packet off ebay, most of the people leaving comments below are incompenent sellers or just plain stupid.
26/07/12 Erik
-26
half red cockhitch
to link to where you really are selling your item
You will have to do it in a smart way to avoid ebays policy
twat high fee suity twats fuck off with your shitty commission. ebay wankers