eBay fees still calculated on shipping costs
Summary: The discussion concerns eBay fees calculated on shipping costs. Several participants, including mercedespareparts, heavenwelkin, and pollo_bionico, exchange views on how these fees affect sellers. The central topic seems to be the impact of the fees on sales and possible ways to manage them.
Hi everyone ,
I’m against eBay calculating its commissions by including shipping costs, since that’s money that doesn’t stay in our pockets, especially since those same costs also show up as proceeds too !
12 comments
ortofantastico
·1 year agogood evening,
in my view the reasoning is different: the seller collects the amount and it is he who buys the shipping, not the buyer (free buyer). Ebay targets the collection. The only way to prevent this would be for the buyer to buy the shipping (free seller), then the seller would not be targeted; naturally, the risk of non-delivery from the seller onward would be borne by the buyer.
stebaig-0
·1 year agoin my opinion it’s a wrong line of reasoning to think that the shipping fee is the problem, if you think about it the rest of the amount is made up of the value of the product that you paid for plus the actual profit. If your product is worth 50 and your markup is another 50 and shipping is 10, eBay takes a percentage on 110 ... and not just on your profit .. the calculation system isn’t the same as taxes, which exclude expenses in the calculation, but a flat percentage on the total. If you think it’s wrong to pay a percentage on expenses, you should be even more outraged by the percentage you pay on the value of the product that you spent to buy it.
pollo_bionico
·1 year agoAre you against it??? nobody's forcing you at knifepoint to sell on eBay.... delete your account and sell elsewhere. They tax shipping costs because sellers were making a profit off them to recoup the fees.
biglcris83
·1 year agoSo all the honest sellers end up losing out because of the dishonest ones? That seems like bullshit to me, anyway everyone has their own ideas, why not not sell on eBay and go elsewhere? Where? Vinted maybe, or subito, but there isn’t much else and eBay makes very good use of its dominant position, no bullshit
heavenwelkin
·1 year agoHello mercedestock0
Since the moderator managed to keep the conversation going, I’m replying from my point of view.
On eBay nowadays, a lot of sellers use free shipping.
Statistically, free shipping increases the chances of a sale.
And yes, that’s actually true; I’ve tried this solution myself and it sells more.
I think it’s simply for simplification reasons that the total, including shipping costs, is counted.
Otherwise they’d have to implement a much more complex calculation system that also takes into account the fact that the same seller could list items with free shipping (maybe small items) and with separate shipping for particularly bulky or heavy items.
also keep in mind that free shipping makes it possible to buy more than one item at the same time, where if they’re small items with combined shipping, a seller would make more from the second sale onward.
For example, if I sell 10 small items with free shipping, in reality I gain from 9 shipments.
In short, what you say is correct, but there are sellers who earn more by taking advantage of this type of sales strategy, so in that case the calculation eBay makes on the overall total is correct since shipping is free.
So pleasing both sides evidently turns out to be a complex issue to implement.
Best regards.
mercedespareparts
OP1 year agoI really don't understand what you're writing, the customer pays me the shipping costs, otherwise they can just come and pick up the goods in person. If I ship, what I pay in turn is not a consideration. It shouldn't be taxed if it's not capital gain and not even a profit. I've also ended up spending twice as much as I then received after 3/4 days by setting the foreign shipping costs wrong; just to not lose the sale, I took a loss to satisfy the customer, even having to go outside eBay shipments to look for who would ship to that foreign country.
mercedespareparts
OP1 year agoMostly, does it seem strange to you that the moderator left me the post? Should we base the start of the discussion on that? Yes, they spared me and deleted it, but it was the most correct post among my recent ones, where I would have wanted to help a foreign buyer.
mercedespareparts
OP1 year agoYou can buy more items and they pay the same shipping cost as a single item, always within certain weight and size limits so you can fit them in the package and under the exact same rate. You are responsible and you pay for the shipping. It’s not money you earn but money you front and pass on to the shipper, with a job involving cardboard, tape, paper, ink cartridges, printer and often time and fuel to rush over to that courier’s depot so the customer gets it as soon as possible, because you think it’s right to tax shipping costs if they’re money you spend?
heavenwelkin
·1 year agoI never wrote that it’s right, I wrote that there are sellers who make a profit on shipping costs (if these aren’t taxed) and then there are sellers who offer free shipping that, if it weren’t taxed, they would still pay anyway.
But can’t you just charge a few euros more for shipping and include all the costs you have to bear?
Packaging, tape, printer ink, etc?
If you pay 5 or 6 euros for shipping and add a 2-euro markup, I think you’ve more than covered all the costs incurred, including eBay’s.
pam.creazioni
·1 year agohello, sorry if I’m butting in, but who is the moderator? in fact, in the other conversation I noticed that two messages had been deleted... one from a user and mine in response to him
heavenwelkin
·1 year agoHello mercedes
Interesting thread and worth exploring further with other users, but you need to make sure your messages comply with netiquette otherwise as soon as the moderator reads you he’ll make you disappear 😂🤣
Kind regards
mercedespareparts
OP1 year agoI know very well who I'm dealing with, don't worry .