My first experience as an eBay seller is nearing an end. I stopped off at the Post Office on my way home this afternoon, and put the item I was selling in the post.
I knew there would be a cost involved, but had no idea what to expect as to how much it’d be.
For those people like me who have never sold anything on eBay before, here is an entirely unscientific and unrepresentative anecdote. Make of it what you will. 🙂
I was selling an unwanted gift. It was new, still boxed and in it’s original shink wrap. It sold for £730.
- Fees to eBay – £46.23
- Fees to Paypal – £25.02
- Postage – £5.80
- Packing – £1.00
Total fees : £78.05
Nearly 11% of the sales value. Feels like a lot.
I dunno… I guess it’s hard to justify sounding too aggrieved. I was selling something that I’d not spent any money on, so even after 11% in costs, I’m still getting a lot of money (a sum that will be a *big* help).
I should be fair to eBay, and explain that the eBay fees are partly my fault.
I put this up for auction twice. The first time, the auction completed when someone “bought” it. The buyer requested my contact details from eBay, and on receiving my phone number gave me a phone call with a question about the item.
When I told him the answer, he decided that he didn’t want the item after all.
And this is where I screwed up.
He told me that if I logged on to eBay and marked the transaction as “closed by mutual agreement” then the transaction would be cancelled and I would get my fees back – allowing me to re-list the item for auction if I chose.
So I did.
That was a little naive – I didn’t stop to check the eBay rules or regulations for myself, and went straight ahead and clicked on the button while he was on the phone – “releasing him from any further obligations regarding this item”.
It turns out that closing a transaction in this way results in eBay refunding only your “Final Value Fee”. The other fees remain.
The fees for the first sale were:
- £0.25 – “Buy It Now Listing Fee” for adding a ‘Buy it Now’ option
- £0.35 – “Item Subtitle Fee” for adding a subtitle description to the item
- £1.30 – “Insertion Fee” for posting the auction
- £13.87 – “Final Value Fee” based as a percentage of the final value that the item sells at
- £15.92 – “Reserve Price Listing Fee” based as a percentage of the reserve price for the auction
The Final Value Fee credit still left me paying eBay £17.83 for an auction that had been brought to an unsuccessful premature end.
Gah.
I re-listed the item. Fortunately, the “Insertion Fee” is not charged for a re-listed item, making the fees for the second sale:
- £0.25 – “Buy It Now Listing Fee” for adding a ‘Buy it Now’ option
- £0.35 – “Item Subtitle Fee” for adding a subtitle description to the item
- £13.87 – “Final Value Fee” based as a percentage of the final value that the item sells at
- £13.93 – “Reserve Price Listing Fee” based as a percentage of the reserve price for the auction
(Note the lower Reserve Price Fee this time around because I’d lowered the reserve price the second time around)
This left me paying eBay a further £28.40 to complete the second auction.
So, to be fair, although I’ve had to pay £46.23 to eBay, you could argue that the legitimate eBay fees actually only came to £29.70.
And if I’d taken the time to actually dig out the eBay policy regarding Unpaid Items before just doing as I was told by the first seller, then that’s all I might have had to pay.
It’s just a shame that it cost me £16.53 to learn that!
Yeah, you do have to be a bit careful about that. Also, for future reference, you could have insisted that the buyer buy it – assuming you hadn’t fibbed about the condition of the item, or missed out some important bit of information. Ebay make it very clear that bidding is legally binding, and professional sellers get very narked when people suffer buyer’s remorse – it’s a big waste of their time. Of course, insisting on payment is not a good way to keep your buyer happy, so you could still get some agro, and are unlikely to get good feedback.
Actually, I consider the 11% to be quite reasonable. I look at it another way – short of returning it (which would be awkward if it was a gift), what else are you going to do with it? It’s a pretty good opportunity to make money that outside of an online auction, you’d probably miss out on anyway. Just my thoughts.
I guess I could have pursued it further. I didn’t realise for a couple of days that the mutual withdrawal process only credited some of the fees, and by the time I’d noticed I’d already re-listed and marked the first auction as finished with the first “buyer” ‘released from any obligations’.
You’re right that even with the extra eBay fees, 11% in costs still leaves me with more than I would have got any other way. I guess you’re paying for the infrastructure they’ve built up, and the sheer number of eyeballs that an eBay page will get.
Even so… it was kinda timely that this evening I came across an article for a startup looking for an alternative approach to online trading!
I’ve just relisted some items on Ebay only to be told I must issue a Paypal address for payment ! I refuse to accept Paypal as I think it is a rip-off, so I put this into the sale details. If enough sellers protest then they might think again about imposing this method of payment. Just another way for Ebay to make even more money !