Ebay effectively rasing rates 9% by charging final value fees on shipping!

[ShopratFab]

Important Ebay news that really hits home on Pachinkos!!

A big item in the upcoming Spring changes in April, Ebay is changing the final value fee structure to charge 9% commission on the entire sale, including the shipping costs. Ebay is trying to say will lower shipping costs to buyers so this is a positive to sellers, (I don't know how losing 9% more is a positive, I guess it must on Planet Ebay) Being many of the items I end up selling are pretty low cost or are really heavy, quite often the shipping cost will be equal to or exceed the sale price of the item.

So on a typical pachinko machine sale, Ebay has doubled your fees! Figure $60-80 and about $50-80 shipping, you are now paying $9.90 to $14.40 vs. $5.40 to $7.20 before. Or if you sell a machine at $20.00 and your customer pays $65 to ship, you just had to eat $8.10 vs. $1.80, add $1.70 Paypal fees, and Ebay just took 1/2 your sale. I know this example is a little more on the rarer side, but I have seem many a machine go in the $30-40 range that this still could end up being a sizable chunk of the net sale on a percentage basis.
And you have no way to offset that increase and it looks like Ebay has updated the shipping calculator to pass on your discounts on UPS so you can't make up the difference there, but I'm still trying to confirm this. For USPS, you definitely get hit with the 9%. Pretty much now need to figure a 20% total cost of sale loss.

Read all the details on the Auctionbytes web blog (recommend reading for all auction site news)

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m03/i15/s00

If you have a machine you were thinking of selling, now is the time.

Maybe it's time to get the Pachitalk auctions working, or try Webstore instead.

[luckydog]

thats why i like selling smaller items like video games on ebay.

unfortunately its still the best of all for sales

[JACKSJE4]

Don't forget... when shipping charges increase due to our currently rising fuel costs, your seller fees (and ebay profits) will increase right along with it.

[bfree]

Rat *******s

[outdoorenth]

Thank you for posting. I hadn't heard about these new fees.

[indiansumr1]

It's not just fees they are raising... for one they also making it difficult for new sellers, you have to have over certain amount of sales and DSR ratings to get your money instantly. If your new or your DSR rating falls below E bay so called standards... you have to wait until the customer recieves the merchandise and e bay confirms delivery before the money becomes available, up to 21 days. They say that that even though your funds maybe on hold you can access the money to print postage from Ebay only... Yet in some cases of larger items I get a cheaper rate using my own UPS and Fed ex accounts. This thing about raising rates is such crap, they want everyone to go free shipping, but they are charging a final value fee on product and shipping charges , which in turn sellers will have to raise their prices to reflect the fees, either way the prices go up for the buyer, ebay makes more money with a final value fee and the seller loses. The message boards in Ebay are full of people who have had it. Also there are alot of people who are angry because this is another way buyers can hurt sellers but giving them a less than 5 star rating, the sellers DSR goes below standards and now have no access to the money from their sales for up to 21 days.( We all know they are out there, do everything to please them and they still leave a neg..But sellers do not have the same recourse, all buyers get a positive no matter what they do)

[takethecastle57]

How the Heck can FleaBay say that Raising their Sellers posting fee and and taking a Bigger Chunk of the final sale price is going to Reduce the Shipping !!! They are Not The Seller !! Can you say boycott FleaBay cause sellers are going to go to other online venues to sell their stuff so FleaBay is cutting their own throat .

[JamesM]

Just watch next Ebay will buy Craigs list just to control the market

[owennewton]

Just watch next Ebay will buy Craigs list just to control the market

you got the groan for giving them the idea so if it happens I will blame you

[subdude]

you got the groan for giving them the idea so if it happens I will blame you

Actually Ebay bought a controlling share of Craigslist last I heard a few years back.

[pachiwall]

I think Pachitalk auctions are a great idea!!! Pachitalk classifieds can work as well! More convient than Ebay and keep profits within the community.

[ShopratFab]

The other day my son found a member site for the VW crowd called Samba that had set up a pretty nice online listing board. About the only problem with it it's become really large so it's hard to search. But depending on Sid's free time that might be a way to go. The auction programming has to be a nightmare...

Item I saw from the eBay town hall about this, Ebay's response to really upset sellers has been "You should offer free shipping, we found that buyers like free shipping." No Duh, Buyers like gettig the item free too. Is eBay going to buy my item from me & & give it away to keep buyers happy? Maybe they should since eBay doesn't pay for the shipping.

[luckydog]

ebay favors the buyers, without them there are no sales.

but, without sellers, you can't buy anything!!!

[JACKSJE4]

So let me see if I have this straight:

• I sell an item and charge actual shipping costs, plus a little for packaging/handling, and ebay charges me a value fee on the total amount (sales price + shipping/handling).
• I sell an item with free shipping and build the shipping handling costs into the sales price, and ebay charges me a value fee on the total amount (sales price + shipping/handling).
• I sell an item with low cost shipping charges and a buyer requests overnight (or a more expensive shipping option), so Iend up paying a higher value fee on my item, and therefore make less profit.
• When shipping costs rise due to higher fuel costs, ebay's value fee automatically increase and my profit margin on the item I am selling automatically shrinks.

I'm still relatively new to ebay selling, but what would prevent me from selling just the item in the auction, then arranging the shipping outside of ebay? It seems to me that would be an easier work-around.

[ShopratFab]

Actually that's what it looks like you will be forced to do for large items like a pachinko. That's the way it used to be before they started setting up the shipping calculators. The only pain is then you get a ton of "How much does it cost to ship it to me" emails where the person asking doesn't give you his zip code, and once you provide the rate they never bid.

And once they see that trend start again, I'm sure they will slap some kind of policy in place to ding you for it. First thing they might do is hold funds under thier new policy since you won't be entering a tracking number in their system.

Just another step in them trying to be Amazon without buying any inventory.

[djcasper_bpm]

i wont sell on ebay anymore. by the time ebay and paypal are done with ya. there is little profit if any on some items.

[Sid]

Since we have updated to the new software and done away with the old PachiTalk auction site, i have been looking for an alternative to have an easy to use and helpful "classifieds section" for members to offer up their items. however spare time is at a minimum as of late so it has affected my online time.. I have received some suggestions (thanks Meathead) but have yet to finalize anything.

but it is indeed on my mind and on the to do list..

[ShopratFab]

A quick update. I was able to set up a shipment through UPS this week and eBay is not passing through the UPS discount to the buyer's shipping cost view. (At least as of right now) So if you are shipping something large or heavy, the discount will cover the extra 9% that eBay will be charging April 1. But if you send it by the mail, you need to factor that extra 9%. So best method will be to offer UPS only for large/heavy items or get quotes for shipping by FedEx Ground.

One question, has anyone tried Greyhound Package Express? Outside of having to drive over to the bus station to drop it off, it might work out better since it may be actual weight rater than dimensional. But not sure how much care is given to packages by them, how they track, delivery times, etc.

[owennewton]

can't say I am very interested in using a bus, at that point I would just strap it to a pallet and ship with RL carriers. Very good price if you are shipping 2 or more machines to the same address and for a large package that can fit in a 4 foot square plus it gets delivered to the door.