Feeling ripped off by Ebay and Paypal

[Mclimbin]

Hey guys,

I've been getting kind of fed up with the fees that I have to pay at Ebay and Paypal. I recently sold a box set of Rezolution minis for $30, with $10 shipping to Europe. That leaves me with an income of $40, $10 of which I have to spend on shipping. Between the fees for both Ebay and Paypal I had to fork out another $5, which is about 16% of my sales. Doesn't this seem a little steep? Is there any way to reduce the percentage that Ebay and Paypal can take? I'm feeling like they are taking too big of a chunk. What do you think?

[dargrin]

I recently sold a box set of Rezolution minis for $30, with $10 shipping to Europe. That leaves me with an income of $40, $10 of which I have to spend on shipping.

 

Generally when I sell (which hasn't been for a while) I have the buyer pay for shipping. I also don't have paypal account for this very reason. I have them send me a money order or certified check.

 

Since selling minis can be hard enough trying to get a sale that is within your expected price range, I don't like being nickle and dimed anywhere else.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Dargrin

 

PS Setting up a flat rate as well also lets the buyer know what to expect as well.

[SilverSerpent]

I agree. You should charge a price for shipping, and then add a little to each auction for other stuff like packaging, fees, etc. As far as paypal goes, there isn't any way to reduce this. They take a portion for any payments made by credit or check card. I think i would have to agree with money order or other forms of mail payments. I have been seeing posts about paypal on several other forums, from thier prices being to high, to people cheating sellers by requesting a refund from paypal even if they got their item. While paypal is the fastest form of payment, they don't seem to have much in the way of protection for sellers. I think personally, i'd rather wait for snail mail than get cheated.

[vutpakdi]

I've sold and bought quite a few things on eBay over the last 6 or so years. Shipping has always been an additional charge paid by the buyer in my transactions and does not come out of the final auction price.

 

PayPay fees are a bit annoying, but I figure that allowing PayPal increases the number of people willing to buy, so it's just a part of doing business. I've never had a problem with people retracting payment through PayPal nor have I had an issue with people sending a bogus money order or check. Just lucky, I guess.

 

Ron

[Mclimbin]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The package sold for $30 and I charged $10 more for shipping. It burns me though that Paypal takes a percentage of the whole amount, that is, $40, not the amount of the sale only.

 

I'm not sure if a check is the best alternative, as Paypal is such a great service for the buyers. It just sucks for the sellers. :-(

[hondaluth]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The package sold for $30 and I charged $10 more for shipping. It burns me though that Paypal takes a percentage of the whole amount, that is, $40, not the amount of the sale only.

 

I'm not sure if a check is the best alternative, as Paypal is such a great service for the buyers. It just sucks for the sellers. :-(

 

IIRC Paypal takes 2%. So on that $10 you paid $0.20. Thats not too killer. I would recomend watching how many options you do on ebay. Being able to cut the number of pictures you have in an auction can save a respectable ammount of money.

[Orchid_Noir]

IIRC Paypal takes 2%. So on that $10 you paid $0.20. Thats not too killer. I would recomend watching how many options you do on ebay. Being able to cut the number of pictures you have in an auction can save a respectable ammount of money.

Don't forget the value of getting an editor and doing your own lisings and inserting images from your ISP provided webspace. Much money can be saved with these two things alone.

 

I build my auctions with Trellion, a free WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) html page builder program. You can have the nifty "themed" auctions, or really plain ones, and the "themed" ones don't look like everyone else's, just don't go overboard with the bells, whistles, and such.

 

The only image I host at eBay is the gallery pic/thumbnail. I get megs and megs of webspace with my internet service, I think most ISP's now days provide at least 5 meg, definitely worth looking into for auction listers.

 

As far as Paypal, is a cost of playing the game currently, no paypal seriously cuts prospective buyers and paypal IS going to take thier little cut. If you get one of thier debit/check cards you get cash back on any purchase you make that is processed as a credit card, that's how we make up that difference, a little, at least.

[Darkstar]

Just my two coins, I look at Paypal as offering a true service and convenience for a person like myself who does most of their buying and selling internationally and I look at their fees as actually paying for that service and convenience. I do a ton of my business overseas, and would hate to think of the nightmare of currency conversion and awaiting payment by mail etc...Paypal takes care of all that for me, and instantly to boot thanks to the purely electronic nature of the business. I'd say I do over 95% of my business with overseas buyers and sellers, so it's more of an international focus that I'm speaking from.

 

Also a big thing with this is, Paypal pretty much *has* to take a cut off the total price, shipping included, or people would get past their fees by charging $0.01 "buy it now" and $160.00 shipping.

 

For instance, if you buy some piece of furniture or whatnot from China, right now you'll see alot of auctions going for just that...a one cent buyout, but the shipping is 200 dollars. Since Paypal takes their cut from the total of the transaction, they get paid no matter how the seller works their auction. So they're pretty much bound to do that, since that's the framework that ebay has set up.

 

Now that Paypal is becoming more widely accepted outside of just ebay, I use it so much that the fee for use doesn't really bother me so much, I find the convenience to make up for it. Since for one, I don't have to leave my house and deal with rude customer service people, horrible traffic, parking etc...and can just pick and choose from the sellers I want to deal with. Also, I don't have to pay sales tax, so the fee makes up for that in spades. Unfortunately on that note, one of the better sellers of minis , Fantization.com, is located in my home state so I do have to pay a tax on top of shipping and paypal fees, which makes me very reluctant to do business with them as it all adds up to just too much in service fees from everyone for me.

 

That's just one perspective though, and for a person like myself, Paypal works very well for what it is, and it's a small price to pay to have the convenience.

[Mclimbin]

DS, fair enough, I agree that it is a useful service. In fact, my own sale was to a person in Croatia. However, do you find that you are often paying 16% of your income to PP and Ebay? Does that seem fair to you? It seems steep to me, though I have to admit only by a few percentage points.

 

Perhaps the percentage goes down as you sell items that are more expensive. The cut for Ebay and PP will be proportionally the same, but the posting cost will stay constant.

 

I don't know much about running my own business. It might be that I would have to pay that much per transaction if I owned a store. I guess that's one of the reasons that I posted this, to see if my expectations are reasonable or not.

[Heisler]

I don't know about the ebay side of this. It is an auction after all and the final amount varies based on sales price but ebay does publish the percentage they take I just don't have the time to look it up. I don't think that between the two of them that you are really losing 16%. I would have to see the actual numbers. On the paypal side we use it for our local convention so people can pay online. Our accountant loves it because the charge to us is much less than it was when we were having our payments go through a credit card company. So from the perspective of a business operation Paypal is taking a smaller cut than the credit card company does. For those of you who don't know when you use your credit card to pay for something the credit card company gets as much as 5% of the sale and that is right out of the merchant's pocket and then of course charges you interest on the money you borrowed on the card.

[IG88]

Hi,

Ive been selling minis on ebay for the past two years, And Ive made a tonn of dow on my painted dragons. They sold anywhere between 60.00 to my personal best 317.00 grenadier imperieal dragon. Anyway my point:

 

Most of my buyers were from Europe or other states in the us, none were local. Ebay is the only place to get world sales coverage, literally.. Try selling crap at your local hobby store and see what happens..yeah. Any how the fees are minimal considering what your getting in return. I hear people complain but try selling this stuff on your front lawn and see what happens.

 

the best way to cut down is to not do a lot of small auctions try to sell larger lots. or sell quality pieces and get high prices= profits, sure they take a percentage but if you make 120.00 on a model who cares if ebay makes 6 bucks off it, they basically sold it for you. .

 

Never sell large units or armies...you will never get what you put into them, sell single peices and start them fairly high, remember this sounds rediculous but if you start a fig at 9.99 ( Jen Haley and company not included in this) people are generally going to think your selling a low quality piece. Start it at 50 and people say wait a minut 50...this is worth a look and some even think its better because it costs more, sounds crazy but its the truth.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Astrochimp]

Just a safety tip if you are selling with paypal - I learned this the hard way:

 

Always get a shipping confirmation. I was too cheap to pay the extra dollar or two, and

one time a buyer complained to paypal because the package took more than

seven days to get to them. Paypal sent me an automated form and my only

choice was to supply a shipping confirmation number or give the buyer a refund.

 

A few days later the buyer sent me an email saying "okay nevermind it arrived thanks" and they

never bothered to cancel their complaint with paypal. A couple weeks later, the

paypal resolution system automatically took money from my bank account (because

my paypal account was empty) to refund the buyer.

 

I've sent several emails and spent time on the phone with paypal personnel and they

have not been able to do anything for me.

[Kannan Fodder]

I'll add my two cents....

 

Keep in mind that PayPal is essentially an online bank, and they charge their fees for the amount of money actually deposited into your account - just like any other bank that charges fees for transactions. They charge for the whole transaction, not just part of it.

 

Both PayPal and Ebay provide services for a fee, and they both list their fees somewhere in their user agreements. It may take some time to hunt them down, but they are there.

 

I've been using Ebay and PayPal for years now, and I don't think the fees are all that bad. I charge a flat rate for domestic shipping - which includes Priority Mail and Delivery Confirmation - and I specifically state this in my auction text. I also keep in mind the cost of the packaging materials, and have also factored that in, along with the ever increasing postal rates. Again, this is stated in my "About Me" Ebay page.

 

I always use Delivery Confirmation for domestic shipping because it allows me to verify that what I sent was delivered, and when/where it was actually delivered. This keeps both parties honest, and to date, I have had no problems. Unfortunately Delivery Confirmation is not available for international shipping.

 

PayPal allows me to reach a much broader market, they handle any currency conversions for me, payments are instant, almost everyone uses it now, it’s very fast and easy to use, and it‘s open 24/7. Looking at all I get, I personally feel that the fees are very reasonable.

[Shakandara]

I think part of the fundamental issue here is that there's this concept that "hey, this is the Internet, all of this should be free!" But that ain't the way it works. Even the electronic medium has its costs associated with it. eBay doesn't run itself; there's oodles and oodles of hardware and bandwidth that make eBay possible. All of that requires staff to maintain it. Plus CSA staff, management, a physical building, and the list goes on. So they charge for it. As a side benefit, eBay comes with its own built-in advertising. Not only does practically everyone know about, but the entire place is searchable, making it easy and convenient to match buyers with the products that they are seeking.

 

PayPal is no different. The greatest advantage of PayPal is that it permits you to accept all types of payment from all over the world. If you've ever set up a merchant account to accept credit cards, you know that it is not free to do so. Generally, there is an account set-up charge of some kind, equipment fees for whatever processing equipment you use, and then per-transaction and percent-of-transaction fees. Yup, it costs companies money to accept your credit card every time you use it. PayPal does all this for you, without the hassle of setting up a merchant account and getting equipment. So they charge you a little more for the convenience; big deal.

 

Seriously, if 16% is your overhead for doing business through PayPal and eBay, consider yourself lucky. Brick-and-mortar businesses have a much higher overhead for much smaller profits...

 

~v

[Krztoff]

I got a couple Wiis the day they came out, and I kept one and sold the other on eBay. The one I sold wound up costing me about $20 from eBay alone. I didn't even look at Paypal's cost for it. But the thing is, I didn't really care. I wound up making about $60 even after all those fees, so, who cares if they took some. I highly doubt I could have turned that much of a profit without using them to sell it.

 

-Krztoff