Ebay gets sellers any way they can with fees

I posted a used video for sale on Ebay.
It sold and I was paypaled $5.14 ($1 for the video and $4.14 for the shipping and insurance charges).

Here is where Ebay sticks it to the sellers.

This is what the $1 sale cost me in fees.

$0.35 listing fee
$0.35 photo fee
$0.05 selling fee

Total fees = $0.75

I made $0.25 on the sale.

Now paypal (which Ebay owns) also charged me 3% on the payment.

That is another $0.16

Now I have to pay $4.14 to ship it.

So total sale is $5.14 minus $0.75 in Ebay fees, minus $0.16 in paypal fees, minus $4.14 in shipping costs leaves me with a grand total of $0.09!

What a way to screw a seller. Now I know why so many sellers that had Ebay stores say that the site rips them off.

That does sound like a lot of work for a very small return.
And of course, the gummint prolly will want about two cents outta that deal at tax time.....

I could have had a tag sale and sold it for a quarter, made more on it, and not given so much in fees to this greedy corporation called Ebay.

I thought PayPal charged a transaction fee as well as the percentage? At least they used to. On those $1 enhancements in the classifieds section I was being charged 33 cents by PayPal for each one. I wanted to charge less for them, but I'll be darned if I am going to use my site as a revenue generator mostly for PayPal!

BTW, this would be an excellent topic to talk about on my new http://www.BoardOfInquiry.com site. I have a whole forum dedicated to Ebay and PayPal issues.

I feel your pain Steve but why would you waste your time selling a video for $1? I have been selling on eBay for close to 7 years now and simply will not waste my time on the smaller items due to the exact reason you got hit with. I don't mind shelling out $30 for a $1000 item but when it's a $1 that makes it no longer worth my time.

Griz

I put a bunch of videos up figuring someone could get a good deal if they wanted them.

The only one getting a good deal is Ebay.

Not worth it.

I thought PayPal charged a transaction fee as well as the percentage?

You are right. I forgot about that and listed the percentage. They also took a tranaction fee so instead of $0.09, this sale ended up costing me $0.21

Yeah I have to agree with Bob. I try not to sell anything for under $10.00. Since the usual ebay charge for an auction is around $3.00, it's really not worth messing with selling a cheap item below that price. However I know where you are coming from, I have had items go for nothing. Guess it is the nature of auctions. Hey good luck next time.

FYI you should be able to send videos via Media Mail which would probably be more like $1.48 in postage instead of $4.14. (Don't forget to add in the cost of envelopes, too. )

This does take longer than first class mail, so if you specified that you would be shipping them via first class mail then you might not want to use Media Mail.

Check out USPS.com for their rules regarding what qualifies as Media Mail, but I know that books and CDs/DVDs qualify. The only catch is that you have to physically go to the post office and ship them from the counter in person. (So if you are doing one tape per day, it may be more hassle than it's worth.)

I just got left feedback.

Box was ripped - charged excessive shipping

Excuse Me!

It's my fault the USPS is not careful. I charged the EXACT amount for shipping. She NEVER said a word about the shipping cost. I DID NOT MAKE MONEY ON THIS!!!

I thought some of the people who are potential reptile buyers can be jerks. This lady takes the cake.