eBay fees!

[usertemp1010]

Sorry I know this is pretty dull but I've started selling a load of stuff on eBay lately (just had more time on hands!) and I've only just realised that eBay take 10% of whole amount including postage! I only ever charge the postage exactly what it costs me, so in effect if I sell something for 99p (which happens occasionally) and let's say 3.70 postage as it's a parcel and going 1st class... then I actually receive about 50p?!
I'm not really bothered (of course - which is why I've decided a whole post about it ) but wondered if anyone else increases the postage amount to cover this?
Thanks

I think if your actual postage cost is £3.70 it's reasonable to charge £4.00 for the packaging material / envelope etc. I think according to eBay rules you can't charge for your time in taking the parcel to the Post Office / Hermes drop off etc.

I've started selling items including postage to "hide" the actual cost and don't start any listings at less than £5.

Look out for their "sell for a £1" promotions. It's not worth it for small value items but definitely is for anything over £10.

Also look into "large letter boxes". You can fit a surprising amount in and pay a large letter postal cost, rather than a parcel.

There's no point in starting an auction with a 99p start bid any more as you get free listings anyway so you may as well start it at the amount you want for your item.

^^ good advice

It's ok to add costs of packaging, postage , even parking charges if you need to pay to park near your post office.

I do free postage added too. £5 free postage is more appealing to me as a buyer than 99p + £4 postage - rules of internet shopping I guess.

Have you tried selling on FB? They come round to collect so saves going to the post office and waiting to hear if they got the package

Don’t forget that PayPal take 5% of the total too so you need to add 15% to the actual postage costs so you are not out of pocket.

I think eBay started doing this because people would charge a very inflated postage amount and thus make a profit that way rather than on the actual item and of course eBay wanted to make sure they got their 10% of all profits. I just sell stuff buy it now and do free postage these days.

eBay are absolutely shit to sellers. These days if it's a low value item I prefer to give it away rather than deal with the hassle of selling it and making 10p - or sometimes even ending up out of pocket if I've made even the tiniest error with postage and it has to be sent as a parcel as opposed to large letter.

Thanks everyone that's really good advice. I might go down the free postage route

Wait until you are on managed payments like us business sellers. Costs me 20% on there these days! But then they have always stung registered businesses. We used to pay 10% plus VAT but for private sellers the 10% includes VAT. And they wonder why sellers have left in droves and their profits are down year after year.

They charge 10% of the postage because before they started doing this, people would constantly get away with Ebay fee avoidance by selling small items for 99p and then charging £9 postage. Ebay also introduced a maximum postage fee in several categories for a similar reason.

I definitely recommend increasing the price and offering "free" postage for the following reasons:

• Buyers don't seem to know the difference between reasonable postage, i.e. you not charging more than you actually spent on it, and the amount that they actually want to pay. The last straw came when I charged someone £3 postage for something, but when I got to the post office it actually cost me £5, so I made a loss of £2 and yet the buyer still marked me down for the postage being too expensive . Introducing free postage gets you out of all that.

• If buyers leave Detailed Seller Ratings, anyone who offers free postage gets an automatic 5 out of 5 from Ebay, and the buyer can't actually mark you down on postage.

• I used to worry every time I went to the post office, worrying that I'd overcharged someone, which I did a couple of times as I only really estimate them at home. Free postage reduced a lot of worrying for me.

• It stops buyers from sending you messages asking you to use a cheaper courier or something. Nope. All my items are sent by Royal Mail.

• It potentially gets you more customers. If one person is selling an item for £7 plus £3 postage, and someone else is selling the item for £10 with free postage, people will often go for the £10 with free postage, even though it costs the same as the first one. I still don't really know why, but that's buyers for you.

So all in all I really recommend free postage, as it has so may little benefits that I'd never realised before I actually did it. As long as you can estimate the approximate postage price, just make sure you factor that in to the item price and start the price high enough.