ebay/paypal fees advice please

[freefruit]

OK I am about to start selling.

paypal first am i right in thinking that if I transfer the money to my bank account there will be no fees at all?

e bay an auction starting at 99p will have no fee, but 10% of the final value in fees (that's huge)
BIn insertion fee is 40p but you pay 9.9 then 5.9% of final vales.

does that include BIn ro best offer?
are there any ways of reducing the final value fees?
would you link to pictures or offer to send more if e-mailed (one thing will be a pushchair)?
have I missed anything?
thanks

this is good for working out paypal fees
www.clothnappytree.com/ppcalculator/

When you list a BIN it should tell you what the fvf will be just before you upload.

use photobucket for extra photos and insert the html code into the html code of your listing view.

The most common trick for reducing FVF fees is to increase the P&P charge (no FVF on them). You can't increase it by much, and Ebay has rules against excessive P+P amounts, but a quid or two extra on each sale can quickly add up.

"paypal first am i right in thinking that if I transfer the money to my bank account there will be no fees at all?"

That doesn't sound right. Paypal charges you thru the nose at every opportunity. That I can tell, the best way to use Paypal account is to never transfer money back to your bank account,just use your outstanding Paypal balance to keep buying other stuff you would have bought anyway (have to be disciplined and not buy stuff just because you have a positive balance in there!). Lots of websites besides Ebay now accept Paypal.... also, seller doesn't pay fees when receiving from an account with a positive Paypal balance (I think).

You can mention to buyers that you also accept direct bank transfer payments; plenty of buyers will use this just because they are sellers too, and most sellers despise Paypal!

you don't get charged to withdraw money to your bank account from paypal.
seller 'always' pays fees to receive money, the amount can be easily calculated with the link up there ^

adding a quid or 2 on to the P&P is not advisable. It can be reported. It will reduce the amount of interest in your items. If someone actually bids then they will be mighty upset at paying a quid or 2 over the stamp price and will mark you down on your stars. A few low star ratings will lead to suspension.

Ah, you're right about free withdrawals to UK bank accounts, it changed last year. See discussion on that page on how annoying things used to be!

I reckon most sellers charge 1-2 quid over the actual postage costs. Is it not the case that you can charge what you feel appropriate for the time to pack and get it to the post office? Here for instance, is a recent guide saying that 1-1.50 GBP over actual postage cost is " not unreasonable".

As amateur and occasional sellers it can be quite tricky to be sure of the correct postage charge before you list an item, especially with weirdly shaped items. So there has to be some leeway in amount charged (I have specified too little for the postage plenty of times).

the link takes you to just someone's opinion. I wish it were acceptable to charge £1, £1.50, or £2 over the stamp price but in reality it's not. I never charge more than 10p over the stamp price yet I still don't always get 5 stars. i even had someone leave the lowest star for me and they paid actual stamp price. It will only take another one like that and my trading is seriously affected.
people can argue till the cows come home about "they saw the p&p before they bid" and the cost of handling, packaging materials etc etc but at the end of the day buyers do not like to pay postage (at all) and they can punish sellers to the point they are not allowed to sell any more.
I personally would not pay 1 1.50 or 2 more than the actual postage - and if I was caught out by not being able to guess the actual stamp price then I would expect a refund on the difference.
It should be easy enough for all sellers to find out the cost of postage just by weighing the item with the packaging and looking up the cost of the RM website.

It seems like in spite of your best efforts you're getting crap ratings so may as well add a quid or so to make up for the grief?

I guess I find it too difficult to weigh some things accurately, like a baby carrier or a bicycle wheel, and then trying to get the packaging right....

the only way I could get it exactly right would be if I took the photos, then packaged the item up, then went to post office (I never feel 100% confident about weighing at home and then navigating the options on RM mailsite, especially for the quite bulky items I can't weigh accurately at home, anyway), stood in long queue at PO, asked for PO the postage, then went home, then could finally make the auction listing with the "true" postage value, then hopefully the item would sell and I wouldn't have wasted time and packaging materials, especially if the buyer wanted a local pick up, then back to the post office to actually post it.

Which is a lot of effort for something that only fetches a net profit to me of 2-5 pounds. That includes any extra p+p snuck in, so I'd be only getting 1-2 quid per item much of the time if I was determined about adding no more than extra 10p onto real postage amount.

(Does that 10p really cover the costs of things like silver pen and parcel tape?)

I have never ever before bothered to look at a seller's detailed ratings (for speed of dispatch, postage costs, etc), do most buyers check them? Guess I'm lazy! Checking my own now... No, I can't. I don't get to see them since I sell less than 10 items/year. Does anyone else get to see them, I wonder, if you're a low volume seller?

Maybe I'll see them in a month or sooner, I have sold a lot lately, seems like.

Ah, no I was wrong, I only get to see detailed feedback on items sold in last 90 days ... I think . I will be over 10 soon in last 90 days, I am keen to say what the detailed ratings say.. for the brief period that I can see them.

I guess you are a much higher volume seller than me, 6lostmonkeys, so you have to keep to higher standards probably than casual sellers like me. We all know that Ebay increasingly doesn't want sellers like me.

I have tried all ways to please the buyers - upping the p&p, setting it at stamp price only, setting it below stamp price and not charging at all. Nothing ever pleases all of the buyers all of the time. Of course a lot is to do with the fact that some buyers don't understand the star rating system. I keep it at a few pence over stamp price now so that in the event of receiving a damaging 1 or 2 star rating I could (although not allowed to) contact a buyer and ask if they made a mistake and would they rectify it.
10p doesn't cover the cost of packaging. even buying wholesale the cost is nearer 50p. i just factor the costs in the start price.

Overcharging purposely on a regular basis will eventually affect your star ratings. It's not that buyers look at them it's because if you receive low stars you will have your account restricted or suspended.
Even if only doing this occasionally probably won't pay off as the high cost will put many buyers off, and you won't get as many bids.

wow I have always thought a pound over on the postage is fair (for the paypal reason) some of the stuff I've had recently has been over by about that most of the rest over by 50p or so I think I've only had one that was under and then only by a penny or two.

thanks for that

can I just clarify do I pay paypal to receive money??

I don't know how anyone makes anything selling on ebay by by the time uncle tom cobley and all have had their share!!

I've been buying & selling on eBay for over 5 years & I always charge more than the stamp price or my estimate of how much it's going to be (don't have scales or anything at home & like the poster above said it's ridiculous to be going out with an unsold, packaged item to have it weighed). After a while you get a pretty good idea of costs in relation to size/weight, but on items that are large or unusual I just state in the listing that my P&P price is a not final & if anyone's interested to contact me for the actual charge, in which case I would go & find out as it would not look good to be too much over. That said, the profit is so minimal on a lot of things that there's no way I'll be forking out for tape etc. out of my own pocket - that's unreasonable! Some buyers will never be happy no matter what you do, you get the very good, the very bad & everything in between on there! Good luck!

Heated and polarised thread with diverse opinions about this very topic on Ebay forums.

Ta 4 discussion...always something to learn.

ps: FF: you usually pay a seller's fee to Paypal when somebody pays you money using Paypal. Ebay insists that you offer Paypal, (fee might be 3.4% + 20p, I think). I think that there's no seller fee if the payment comes from an existing Paypal balance (so if I pay you 10 quid out of the 35 quid currently in my Paypal account, you'd not pay a fee). But you as a seller have no control over how I fund my Paypal account, so best to always assume that Paypal fees will apply.

paypal fees always apply :)

fees can be calculated for you using that link up there ^