Ebay fees - is it worth selling items

[Rivercam]

I've just a few things on a Ebay. Most things sold between £1.99 - £5. I was shocked to see my Ebay fees came to £7. When I looked into it, I discovered a fee based on postage as well as the final selling fee. Has that always been the case? If so, I've missed it. It makes selling on ebay almost non- viable. How do people make money when the object only sells for 50p?!

They charge you I think 10% on the price of postage, it's pretty recent. I've added 10% to my postage costs bit it pushed up prices and therefore less people bid, and the higher the cost the worse the feedback.

eBay have also introduced recently that you can list 20 things per month for free but after that you pay 35p per listing.

So starting anything at 99p seems futile after you have used up your free listing.

Better to sell higher value items and start them at your minimum with your free listing quota. Not really worth the faff for 99p item tbh. I wouldn't list that much at a start of under £10

I only sell items with postage inclusive ("free"). I base all my costings on that. I suppose a lot of people don't realise that there are fees on postage, hence why so many

I do sell quite a few items in the £1.99-£5 price range. I never start at 99p. I try to start at the lowest I would accept for the item, and check completed listings to see if that is realistic. You have to work out your likely profit before you list, taking eBay and PayPal fees and postage into account. If the profit is not worth it to you, either bundle similar items together before listing or Charity Shop them!

Oh crap. I've just put stuff on ebay yesterday. Found it confusing enough working out collect plus costs (haven't sold on there for a while).

So, my highest price item postage was £6 something, so when/if it sells it will be 60p fees then? Is this all the fees I'll pay? That's not so bad as they're a pair of curtains which should go for more than 99p.

I'm not that experienced with selling on ebay and I started a number of them at 99p on the basis they will go for more but attract people in to bid with low starting price [clueless].

Does anyone know if number of watchers equate to decent selling price? My items have been on for less than 24 hours and all have watchers on them, between 3 and 10. I'm quite excited as I've never really had or looked much at the watchers element for it before.

Sorry, complete hijack there

number of watchers doesn't mean bidders

and selling for 99p is waste of time

How heavy are items though - £6 postage seems high. You can send up to 1kg for £2.98 with Hermes. 2kg will be £3.98 and 2-5kg £5.50.

They're just over 5 kg from memory. They're big good quality ones so crossing fingers madly there is more than one person interested! Although tbh they are taking unwanted space so to be rid of them will be good [tries to think positively]