Forum Moderators: buckworks
Running a business on Ebay is so expensive and its getting more expensive.
eBay is the number 1 marketplace online, thus your visitor base is already there.
so for a $25.02 item that is:
listing: $1.2
final: 1.31
paypal 1.03
total: $3.53
or a little over 14% of the cost of the product.
New pricing model:
listing: $1.2 (did this go up?)
final: 2.50
paypal: 1.03
total: 4.73
or 18.9% of the cost of the product.
[edited by: AffiliateDreamer at 7:02 pm (utc) on July 20, 2006]
Auctions: bidville, yahoo, we-bidz, overnightauctions, livedeal
Haggling: uask, ioffer
so for a $25.02 item that is:listing: $1.2
final: 1.31
paypal 1.03
First of all, if the price point is $24.99, a wise person wouldn't list an item for $25.02, just 3 cents more, and incur a greater than 3 cents fee increase.
But that aside, where do you come up with a $1.20 listing fee? This new structure concerns store items and assuming someone did list something for $25.02, the listing/insertion fee would only be 10 cents. If the starting price was $24.99, it would only be 5 cents
And even if you listed something with a starting price of $25,000.02, the insertion fee is still just 10 cents under the new structure.
And that's for a 30-day listing with the option of an automatic relist. So considering the 10 cents insertion fee, let's suppose it doesn't sell in the first 30 days and gets renewed. It's still just another 10 cents.
At that rate, you could have your item listed for a full year for about $1.25. That's a bargain compared to putting it on your own website and paying to get traffic to that site and it's a huge bargain compared to having your item sit on the shelf of a retail store for a year.
As for the PayPal fee, you don't have to use PayPal. If the convenience of automatic billing and immediate access to your money isn't worth the fees charged by PayPal, then wait for people to send you checks and money orders.
No...wait...forget what I wrote above. The more sellers who leave eBay the less competition I have.
You're right! eBay is way too expensive. I think all you other sellers should leave now - as in stop reading this and go cancel all your current listings.
FarmBoy
You also have to consider as PPC rates go up, companies like eBay still have to pay those higher rates.
To remedy this, she said, eBay will raise the profile of the auctions and raise prices for stores. That won't be popular.</>
from [theregister.co.uk...]
Hopefully Google wallet will lower paypal fees, as competition universally lowers prices and improves quality. (schmidt says wallet won't compete with paypal)
However, as far as paypal being a rip, I've always found them to be priced within my limits of toleration.
normally 15% seller fee on the hammer price plus a 15% buyer fee on the hammer price:
thus an item hammer price of $500
the seller gets: $425
the buyer pays: $575
this by my calculation means the auction house creams 26% of the final price.
on top of this are possible extra fees for:
illustrations in a catalogue (for the seller)
storage fees for the buyer
unsold fees (for a seller who's item didn't sell)
minimum fees for low priced items
i do realise it is different plus ebay is full of cheap items, but this is how auction houses work.
for me i think the killer on ebay is the listing fee (if you don't sell) i think there are a lot of ebayers who don't make much money after all the time and fees - of course there are many making huge amounts just like anywhere else.
In the UK on August 21st, due to Royal Mail price increases, shop sellers can look forward to not only a rise on eBay, but also any item over 25mm thick will now cost £1.00 (minimum) to send through the Royal Mail First Class system instead of the old rate which started at £0.32.
eBay may become on of the most expensive places to shop.
[edited by: PCInk at 2:58 pm (utc) on July 21, 2006]
Hopefully Google wallet will lower paypal fees, as competition universally lowers prices and improves quality.
eBay has prohibited payments via Google, so the only competition for PayPal from Google is for non-ebay purchases where the seller makes both available.
FarmBoy
Much better off investing in your own site where if sales are not converting you can fix the problem or pay someone else to do it and not have to rely on the whims of some mega company that puts their bottom line first and leaves you in some other lower position.
Ebay certainly has it's place and I have been selling on ebay since 1998 but imho it should not be at the top of anyone's business plan.
Ive been averaging 45, one aprticular painting could sell for around £80, currently over the last 3 weeks ive sold Nil.
Listed a Victorian mahogany wine table, reserve of £80 listing cost me £3.50 before final value fees etc.
Getting a bit pricey and an unreliable way to sell online.
