What is a general number % on total fee costs

[2014sportsterguy]

I sell once in awhile and just need a general number thanks
For example on coins? I'm bad with numbers.
I know it is all standard but just forget and need a general guideline.

[pierrelebel]

Several factors determine the percentage.

1) category  (stamps and coins are cheap IF you have a store)

2) average selling price

3) shipping charge in relation to selling price (since eBay charges FVF on shipping)

4) Top Rated status

5) Store or no store (store owners pay a monthly fee but get a lower FVF.  It could be very substantial in some categories.

6) Overall monthly volume (store fees will be a much smaller percentage of sales if monthly sales are $2,000 compared to $200 for example.

My own eBay fees, including listing, FVF, monthly store, etc... etc... are less than 6%.

I have a store, sell stamps (FVF 6%), am TRS (20% discount on FVF resulting in 4.8% net FVF) and offer free shipping (no FVF on shipping).

[rosscd57]

I have never sat down and actually figured it out to the penny. But with no store, I figure it is right around the 13.5% mark and that includes shipping fees of course. That is the number I use for costing. If you want to know what goes into your Canadian bank account then add about another 2.5% for the PayPal conversion fee.

If anyone has it exactly - I certainly would like to know.

[michaelbb2]

I sell coins....

For me:

8.78% eBay fees with a store subscription

6.5% paypal fees

12.5% postage

Total is about 28%

[pocomocomputing]

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@michaelbb2 wrote:

I sell coins....

For me:

8.78% eBay fees with a store subscription

6.5% paypal fees

12.5% postage

Total is about 28%

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How do you get the percentages above?

Coins FVF for store is 6%. Since you are TRS, you get 20% discount. So 4.8% on item price.

PayPal I can see as it is 2.9% + 3.5% exchange = 6.4%

Postage I have no idea how you chose 12.5%. No a fee but an expense??? Or do you mean eBay FVF on shipping? It would be 6% same as item price FVF (TRS discount does not apply).

A rough estimate of Fees (eBay) to me would be 4.8% on item price + 6% on shipping charged or rough average of say 5% on item price + shipping. PayPal fees would be the 2.9% + 3.5% exchange = 6.4% as mentioned above. So total Fees eBay and PayPal would be 5% + 6.4% = 11.4%*. I would round up to 12%.

No way to get 28%.

[ricarmic]

Hi pocomo! I think michael is including the costs of the store and any associated listing fees in the 8.78% ie the 6% selling fee (if not TRS) and the other 2.78% is the cost of the store subscription spread across the sales volume that month. (I mention this because that is how I look at it, I consider the total cost of the store, the FVF etc all as one % - because of this my % changes every month, with my sales $ volume)

[pierrelebel]

I look at it as 4.8% FVF (after 20% rebate for TRS) and 1.0% for my eBay store (based on $2,000 monthly sales since I retired) and no listing fees.

Total eBay fees:  5.8% (a fraction less if monthly sales exceed $2,000; a fraction more if monthly sales fall below $2,000).

As far as exchange conversion fee, that is a very questionable calculation.

If a seller sells in US$ and receives (for example) Cdn $109.00 for a US$100.00 transaction, there is no point in calculating a conversion fee since it is already included in the conversion.

[recped]

PayPal I can see as it is 2.9% + 3.5% exchange = 6.4%

As Pierre points out the currency exchange costs have no place in this calculation. If for no other reason that you can sell in Canadian Dollars and therefore the buyers cover the exchange costs.

On the other side of the coin PayPal fees can be a lot higher than 2.9%. If you make a sale for $10 (item+shipping) to a US buyer your PayPal fees will be 5.9%, for an overseas sale 6.9%.

On a $20 transaction PayPal fees would be 4.4% or 5.4%

On a $50 transaction 3.5% or 4.5%

Even on a $100 sale the fees are 3.2% or 4.3%

The 30 cent PayPal transaction fee may seem incidental but it`s impact is actually substantial if your average transaction value is fairly low.

[ricarmic]

To keep things simple, I've always just looked at overall PAYPAL fees against sales - for 2013 for me it came in at about 3.8% (ie PAYPAL fees themselves were 3.8% of the sales amount). This does not factor in the exchange rate which would be about a 1.5-2% loss depending on timing of cashing in against current exchange rates (sometimes they are slow to update their exchange rate and you can get a better rate by cashing in before they recognize that the $C has risen -obviously the reverse is true, it is always good to check!) Generally my stuff is higher priced, ie $10 or more so the 30c is less a problem in my situation.

[michaelbb2]

Sorry, I left a number of 28% and didn't clarify much.

My total ebay fees as a percentage of my sales is the following based on my last invoice.

Fees as a percentage of your sales

This month's eBay sales and fees

Total monthly sales C $3,002.14     Total monthly fees 8.78% Based on your monthly fees and credits totaling C $263.72, your fees as percentage of your sales is 8.78%

This includes all listing fees (sometimes nothing but sometimes I list outside the promotions), all FVF on item and shipping, store subscription, less refunded fees for refunded lost items.  + lost FVF on multiple refunded extra shipping costs due to eBay.com's corrupt cart system.  It also includes my 20% discount.

For Paypal, I get the 6.5% from my monthly statements.  Total monthly PayPal fees / total montly sales paid with paypal.  I don't acknowledge any 2.5% conversion fee since all my sales are in CND (buyer pays the conversion if from the USA).   The 30 cent fee from paypal is quite substantial in my case because my average sale is only a couple dollars or so.  It hurts even more when multiple payments are made for one order.

I answered 12.5% shipping as cost in response to the OP's question thinking that the OP is looking for a general cost of doing business involving coins (minus office expenses and other expenses not directly related to sales totals on eBay only).....mostly fees yes but the shipping cost has to be factored in especially if you offer free shipping. The cost of shipping comes out of your sales total provided by eBay so it is just like a fee that has to be paid.  This is only for Domestic sales.  I charge a cost for US and World shipping so I don't include those figures here.

If you charge a price for shipping then that value is not included in your sales figures or sales report from eBay (aside from the FVF on shipping included in your monthly fee) and then your shipping costs are covered and don't need to be factored in as a fee-like value.

If I factored every expense in, my "cost of doing business" in coins is %52.48

Everybody's situation will be different.

[pjcdn2005]

Have you looked into Paypal micropayments? Since many of your items are in the lower cost range, that might work better for you.

[michaelbb2]

Thanks pjcdn2005 for bringing this up.

Yes, definitely thought of it.  It would work great if everybody paid for items one at a time but not all do so it is very difficult to calculate if it would benefit me or not. 

Transaction amount                Fee with Micro (5%+.05)          Regular PayPal fee(2.9%+0.30)

1.00                                                         10c                                               33c

2.00                                                         15c                                               36c

3.00                                                         20c                                               39c

4.00                                                         25c                                               42c

5.00                                                         30c                                               45c

6.00                                                         35c                                               47c

7.00                                                         40c                                               50c

8.00                                                         45c                                               53c

9.00                                                         50c                                               56c

10.00                                                       55c                                               59c

11.00                                                       60c                                               62c

12.00                                                       65c                                               65c  ..........over 12.00 and micropayments don't work. 

If eBay worked properly...when I make a sale of 17 coins with an average price of $2.65 then I should receive 1 payment of $45.05.......total paypal fees = $1.61........but instead I get 17 payments of $2.65 each - total paypal fees of $6.41

If eBay fixes the cart system then I will be fine but they keep dragging it out.  PayPal rules say that you can only change from regular to micro once every 6 months....I'm sure if I switch now, the cart will be fixed tomorrow and then I'm screwed for the remainder of the 6 months.  If I am on micropayments, a $45.05 transaction will be subject to (5% + 5c) = $2.30.

I could try it for a few months and see how it affects the overall monthly numbers but it is hard to calculate.

[michaelbb2]

yes I have.  I could try it and see what it does to the numbers.  Hard to tell if it will benefit because many payments are for multiple coin lots.  Some are paid as a whole and some are paid for 1 item at a time.   I wish eBay would fix the cart system.

[michaelbb2]

I looked a bit more into micropayments and you must have a business account in PayPal first......that's no problem.  The next step is to set up for express checkout for digital goods.....???  Micropayments are reserved for those selling digital goods?    

What I did learn is that the checkout system with micropayments will calculate the best rate for each transaction. I missed this in my earlier research.  If it is a high value transaction then PayPal will resort to the standard 2.9% + 30c structure.  If the transaction is low value, the micropayment structure 5% + 5c will kick in automatically.....that is excellent.  Everybody should use it for that reason.........if we can that is.......non digital goods?   I'm looking more into it.

[decal-fx]

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@michaelbb2 wrote:

I looked a bit more into micropayments and you must have a business account in PayPal first......that's no problem.  The next step is to set up for express checkout for digital goods.....???  Micropayments are reserved for those selling digital goods?    

What I did learn is that the checkout system with micropayments will calculate the best rate for each transaction. I missed this in my earlier research.  If it is a high value transaction then PayPal will resort to the standard 2.9% + 30c structure.  If the transaction is low value, the micropayment structure 5% + 5c will kick in automatically.....that is excellent.  Everybody should use it for that reason.........if we can that is.......non digital goods?   I'm looking more into it.

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Keep us informed on your finding, sounds very interesting.

[pjcdn2005]

I don't see anything about it having to be for digital goods and I don't think that the percentage changes if the price of the item is higher.  I think that you might be able to set up another paypal account and when you list a higher priced item, you can use that paypal for the payment address. That might get a little confusing though.

 https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/helpcenter/selfhelp/article/?solutionId=FAQ664&m=SRE

What are micropayments?

PayPal's micropayments price is 5% + $.05 and is designed for merchants who process low-value transactions (typically under $10 in value). The micropayments rate is available to all merchants and in all countries where Business accounts are available. If you sign up for micropayments, you will be charged the micropayments rate on all transactions regardless of payment size.

[decal-fx]

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@pjcdn2005 wrote:

 If you sign up for micropayments, you will be charged the micropayments rate on all transactions regardless of payment size.

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No longer sounds that interesting 😞   for me anyhow

[pocomocomputing]

Look carefully at how much can be saved:

Here is a table to compare using PayPal micro-payments and standard plans for a payment total from $1 to $25.

Amt    MP      Std      Savings
       5%      2.90%    
     $0.05     $0.30     
1    $0.10     $0.33     $0.23
2    $0.15     $0.36     $0.21
3    $0.20     $0.39     $0.19
4    $0.25     $0.42     $0.17
5    $0.30     $0.45     $0.15
6    $0.35     $0.47     $0.12
7    $0.40     $0.50     $0.10
8    $0.45     $0.53     $0.08
9    $0.50     $0.56     $0.06
10    $0.55     $0.59     $0.04
11    $0.60     $0.62     $0.02
12    $0.65     $0.65     ($0.00)
13    $0.70     $0.68     ($0.02)
14    $0.75     $0.71     ($0.04)
15    $0.80     $0.74     ($0.07)
16    $0.85     $0.76     ($0.09)
17    $0.90     $0.79     ($0.11)
18    $0.95     $0.82     ($0.13)
19    $1.00     $0.85     ($0.15)
20    $1.05     $0.88     ($0.17)
21    $1.10     $0.91     ($0.19)
22    $1.15     $0.94     ($0.21)
23    $1.20     $0.97     ($0.23)
24    $1.25     $1.00     ($0.25)
25    $1.30     $1.03     ($0.28)

The break point is at $12. If the transaction amount is under $12 you pay less. Over $12 you pay more.

What is your typical PayPal transaction amount? Remember it is not the eBay price but the PayPal transaction amount which is item price, shipping charged in the listing and sales tax if you charge sales tax. Does this all add up to be under $12.

Look at the amount saved. Unless you can have transaction of $6 and under, you do not save much between $6 and $12. Go over $12 and you pay more.

For a seller to take advantage of micro-payments, you typically set up two PayPal accounts. A standard account with 2.9% + $0.30 and a micro-payment account with 5% + $0.05. The email address associated with each account is used in the eBay listing to determine which account is used.

So an eBay seller would use the micro-payments email for listings with item price and shipping cost under $12 and plan it will sell one at a time. Now multiple purchases and combining onto an single invoice most likely will pass the $12 breakpoint and cost more with micro-payments. So a seller has to know well if they have frequent multiple purchases. You can't change the PayPal account after the purchase when sending an eBay invoice as far as I know.

Another issue is that you cannot combine listings with micro-payments with standard. So you have to handle this situation.

In my opinion, having two PayPal accounts makes for a lot of work. I would think that for most sellers the amount saved with micro-payments would not be enough to make the time and effort worth it to manage it.

I looked into micro-payments years ago and never could justify it when selling a mix of items priced from low to high and the cost of shipping (the real killer on the PayPal transaction amount).  Lets say you sell 100 items at average $6 total you save 100 x $0.12 = $12. How much work to get this?

PS As I understand it, you need two separate account with PayPal and have to call and ask for one to be a micro-payments account. As for the $4 digital goods option on a regular PayPal account, I never heard of this before. I do not think it can be used for tangible goods as an eBay seller.

[nan*55]

I use 2 different paypal accounts. One with micro payments one regular. I use the MP one for items + shipping under 12.00 and the other for over 12.00. If I combine a few lower priced items I just change the PP account in the revised invoice.

Works well for me.