Fees on shipping rates ??

[lilgames]

Whats the deal with fees charged on shipping?

I'm just getting back into selling on Ebay after a many-year hiatus and I'm disappointed with the discovery that my shipping cost gets fees too! This makes selling small-cost items completely pointless! For example I just sold two items totalling $12.50 final price. Each item has $16.75 shipping (I can't go lower and still having tracking). So now I see $2.92 owing in fees. This is BEFORE Paypal fees even get added into the mix! That will probably cost an additional $1.75.

So $12.50 - $2.92 - $1.75 = $7.83 for two items. SO not worth it.

I assume these fees were instituted to fight the sellers who sold things dirt cheap and buried their cost in the shipping, but jeeeeez!!!

[tobyshitzu]

No one sends things like the game with tracking.  Things like the mouse that is low value adn too thick to go lettermail isnt worth listing.  Fees on shipping been here for years

[femmefan1946]

I assume these fees were instituted to fight the sellers who sold things dirt cheap and buried their cost in the shipping, but jeeeeez!!!

You're smarter than most complaining about the shipping FVF. That's exactly the reason eBay gave those many moons ago.

There are a couple of points we have learned.

Your fees are based on your first (not lowest) domestic rate.

So if you have a choice of two rates (Regular and Expresspost for example) make sure that the lower (Regular usually) rate is first on the list.

And all of your shipping FVF are based on that rate, including USA and overseas rates.

Which brings up Free Shipping--- which isn't.

Unless your items can ship LetterPost/LightPacket this won't come up (items under 2cm and 500gr) but if you ship domestically with the shipping included in the asking price (what gets called Free Shipping) then your shipping FVF is based on $0.00 no matter where the purchase is going or how much shipping you charge that (usually overseas) customer.

Have you looked into listing on dotCOM this time around?

You have probably noticed that dotCA only allows us to list in loonies now.

And that dotCOM which only allows US dollars has only Flat Rate shipping.

But.

Canada Post parcel rates are not all that variable and it is worth thinking about listing on dotCOM, and using Flat Rates to allow you to offer Free Shipping to your US customers while using Calculated Shipping to Canadians and overseas BUT paying zero percent FVF on those fees.

Which takes some massaging when you have a quiet minute.

Best wishes on your re-newed venture.

[recped]

I assume these fees were instituted to fight the sellers who sold things dirt cheap and buried their cost in the shipping, but jeeeeez!!!

You're smarter than most complaining about the shipping FVF. That's exactly the reason eBay gave those many moons ago.

-----------------------------------

eBay's prime motivation was twofold, fee avoidance was an issue but the main reason was to make fees equal for those that charged shipping and those that used "free shipping". At the time eBay was heavily promoting "free shipping", high volume sellers pushed for compensation....and got it.

Also usually forgotten (or ignored) overall fvf's were reduced when fees on shipping was introduced. For many sellers it was a wash, for many others fees actually declined while for a few (myself included) fees rose somewhat.

Sellers of cheap but heavy items did the worst, sellers with higher value and light weight items did the best. Sellers who offered cross border sales also did better because the fees are based on domestic shipping rates (this didn't help Canadian sellers much but did for some US sellers).

[tobyshitzu]

listing on .com isnt going to make any difference to trying to sell $5~ items with $16 shipping.  Most of ops stuff would sell almost entirely within Canada due to the shipping cost, if it was sent lettermail the way everyone does 

[reallynicestamps]

Yeah, every seller has to work out what will be best for her own business.

I love Free Shipping. The drop in the loonie covered any small loss I might have made from moving (mostly) to Free Shipping. I have been able to continue selling at $9.99 with Free Shipping where three years or so ago I used $9.99+$1.99 to $3.99 shipping.

Of course a lot of my stuff goes LightPacket/LetterPost. That doesn't appear to be what the OP would be doing.

And I don't know if the OPs categories are at 10% FVF or if they are lower like some of mine.

Or if there were the 50 Free Listings every month when he was selling before.

But if its not going to work, don't do it.

[lilgames]

Thanks for the input. This is certainly eye opening.

The reason $16.75 (cad) is as low as I can go is to have tracking. (It's about $14.88 US for tracked packet from Canada). When I sold years ago, I had some disputes from impatient buyers and PayPal always sided with the buyer because their only accepted proof of shipping was a tracking number. I could always ship US Small Packet for much cheaper but then there's no tracking, and delivery time is long--long enough to cause impatient buyers to claim I didn't ship--it's a vicious circle.

To make things worse, the buyer of SNES mouse just backed out citing shipping was too high. And they saw C $19.95 and thought it was US dollars. 

[lilgames]

Do I use small packet for US and just roll the dice?

[i.am.vivian]

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@lilgames wrote:

Do I use small packet for US and just roll the dice?

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You must make that decision yourself.  No fair to ask others here to decide for you and then you end up in a situation where you wish you hadn't listened.  Others can tell you what they do and why, but you always have to be responsible and make your own choices. 

[tobyshitzu]

You can send lettermail/small packet and sell some of it.  Or you can insist on more expensive services and not sell anything.  Or send that way and sell the odd thing, but not end up with much of anything since it all goes to canada post and fees.  THings that have to go with more expesnive psotage due to size but aren't worth much aren't worth listing