charging on shipping costs

[dwhall12]

Ebay charging a commission on shipping has just about ruined my ebay business. I have never over charged for shipping and it is expensive to ship outside Canada.

I used to be able to buy reasonabley and sell reasonabley with exact shipping costs.

Now that ebay charges me 10% on shipping costs I can no longer offer my good prices to my customers.

Just in case you are interested I will give an example.

I go to an auction sale and purchase 100 items at 2 dollars each. I list them at $4.99 and sell them. My profit less ebay charges is 299 dollars. Shipping is paid by the buyer. If it costs 12 dollars to ship ebay takes $1.20 plus paypal charges.

Sure knocks the heck out of any profits.

[musicyouneed]

I know how you feel.  You can use this calculator to figure out exactly what you end up with after all the fees are paid.  I would just raise the shipping cost to cover your expenses.      I like it to figure out whether it is worth for me to list or not.  

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/tools/calcs/ebay_fee_calculator

[pierrelebel]

"Ebay charging a commission on shipping has just about ruined my ebay business"

???

The fee structure was changed over two years ago.  Since then you have sold thousands of items on eBay.  If things are so bad, why not find another venue where to sell your items?

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

Your business model depends on 10% of shipping? That is scary.

[dwhall12]

You would have to be a seller to understand.

[dwhall12]

You would have to sell something besides stamps to understand. Just figure out what 10 percent on shipping of 19 or 20 dollars is when you are trying to sell volume at low prices.

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

Dwall, you are rude and un-informed. I have been a seller for eleven (11) years. Over 8,000 sales. High profit widgetrs. I keep 75% of every sale.

[pierrelebel]

"You would have to be a seller to understand"

Now more or less retired, I have beeen an active seller on eBay for fifteen years with over 105,000 transactions.  I do understand the system. So do you.

I noticed you offered many items recently with "free shipping".  You did NOT have to pay an extra cent in FVF to eBay on those transactions. That's the way to go.  By incorporating the shipping cost into your selling price you save on fees as you get the full 20% TRS rebate which is not available on FVF charged on shipping.

Since you have been on eBay for more than ten years, you certainly remember that FVF were lowered on most transactions when eBay changed their fee policies several years ago to match their major competitor who has been charging FVF on shipping for years.  On average - when shipping costs are 10% of the selling price - the savings in the fee reduction offset the fee on the shipping charge.  For items when sellers were offering "free shipping", sellers realized substantial fee savings.  For transactions where the shipping charge is low in relation to value, sellers realized some savings.

However, when selling relatively low priced items with high shipping costs, fees went up, often very substantially.  For many sellers selling with low margins, it was the end of their eBay career.

Selling by mail is not for everyone and certainly not for everything.

In addition, Canadian sellers need to remember that eBay is an American company setting policies based on their American knowledge.  Shipping costs within the USA are generally much lower than in Canada. The change of policy did not have the same negative impact on American sellers as it did for Canadians.

You have had more than two years to adapt to the change.  Why raise the issue now?

[femmefan1946]

You would have to sell something besides stamps to understand.

I've been aware of pierrelebel for many years. He is well respected as a mail order dealer in the philatelic field.

Just for the record, while single stamps are light weight, they are not necessarily cheap or easy to ship. Like most collectible condition is all important, and we are talking here about ephemeral paper and the all-important gum. Also stamp dealers are often selling collections in heavy albums or lots in Rubbermaid Roughneck containers (hours of fun!).

The most expensive single stamp my family has sold went for $90,000 before tax and auction commission. That was nearly 20 years ago. It has since resold for over $125,000. Admittedly neither sale was on eBay.

Not something you drop in the mail with a 63 cent stamp.

A few sellers here, especially those who practise tough love like the very knowledgeable inuk, prefer to use a posting ID to protect their selling ID from nitwits.

[pierrelebel]

" mail order dealer in the philatelic field"

It should be noted that stamp dealers sell and ship more than individual stamps.  For example, over 1,000 stamp catalogues (average 4 to 5 pounds each) have been sold and shipped through Canada and the USA in the last few years at postage cost of $9 to $21 each.

Collections and accumulations are also sold and require packing in boxes.  Shipping is not cheap.  Last December I had a whiolesale order to another dealer in another provincre: 25 boxes with a total weight of 510 pounds.  Yes, they were all full of stamps.

[rose-dee]

I agree that FVF on shipping appear on the face of it to be unfair, and I wish they weren't necessary.  But many of us remember the days when some sellers were using shipping charges to boost their profits, often at exorbitant rates -- I know I got stung from one such seller (once only!).  The FVF policy helped to weed out such abuse. 

As others have said, those fees can be offset by cost savings in other areas, i.e. TRS and offering free shipping.  If you ship mostly to the U.S. you can save consistently on shipping FVFs by offering very low (or free) shipping to Canada only.  My understanding is that the shipping FVFs are calculated on the first domestic shipping cost only, so if only 1 out of 20 of your sales is to Canada, the cost of shipping for that one sale will more than be made up for by the savings across the board on FVFs. 

[tobyshitzu]

"you certainly remember that FVF were lowered on most transactions when eBay changed their fee policies several years ago to match their major competitor who has been charging FVF on shipping for years"

I know every one that has ever compalined about e fees gets the same lecture, but to point out the op like most is running auctions only so got no fee reduction at all when they added fvf on shipping.  Of course ebay adding fvf on shipping was about increasing ebay's take, every fee change they've ever made has increased ebay's take rate on overall sales.  The competitor site charges fvf on shipping on some transactions, not all like ebay does

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

I defer to the ever demure Miss Femme.

My overall fees and assorted charges have gone DOWN over the last few years. eBay pretty much announced the FVF on shipping over four years ago, two years before introduction. My average FVF on shipping is around 85¢.

Pierre invented eBay. Wrote the P&P. Our OP should get to know the players before "talking down" to them.

Femme can translate this into polite as I have little patience for those who come here and shoot from the lip.

[pjcdn2005]

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@inuk_the_polar_bear wrote:

I defer to the ever demure Miss Femme.

My overall fees and assorted charges have gone DOWN over the last few years. eBay pretty much announced the FVF on shipping over four years ago, two years before introduction. My average FVF on shipping is around 85¢.

Pierre invented eBay. Wrote the P&P. Our OP should get to know the players before "talking down" to them.

Femme can translate this into polite as I have little patience for those who come here and shoot from the lip.

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Congratulations on your fees going down...mine certainly haven't.

I don't think that the OP should assume that others are not also paying as much in fvf fees as they are.  However,  I don't think that someone who uses a posting id should expect a seller who doesn't normally post here to know that  posting id's exist and that some prefer to use one so that they can use what Femme calls 'tough love'. I don't really understand why someone wouldn't want to use their regular selling id when giving out selling advice but each to their own I guess.

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

Because PJ, i have to sign into my account, sign out, sign in to the account, then sign into a dot com board. Then to sign into dot ca I have to sign out, sign in, then sign into the board. That is for my selling ID.

On my PC, I have to keep two browsers open, IE and Firefox. I can sign into any board with IE, but, cannot post even though it says logged in. I can only post using Firefox.

Or.

With this ID I just need to sign into the boards.

Which would you do? I do not understand it. It has been that way for about a year.

The OP shot from the lip. I do that. I know what it sounds like. The OP could come back and aplogize to Pierre and myself for their error. They have not done that.

I actually had to read their remark to me, three times, before I realized it was directed at me personally.

[bb_cool_stuff]

Going to remain neutral on this one since i like everyone on the boards.

Even though we may tend to disagree at times, all friend do, i don't recall Inuk being shy in regards to using his selling ID on the boards.

Again not defending anyone, but i recall Inuk mentioning his seller ID previously. Should he decide to post with his other ID, his choice of course, we know it is him much like Femme's & others posting IDs.

[pierrelebel]

"much like Femme's & others posting IDs."

...except when Femme uses her husband's ID in error!  It does happen from time to time (once a year or so)

[bb_cool_stuff]

You right Pierre, i guess the regulars know each others additional posting IDs & others do not.

[inuk_the_polar_bear]

For anyone who needs, I am mr.elmwood. Mr E. Woodie. The Woodman.

I can always tell who has a posting ID or who has posted under someone else. It is very easy to tell when someone really has no clue what they are saying.

I am being hustled off to dinner. Charleston SC is a wonderful city. We are staying in the old part.

[pjcdn2005]

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@inuk_the_polar_bear wrote:

Because PJ, i have to sign into my account, sign out, sign in to the account, then sign into a dot com board. Then to sign into dot ca I have to sign out, sign in, then sign into the board. That is for my selling ID.

On my PC, I have to keep two browsers open, IE and Firefox. I can sign into any board with IE, but, cannot post even though it says logged in. I can only post using Firefox.

Or.

With this ID I just need to sign into the boards.

Which would you do? I do not understand it. It has been that way for about a year.

The OP shot from the lip. I do that. I know what it sounds like. The OP could come back and aplogize to Pierre and myself for their error. They have not done that.

I actually had to read their remark to me, three times, before I realized it was directed at me personally.

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I'm not sure why you have to sign in , sign out, sign in and then sign into a board. On your selling id do you have your preferences set to sign you automatically to the community area? It is under site preferences....other general preferences

Until the recent board change, once I was signed in on ebay, I could post on the board without signing into it.. Because I do most of my listings on .com I have two windows on Firefox always open...one for .com and one for .ca.

What exactly should the OP apologize to you for.....for saying that you would have to be a seller to understand??  Why do you find that offensive when you are using a non selling id?  My point was that if you use a posting id, comments like that shouldn't surprise or offend you.