Ebay fees on $5 and under listings not worth it

[emptyingtheshoebox]

What a joke sold a item with shipping $8.95 recieved $7.47 back over 16.5% never sell items less than $10 again

[recped]

Other than a change amounting to a few pennies the fees to sell a $5 + $3.95 shipping item have barely changed in years.

Of course depending on your cost of goods/shipping keeping 83.5% after fees can be profitable.

[marnotom!]

I respectfully submit that unless you’ve acquired the item for nothing or less than nothing (or you’re trying to liquidate it), the amount of time and work required to list, sell and ship a five dollar item doesn’t make it worth it, even if there were somehow no fees associated with it.

If you’re successfully selling a mix of cheap and more expensive items, on the hand, it may make some sense to have five dollar items in your inventory.

[femmefan1946]

Just your labour at minimum wage  (25c a minute here in BC) means listing any item for less than $10 is not worthwhile.

Then there is packaging.

The Western sellers who do have lower priced items are usually selling multiples. Sportscards, scrapbooking supplies, beads, and other crafting products.

I've always allowed 20% of payments as fees, and I've been four to ten percent low overall.

The only recent changes in fees has been the fee on US "internet "sales taxes (not the tax itself) and GSP on our eBay service fees. These were applied by both PP and MP.

Most sellers are not aware of it, but there has been one reduction in fees. PP was keeping their entire fee (30c plus a percentage) on cancelled transactions. MP only keeps the 30c flat fee and returns the rest. Since these are rare, it has not been noticed much.

[recped]

There is another fee reduction in MP that nobody talks about.

The TRS discount which is very easy to get for Canadian sellers now applies to BOTH the item price AND the shipping, prior to MP it only applied to the item value.

This is especially helpful for low priced items that have a relatively high shipping cost. I sell items where the shipping is equal or greater than the item value, effectively my TRS discount has doubled.

[ypdc_dennis]

For comparison: Selling the same thing on amazon.ca would be $2.83 (31.6%) in fees.

Every Seller needs to figure out what works best for them.

[teenytrinkets]

I sell a lot of cosmetics samples I get for free for $8-$15. They are big sellers for me, too. They are super fast for me to list and pop into the mail (lettermail). I sell a lot of other small items at this same price point that aren't huge money makers, but kind of loss leaders. It's always good to experiment what works for you. I've settled into a steady sales stream at this price point.

[byto253]

I have donated more than a few items I got for super cheap as the value was not what I thought, and it is not worth the hassle to photo, list and ship.   I have a couple of $5 items but they are thin letter mail shipping and in multiples.