In the eBay.com forum you asked what the lowest cost to ship with from a choice of Canada Post, FedEx and UPS. I answered that Canada Post was the lowest cost. I did not say to use Canada Post no matter where you ship. Canada Post should be able to handle most of the items that you described that you want to sell. 🙂
Fees vary as to the type of listing (auction or fixed price) and the eBay Category as well as store and non-store eBay account so it is best to read the following eBay help pages:
eBay fees for non-store (for you now)
eBay.ca Canada http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/fees.html
eBay.com USA http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
The above fees apply to the total price, that is, the item selling price and the shipping cost listed.
You can list on the Canada or the USA site. You get 50 free auctions on both sites for a total of 100 free.
The eBay.ca Canada site has Canada Post shipping options available. The eBay.com USA site has USPS shipping options available. This is important to know for shipping costs in a listing.
To figure out fees for a particular item listing, here is a third party fee calculator
http://www.newlifeauctions.com/calc.html
eBay also has a fee calculator but it does not have PayPal fees in it.
Now you do not want to use the above calculator for every item. Use it to learn different "what if" scenarios as practice or for reference later when you get confused on the fees after the fact when a listed is sold. But you really want a quicker way to figure out the fees to be able to price an item.
For PayPal, the fee is $0.30 + 2.9% so use 3%.
eBay fees range from 7% to 13% depending on non-store versus store account, type of eBay listing (Fixed Price versus auction) and eBay category as well as lower FVF rates for amounts over $50. It seems complicated but it is simple one you get the hang of it. See the fees links above for details.
As a rule of thumb use the maximum category 13% for eBay fees. For a total eBay and PayPal rule of thumb, use 16% (13% + 3%).
The amount being charged final value fees (FVFs) is the final selling price of the item plus the shipping cost. If you charge sales taxes for Canadian buyers, no eBay fee applies to the sales tax but PayPal fees does apply the total transaction amount since it includes the sales tax.
PayPal is a payment processor and looks at the total amount of the PayPal payment transaction and has no knowledge of what the breakdown is. Just like a bank debit car or a credit card when you use it to buy items in a store in a mall or wherever.
One important fee may apply after the fees are paid into your PayPal account. This is a currency exchange fee. If you list in US $$, then this will be deposited in your PayPal account as US $$. If you want access to it, you need to convert it to CAN $$. The conversion fee is 2.5% to convert it to Can $$. If you list in Can $$ on eBay, then you have your sales deposited in Can $$ and there is no conversion fee.
So if you list in US $, then a rough guesstimate is PayPal + eBay + conversion for 3% + 13% + 2.5% for a total of 18.5%. Many sellers listing in US currency just use 20% as it is an easy calculation.
Now since you have a non-store account and should use the 50 insertion fee free auctions to start with, you might want to start with the non-store auction FVF rate of a flat 9%. So you can use 12% (3% PP + 9% eBay) for listing in CAN $$ and 15% (3% PP + 9% eBay + 2.5% Conversion) for listing in US $$.
I hope I did not lose you in this discussion. You may have to read it a few times to get the details. I think my explanation would be easier to understand than reading the rather dry eBay fee help pages. Do read the fee pages often to thoroughly understand them. Read then again a few more times over the months after selling an item to see how you were charged and why.
One fee that is not well documented on eBay help pages is the shipping FVF calculation. Without getting into details on this, it is not a simple FVF rate. Some special rules are applied to minimize the amount charged by eBay. It is less than the FVF rate charged on the item price sometimes. I leave that to another post.
PS As for figuring out shipping costs there is a little more involved in doing that. Again I leave that to another discussion.
PS If you do an advanced search of these forums using my eBay id and restrict it to the current year, you will find some of my other long (sorry!) detailed discussion on fees, shipping FVF, discount postage, Canada Post, eBay site preferences, search and listing ideas, etcetera. read the complete topic posts from other posters as additional information is there from their experience. Take all information as is and learn from them. Ask questions on what you do not understand. Someone here may be able to help.
Always remember that free advice is worth what you pay for it ... 🙂
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