Problems with fees?

[chicweb]

I'm trying to understand something... There's seem to be a big problem (or something I don't understand).

Item fees are supposed to be calculated on item + shipping.

Ok... but...

This customer did not pay 2,75$ (That's the lettermail price)... They paid 7,90 (shipping to the US)...

I don't complain, mind you.. I pay less fees... but will that be taken from our account later on?

What's going on here?

Also on another order:

Where is the shipping? 

Again, I don't complain, but some orders calculate the shipping (not the good one), some are not even taking it into account.

It's getting hard to do business like this and know exactly how much profit we are making when the fees are all over the place....

[marnotom! · Accepted solution]

For a sale to the US, you’d be charged FVF based on the item price, the buyer’s sales tax(es), and the lowest domestic shipping rate offered for the sale. If you offer free domestic shipping, you won’t be charged FVF on shipping, even if the item is being shipped to another country.

[chicweb]

Oh? The lowest domestic shipping rate ? Really? That's new info for me. It seem to be the case also for all international?

A very useful and interesting information. That would explain a lot.

[chicweb]

Question:

If you have calculated shipping domestic, it doesn't charge fees on shipping at all for international? That might be a problem.

Here is an example.

Domestic = Calculated shipping

International = Calculated shipping

This item was sold to the US

Here the buyer paid around 8$ shipping (calculated).

I just sold something similar in my own province with the same business policy all calculated shipping and see:

This would mean it hurt us more to sell in our own country than selling international using calculated shipping everywhere on an item.

[reallynicestamps]

The buyer pays for shipping.

Even with "free" shipping*" the seller's cost for shipping should  included in the selling price.

Which is cheaper? A $10 item with $5 shipping or a $15 item with Free Shipping?

Now for an overseas item, the seller probably should charge for shipping since we must use Parcel Rates ** which are higher than Letter Rates.

So that $15*** may have $10 shipping.

BUT

While the overseas customer will be charged $20 shipping  for their item, our fees are based on the domestic (Free Shipping) charges.

So we pay based on Free Domestic Shipping - which all buyers pay $5 for- while the overseas buyer is paying  that extra $10 for international shipping.

All it means is that no matter where we ship, we pay our fees based on the Domestic Shipping rate.

That includes shipping to Canada which costs us , say $12, to the USA which costs us $7****, or overseas, which costs us perhaps $20.

In terms of fees, sales to the USA cost us more than domestic or overseas, but only because eBay has a deal currently with Canada Post.


TL/DR - Shipping is complicated and hard to understand.


*Which I use for most domestic and US sales.

** Because we are exporting goods and there should be import fees involved for the buyer.

***$10 plus the seller's cost of $5 advertised as Free Shipping.

****We pay more for shipping to Canada than to the USA at the moment because eBay has a deal with Canada Post.

[chicweb]

Yes, but the problem is with calculated shipping.

I have domestic AND international calculated shipping setup on some items.

I pay fees on shipping in Canada. But I don't pay fees on shipping to the US.

Meaning: We pay fees selling in our own country but not selling elsewhere.

Not logical and might be a bug (in my account?)

[regs43]

---

@marnotom! wrote:

For a sale to the US, you’d be charged FVF based on the item price, the buyer’s sales tax(es), and the lowest domestic shipping rate offered for the sale. If you offer free domestic shipping, you won’t be charged FVF on shipping, even if the item is being shipped to another country.

---

If you ISSUE an invoice to a buyer it negates this rule, and u get charged fees based on whatever US shipping you enter. Thus I always avoid sending invoices and tell buyer the price in the ebay cart they see is correct if they see xx.xx

I have all my flate rate shipping rules set up that it should work 99.9% of the time

[recped]

eBay uses the LOWER of what the calculated shipping is for Canada (your location) or the shipping charged to an international buyer.

Doesn't happen as much anymore but I used to have higher shipping rates for Canada than I had for the USA. I still do but only when I'm shipping LP's where I actually charge less for shipping to the US than I do for shipping via Canada Post in Canada.

This will probably end soon because the USPS rates have gone up and the exchange rate is much less favourable that it was even just a year or two ago.

eBay has had this policy ever since fees on shipping were introduced in 2011(?), the reason is to encourage cross border trade. eBay has the same policy for US based sellers and maybe all eBay sites but I'm not 100% sure of that.

[ricarmic]

That is why I went to a free domestic shipping model (even though I sell stuff up to bankers box size) as soon as they introduced the rule that the fees are based on the lowest DOMESTIC shipping price - so I never pay fees on any shipping costs outside the domestic country (I sell on both .COM and .CA). If I had to guess, this has been the case for more than 15 years.

[chicweb]

Ok, but right now I don't pay fees at all on shipping for my US customers if I use calculated domestic.

[chicweb]

For this sale, the setting was:

- Domestic: Calculated Shipping

- International: Calculated Shipping

No fees on shipping at all. 

[chicweb]

I will tag devon@ebay  just in case there's a bug in my account. I know I was charged fees retroactively a few months ago because of a bug. Don't want it to happen again if possible.

Scenario:

- Two items setup identically for shipping with a business policy.

- Calculated shipping domestic. (Canada Post / UPS)

- Calculated shipping International.  (Canada Post / UPS / FedEx)

Item Sold in Canada with Canada Post:

Item Sold in US with Canada Post (Customer paid: 9,05$)

No shipping in the calculation at all.

Both bought the shipping label on eBay Labels.

I paid fees on shipping when sold in Canada, no fees when shipping to the US. I know it's weird to complain about less fees... but if I'm to be charged in 6 months or a year retroactively... I prefer not and make sure this is normal behavior.

[jtg204]

I don't offer free shipping, and have never noticed shipping included in the 'fees based on' totals for US buyers.  There is only the small 0.4% international fee added on.

All our shipping has been calculated shipping, and listings are on .CA

Handling fees are not included either when present.

This has been the case for Tracked Packet USA, Expedited Parcel USA, and UPS sent to US.

We also sent something to Australia via FedEx once for $250 (calculated shipping) in shipping, and the fees didn't include the shipping either.

I don't have any invoice requests from US buyers to check.

[reallynicestamps]

I went to a free domestic shipping model ... - so I never pay fees on any shipping costs outside the domestic country

Well, technically.

Since I assume you have some shipping cost buried in your asking prices, especially for those banker's boxes, you are paying shipping fees on that buried cost.

[chicweb]

Hmm, interesting. So it seems to be standard.

I just think it's weird that sellers are charged fees on Calculated shipping only when shipping within Canada.

In these days, it almost feels.... wrong. 

[ricarmic]

@reallynicestamps Good catch! Somebody had their math hat on today!!!

You are 100% correct.

I guess a more accurate statement would have been that I don't pay any fees on the additional shipping fees for non-domestic shipments.

Because I've always used flat rate shipping on both sites (even for the stuff up to bankers boxes), my usual style of shipping is:

.COM

USA shipping is free shipping

Canada shipping is free shipping 

International shipping costs extra $$$

.CA

Canada shipping is free shipping

USA shipping costs extra $$$$

International shipping cost extra $$$

As shipping costs have gotten more expensive over time, more low value material that I used to list on .COM is migrating to the .CA side because free shipping overinflates the cost to Canadians.