"From the Sellers Point of View." Topic

We hear a lot about the customers view of their transactions. However, from a sellers point, there are "hidden" costs.
Using the universal unit of currency the hamburger, to put up a sale of say 50 hamburgers worth of goods, eBay would take about 1 burger, postage is about 7 burgers, PayPal takes 2 burgers, I suppose about 25%.
When I used to sell through a shop, the government would take its share and then the shop would take their share- less about 35% of the final sale.
This is assuming post is OS and good are sold as Post "free".

Sad. True. And well known to experienced sellers like you and I.

So I avoid Ebay, Paypal and similar blood-sucking parasites whenever I can, mark the goods up to compensate for their gouging when I must, charge my customers for postage at cost. No big deal. No tears.

Some junk can't be profitably sold under current market conditions. Sometimes I give it away. Sometimes it goes to the landfill. It's just stuff.

Using the universal unit of currency the hamburger, to put up a sale of say 50 hamburgers worth of goods, eBay would take about 1 burger, postage is about 7 burgers, PayPal takes 2 burgers, I suppose about 25%.

Ebay takes closer to 4 burgers than 1 in that example, and the customer pays postage more often than not.

When I used to sell through a shop, the government would take its share and then the shop would take their share- less about 35% of the final sale.

Better than I recall from my FLGS time. After all expenses (payroll, utilities, rent, taxes, supplies) clearing a 25% profit per sale was about average. A lot depended on the discounts you were getting from the distributors and giving to your customers to remain competitive.

So I avoid Ebay, Paypal and similar blood-sucking parasites whenever I can

Ebay's worth every penny of their fees for the exposure it gets my stuff, but then I'm painting service more than anything else these days. I'd prefer if they didn't charge me part of the cut on US shipping, but the number of cheats scamming the system by setting ridiculous shipping on 99 cent auctions made that inevitable. Haven't had any complaints about passing along the extra bite on postage, which is charged at my cost as it always was – but ebay has added directly to that cost now.

Rich, anybody who takes more than 2% on a transaction is gouging. My old Daddy taught me that, at the same time he told me not to anger the people who serve my food.

Ebay takes their 4% or 7% or whatever it comes to on the sale. Then they also insist you use Paypal, which they own, who take another 5%. They end up with 10-12% of the transaction. That's just outrageous.

By all means, use Ebay if the numbers work for you. I stand by my characterization of them: blood-sucking parasites. Bedbugs.

If you make a living from it,that's one thing.I'm glad you said it,though-its just stuff,and thats forgotten,alot of the time.

I thought Paypal took around 2%?

Thanks,

John

I must admit as a seller I'm more nervous about goods arriving safely, than when I am a buyer.
I do appreciate buyers who make the effort to leave trusted seller feedback when appropriate. Really never use to give it much thought in the past.
Being a consumer makes you a better seller, and vice versa.

About three years ago Paypal forced me to 'upgrade' my account to Professional level. They said I was making too many transactions to keep my amateur status. Since then they have consistently taken about 5% of every payment I have received that was declared by the sender as being for goods or services, whether or not I invoiced the sender.

I was recently advised that Paypal would not charge anything for a Personal funds transfer. I tried that as a sender, and it seemed to work for me. However, a customer tells me that he was charged when he sent me a payment in this mode.

That's my hands-on experience.

I thought Paypal took around 2%?

A bit under 4% these days, actually. Ebay takes about 8%. Works out to about 11-12% of the overall transaction, a bit less for overseas sales (which don't get nicked for closing fees on shipping). Reasonable for some businesses, pointless for others. Zippy's obviously in the latter category, I'm in the first. I couldn't begin to reach such a large audience for such a small cut, and every listing I have on ebay helps to generate future commission jobs, which ebay doesn't see a penny of.

About three years ago Paypal forced me to 'upgrade' my account to Professional level. They said I was making too many transactions to keep my amateur status. Since then they have consistently taken about 5% of every payment I have received that was declared by the sender as being for goods or services, whether or not I invoiced the sender.

If you're doing that much business online, why are you taking Paypal at all? You should have an account and the equipment to run credit cards at that volume, at which point PayPal's primary utility vanishes. You'd lose some sales to people who (like myself) use only Paypal for online shopping, but I doubt that'd be a significant hit.

Of course, you'll pay fees to credit card companies as well. Doesn't sound like you're happy paying anything for that kind of service, but there's no solution for that.

Sorry to say everyone, but for stores Ebay takes 11% plus 11% of the US shipping.

I'm told that Paypal in the UK takes its cut from both sides of the transaction.

Ebay's worth every penny of their fees for the exposure it gets my stuff, but then I'm painting service more than anything else these days.

Seems to me Ebay is worth it if you can take advantage of the marketing effect of being on Ebay. Ebay's percentage should be offset by the fact that two of the three guys in the world interested in your Bavarian Kettledrummers got in a bidding war and drove up the price. If you're just trying to shift last year's impulse purchases or sell GW at a 20% discount then maybe it's not so good.

Rich

Let me see…

The biggest cut is the government: they take 21% of every transaction, in taxes. Then, for payments made with credit or debit cards, we must take another 0,8% off. Paypal, Ebay and cia would take around 8%. If we don't make any discount the average is 25-30% of the transaction, although with some products (Battlefront) can be a little better (they make a standard 40% margin), and for GW it would be worst (15-20%) as everybody expect the product being in discount and therefore you can't sell it without taking a huge bite of your potential benefits (that's why many small shops are stopping to sell GW products).

Paypal offers security, reporting tools, 24/7 help, stock control, label printing, delivery note tools, and various other things my business bank does not.

These tools make running the business much easier than having to collate all that data myself.

I am very happy with PayPal.

Paypal also does not charge me £5.00 GBP for sending money overseas, my bank does.

"If you're doing that much business online, why are you taking Paypal at all? You should have an account and the equipment to run credit cards at that volume, at which point PayPal's primary utility vanishes."

I'm not running a business Rich, just flogging off a few surplus items from the collection. I probably average 3 or 4 sales a year. At the time Paypal 'upgraded' me, I had gotten industrious and put a batch of about a dozen auctions up on Ebay. I won't do that again.

In the UK ebay takes 10% of the final fee of the item but doesn't include the shipping price as well (not yet anyhow)

Paypal takes 20p +% of each transaction which changes depending on how much you put through your account every month.

I also find that customers sometimes (not always) forget the fact that postage costs include packaging materials, and time taken out of the day to package/print labels and possibly run to the post office.

Paypal takes something like 3.4% of the total transaction, plus 20p transaction charge. Which isn't too bad. That's what it takes from me anyway.

I don't mind paying for the exposure that ebay gives me, nor do I mind the paypal fees. I've only had to dispute a transaction one time and they got me my money back within their stated time frame. Without that, I am sure I would still be out my money and not have the product.

While I appreciate the concerns of the vendors as stated above, is it OK to mention that the majority of complaints on this board are not about shipping and transaction fees? The majority of complaints deal with poor service and poor communication.

For the record, I don't mind the expense of Ebay (I rarely buy from them) or Paypal (use all the time) any more than the fees for credit card transactions. It the price of convenience.