If I'm buying on ebay, I'm not sure I would want to make a transaction outside of ebay anyways...

We hate eBay, and try to give buyers better deals off our website, but eBay does generate sales for us so it is still necessary...for now.

Seems like they've really been cracking down recently. I got a warning about this a few months back for simply asking a seller if he could email me some higher def pics of an item that ebays messaging would apparently not handle.

PayPal won't let us accept payments over $15k ( said they preferred not to). On the other side eBay has blocked all of our business information in our ads, so now customers have no way to contact us. It's a really shitty situation especially considering the fact that we are one of the top 1% of sellers on eBay. It always amazes me how they can seem to turn their core business away.

I can't even begin to tell you all the issues we have had with eBay over the years about stupid BS they tend to do. I know the majority of my friends that sold on eBay in the past are long gone as far as selling on eBay. We still use 5 of our 8 eBay user names but are selling less than 10% of what we did on eBay at our peak because of all the stupid BS they pull.

With all of that said sadly eBay does have a huge audience so they are still a necessary evil for us and most high volume sellers. But Craig's List, Amazon, personal website, Facebook, etc are becoming better places to sell every day and if eBay keeps it up I think sometime in the not too distant future they will be headed down the same path a Radio Shack, Sears, and other giants from the past.

I could fill a book about stuff with Ebay, Paypal, Amazon, Buy.com, etc...

Id rather say, I hate the fashion commercial, that promotes impulse buying of overpriced products for the ladies, simply because they can see it, find it, and buy it, without any thought.....
Same thing if it was targeted for men.....

Happiness doesnt come from clicking three times and getting heels from China.....

Read that in a fortune cookie!

The problem we have is eBay applying blanket solutions to all of their users. Are cheapest item is $5k, but they apply policies to us like we are selling a $5 widget. We sell a lot on our own website, but does anyone have any experience with amazon for high dollar sales (average is roughly $25k)? There is no one else selling our products on amazon, so I always figured there was a reason why. Unfortunately most of the quick and easy sales sites don't account for sellers like ourselves.

Hmm.....what's Ebay ??

John

If I am willing to sell an item for $100, I am going to charge you at least $111 to cover the eBay fees. The reason you would want to complete a transaction outside of eBay is because you will get a better deal. There is no reason to complete a transaction through eBay if the item is a pinball machine and you plan to pick it up in person.

Ebay is getting ridiculous. I've been selling there for 17 years with 15,000 transactions for over 350K in sales. I have paid them and Paypal over 25K in fees over the years. Yet I recently listed a Vector plastics set and put the matching playfield on Pinside. (some eBay idiots never read "local pickup only" or disregard it) When I got an email on their site about the plastics, I asked if was he was on Pinside. Sent his contact info. Buyer bought both. Ended the listing and received a warning for selling outside eBay. Back in the day I could email a losing bidder and sell him a similar item. Now eBay will try to kick you to the curb for selling a $29 item they lost $2.32 in fees. Total crap.

Ebay is a good place for knick knacks and lower priced Chinese made crap. Amazon is killing them.

And that's a thread for another day. Amazon is killing EVERYBODY.

I got a warning the other day from them because someone contacted me wanting to sell me a playfield from their parents estate. He saw I sold pinball parts on ebay and was headed past my house heading from NC up to his parents home they are clearing out and thought if I wanted it he could drop it to me on his way past on I-81. Nothing ever listed on eBay & trying to just do someone a favor and I get BS about it. Between our 6 or 8 eBay users we have in excess of 50,000 feedbacks, have paid eBay over $100k in fees and still the BS?

95% of the people I have known that have sold on eBay are long gone and eBay wonders why! 10% fees on not only item sold but on shipping? They make it had for people to combine shipping when buyers buy items one at a time & eBay charges me full fees on shipping as if I was not shipping combined - etc. In an average money I give eBay about $25 to $40 in fees on shipping I refund to customers and they worry I might be buying or selling something for a few dollars without them getting their money?

There is no reason eBay should charge a 10% fee on the actual shipping amount. You basically have to ship through them and they know what you are charged for shipping. Despite this, they still charge a commission in an attempt to make sure that people don't attempt to sell an item for 1 cent and charge $99.99 for shipping. eBay absolutely sucks, yet no one has been able to successfully clone their business model.

I know exactly why their fees include shipping but what gets under my skin is I always offer combined shipping (or refund excess shipping) if I can ship in a regional rate box instead of Medium Flat Rate to save my customers money and eBay still charges me on FULL shipping amount regardless of what buyer pays me for shipping.

So for example - if you buy an item from me with Medium flat rate quoted I pay about $1.30 to eBay for 10% of shipping. Now I find out you live in our postal zone and I can ship that item in an "A" size regional rate box for $6.50. My fees on shipping should be 65 cents and yet eBay still nails me for the $1.30. It doesn't sound like a big deal but my weekly average of "excess shipping paid" is over $25 a week (or over $100 a month). Talk about getting screwed coming & going! And eBay is slick because they don't offer regional rate shipping as a way to ship.

Now they are worried about the $5 or $10 a month in sales I might have off eBay and want a percentage of that. It might just be time to do what most people I know have done and walk away from eBay and do just Craig's List, Facebook, Amazon, and our website. I know it will cost me some in sales but it will save me over $400 a month in eBay fees so maybe the math will work out just as well?

This is how you can reduce selling fees on eBay. 1st you must reach top seller status. You must ship quickly without negative feedback. This will earn you a 10% discount. Get a paypal MasterCard debit card. Use it to pay your eBay fees as a credit card. 1% back. The standard 8% selling fee goes to 7.2% with your seller discount and falls to 6.2% when you pay as a credit card using the paypal MasterCard. Depending on your volume it adds up!

Thanks for summarizing, ForceFlow - I've seen several emails about a change but I haven't had the time to open them yet. I've tried to make my listings there reference my product by brand name (kahr.us circuits) and the off-site links go to a youtube video and the technical discussion on my web site. You could easily get to the sales page on my site from those, but it's not direct... hopefully it's enough because some folks find my WPC Power Fix, Pinball 2000 H+V video sync combiner, and Wiliams sound board potentiometer solutions through the listings... and yes some folks buy off of eBay.

BTW, the problem is bigger than just eBay. If you list properties through VRBO, you are getting same treatment - their goal is no contact except through the VRBO website until after the rental period is completed. Greed is everywhere.

-Rob
-visit http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Pinball 2000 H+V video sync combiner kit

Very helpful. Thanks for this.

Ok so if you sell a $100 item your seller fee is 8% or $8. If you pay your seller fee with PayPal MasterCard they take 1% off the $100?! I thought they would take 1% off the $8 or 8 cents. If they take it off the $100 then your fee is on 7.2% about which is great. If it off the $8 then about 7.99% still.

Here is what I am going to do if I ever get charged eBay fees for an off-ebay sale.....

The eBay user agreement requires disputes be settled by arbitration. ebay.com link: policies

As part of the arbitration agreement, eBay agrees to pay the arbitration fees, which from my understanding are about $1,000. Yes, you read that right....$1,000. If eBay charges you fees for an off-ebay transaction, dispute it in writing, as required by the User Agreement. Tell eBay that you want to take the matter to arbitration. According to the User Agreement, "If the value of the relief sought is $10,000 or less, at your request, eBay will pay all filing, administration, and arbitrator fees associated with the arbitration." Once they see this, eBay will immediately return the final value fees that you were assessed. This has worked flawlessly with numerous other companies that require arbitration in their terms and conditions.

You can thank me later.

Brilliant

Kinda sucks since you can't ask proper and detailed questions about a machine you're looking to purchase without talking on the phone alot of times or getting more pictures.

Bury them in their own bureaucracy....love it!!

Annnd you will only do this a couple of times before they kick you to the curb. But if you are OK with that, I say do it! lol

Then they are going against their own user agreement...lol

When they agree to give you the fees back, insist that they sign an agreement that this matter will in no way affect your account. If they refuse to sign such an agreement, insist on arbitration. They will want you to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so you can insist on any language that you want in the agreement.

No. If you sell a $100 item your fee is $8.00. If you have top seller status it's 10% less $7.20. Pay as a credit card with a Paypal MasterCard you get 1% back at the end of the month, another 72 cents. Total cost (not including paypal fees) is $6.48. Savings is $1.52. On $5,000 in monthly sales that's $76.00 savings.

I think 1 % of $7.20 is not 72 cents but 7.2 cents. So your savings is not quite as good as you think.

I just hate that paypal now files a 1099 on sellers with the IRS and has been since 2015. Got a nice letter from the IRS about it the other day...

yes, remember your credit card only gives you 1% of what you were charged. In this case, your ebay fee is what you are charged. 1% of 7.20 is only .07 cents.

Regardless of how you do the math eBay & Paypal get about 20% of every transaction if you are selling and shipping typical items with an average value of $10 to $50. I have been selling on eBay for almost 20 years and they keep changing "the game" but the bottom line is my selling cost has always averaged about 20.5 to 21.7% of my gross sales once all fees are taken out.

I don't really mind giving eBay 20% because most venues you sell at (shows, retail store, other online sites, and even your own web site end up costing you about the same in the end if you consider all associated expenses). What gets under my skin with eBay is their constant changes & them trying to micro manage my business. Every time I turn around I get an email "we are changing this or that effective such & such date to make eBay a "better experience" for our customers". We have been with Amazon just as long as eBay and from memory I think they have made two major changes in like 18 years.

Not being able to communicate with my customers is going to be a huge problem that might be the final straw that forces me to move all my selling activity to other sites. Maybe it is time for Pinside to start thinking about a "parts for sale" venue. I would prefer giving Robin my 10% over giving it to eBay. Most of my non pinball parts business has already been moved from eBay to other venues - it would be nice to have a good venue for a large volume of used pinball machine parts somewhere.

.07 cents is 7/100 of a cent.

You mean 7 cents, or $0.07!

Sorry, I try to avoid correcting, but I can't resist correcting a correction!