MooMooMooMoo

I sell a bit on ebay. They collect all funds & charge 17%. I accept that.

What I don't accept is they also collect sales tax for all 52 states, & I learned today they are charging me an extra 17% for the sales tax they collect.. Is that legal?

PhantomStranger

They exist more or less as a monopoly unless you count something like Facebook Marketplace. They will continue to operate like that until their revenue is threatened.

Josh-da-man

Credit card companies charge their fees on merchants who accept credit cards for sales tax, so, yeah, it's probably legal.

I've not sold anything on eBay for years, so how do the eBay fees, sales taxes, and shipping costs break down?

Say I have a $100 widget on eBay with $10 shipping and 8% sales tax...

The buyer will pay $118.80 ($100 widget, plus $10 shipping, and $8.80 sales tax on both the item and the shipping).

Ebay will then charge me, the seller, 17% on the total sale including sales tax and shipping which comes to $20.20, which comes out of my take of $110 (presuming eBay handles the sales tax). If shipping is exactly $10, then the I make $79.8 from the transaction?

Noonan

If you look at a sold listed you have, the tax is taken off the top before fees. Mine reads as:

Total to buyer (price, tax, shipping)

Minus Sales Tax (exactly what the customer paid)

Minus fees and shipping if you paid for a label with your funds

You're not losing anything from the taxes. eBay takes only what the customer paid on top of your selling price.

TheBang

This is not true. The eBay final value fees are calculated based on total sales price, sales tax included. That means when selling the exact same item for the exact same price to a buyer in California and to a buyer in Oregon, you will pay more eBay fees for the sale to California.

You need only Google "ebay charge fees on sales tax" to see the seller outrage. But, it's also listed on eBay's policy and information pages:

https://www.ebay.com/sellercenter/re...ax-information
Does eBay charge final value fees on the final amount including sales tax?
Final value fees are calculated on the total amount of the sale. Please refer to our fees pages for more information.

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fe...=4822#section2
This fee is calculated as a percentage of the total amount of the sale, plus $0.30 per order.
The total amount of the sale includes the item price, any handling charges, any shipping costs collected from the buyer (some exceptions apply), sales tax, and any other applicable fees.

Yes, your calculations are broadly correct. eBay final value fees can vary by category, and can be substantially less in some categories if you have a Store subscription. Also, for the shipping fee, you can include reasonable handling fees in there also, to cover incurred costs like shipping supplies and insurance.

Josh-da-man

On a related note, I was reading a recent facebook discussion where people were complaining about a certain local restaurant that was taking credit card fees out of their servers' tips.

So, if you went to this restaurant and paid the bill and a $10 tip with a credit card, the restaurant would hold the three percent card credit card fee out of the $10 tip, leaving them $9.70 or whatever.

fujishig

I thought this was going to be a thread about the almost nonexistent seller protections if the buyer claims damage/item not received as specified.

Noonan

Oof. I never bothered to math it out because the things I sell are always super inexpensive. That would be very annoying if I sold a lot or more expensive items. Can you limit your sales to users in states with no sales tax?

Troy Stiffler

I know I'm in a different area, because I sell on there for commercial purpose. And I opt into their automatic advertising system. Places like eBay take a lionshare of the profit. I have a love/hate relationship with them over the years. But I stopped feeding them so many listings, and been more careful about what I allow on there. There's a point where they can't keep taking and taking and expect a company to still profit. The only reason they're still getting people to sell, is that they have a monopoly on thrift/used goods, and those goods do have a pretty good markup. But like Uber etc, if you don't watch your costs, you'll be their slave, and not make a penny profit.

Sold Price: $948.82
Ebay Fee: -$124.51
Advertising Fee: -$125.72
Total: $698.59

This product, on the second hand market, cost me approximately $600. So I make $98, and eBay made $250. I do it, because it is necessary because eBay has a monopoly. They have become more and more predatory.

That same item is about 5% cheaper on my website. I pay Google Ads a similarly high, but not nearly as high amount. If I had to put a number on it, if that person had purchased on my website, I would have cleared an extra $150+.

Troy Stiffler

I should add that there are so many people out there who "think" they're going to make money on eBay. So they're buy second-hand product, list it, and till they have some unsold product, pay fees, deal with returns, lost items here-and-there, they'll often end up moving a bunch of money, and being in credit card debt. I've been doing this for 20+ years now. If a young person or someone looking for a "side-hustle" asked me if it's worth it, I'd tell them no.

zyzzle

That is so screwed up, I don't even know what to say.

Thankfully, I stopped selling on Ebay more than a decade ago, before the sales tax monopoly got started. I never paid a cent of tax on Ebay as either a buyer or a seller. At least I got out before that extra 10% cut ate its way into the mold.

I just can't understand why so many people continue to take the abuse which Ebay metes out. Evil at its worst, beyond merely predatory and terrible business practices. At this point, the company deserves to be nuked out of orbit.

Josh-da-man

eBay has been around for over twenty-five years, long enough to build up a good reputation in early frontier days of the internet, and its system is generally trusted by buyers, so you're going to get a lot more eyes on what you're selling than you will from other venues like Craigslist, Etsy, Amazon Marketplace, or Facebook Marketplace.

From a buyer's standpoint, Craigslist and Facebook are kind of impenetrable and difficult to use. Etsy seems like it's mostly women selling homemade jewelry and tie-dyed scarves. Amazon Marketplace is so full of scammers and bootlegs that most sensible people will stay away from it, never mind that's not immediately clear who you're buying from in any given transaction. And then there's eBay, with an easy-to-use search feature, clear seller ratings, and photos of the exact thing you're looking at.

Meathead

I do buy stuff off of Amazon Marketplace but only if it's fulfilled/shipped by Amazon. Amazon steps in if there is an issue with the item.

orangerunner

Just curious if the "Advertising Fee" is an optional extra to increase exposure? If so, could the item have just as easily sold for $948.82 without that option?

TheBang

Yes, it's entirely optional. When you look at eBay search results, you'll see a number of "Sponsored" listings at the top. The Advertising fee gives you placement there. You can control if you promote your listing, and if so, how much. You can promote at a rate you designate (minimum 2%, I think), or choose to have eBay automatically assign the "suggested" rate. On most of my current listings, most of them are suggested at about 10%. I have used promoted listings sparingly in my sales, and I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference these days. It might on a highly commoditized item where you have to stand out from all the other listings.

Troy Stiffler

It's optional. In the same sense, all companies could stop advertising with the big guys and see what happens. It's not really an option to ignore basic promotional services in ecommerce (eBay, Amazon, Google, Bing).

rduncan

After seeing, mostly sellers, complain here about eBay I wanted to post a slightly off-topic comment. I ordered, yes I'm a buyer, a set of inexpensive Tasco Binoculars ($18 new all-in). When I finally received them, USPS took their time but some delay was initially time from printing label to actually delivery to PO, they were a different model than pictured. Initially I was going to start a return but figured the small seller would have to eat a bunch of costs, including return postage (even if discounted) AND what I received were new and apparently a more expensive model. Still not what I was expecting.

So, if nothing else seller "rants" made an impression on me and I decided to post positive feedback outlining the differences and keep the item. Hopefully, it will allow the seller to keep at least a few bucks on the sale.

orangerunner

With eBay, I guess it depends on what you're selling.

As mentioned, maybe more common items need the additional exposure to stand-out. In the case of rare collectibles I find the buyers who are on the look-out for a certain item will already use key words to alert them when an item becomes available making any expensive optional exposure somewhat unnecessary.

That's always been the conundrum as to knowing how much is too much marketing or how much is not enough to get that maximum return.