The world of buying and selling pivots on the axis of profit. You need to buy your products at a price you're happy with. This helps you sell at a price which will generate profit. When you're selling online though, there are other things to take into consideration. How much will it cost you to list the item? What fees will you be hit with when someone buys your products? How can you ensure you actually make a profit instead of a dreaded loss? In this post we're going to look at how to work out eBay and PayPal fees and how you can cut those fees down.
eBay and PayPal Fees
Figuring out eBay and Paypal fees can be tricky if you try to do it without a little bit of help. The fees can vary because of different factors. As a standard example, let's work out what you would pay for selling something on eBay and taking payment via PayPal. For this example, you sell an item for £100. This means we can easily work out the percentages. On a normal day, eBay take 10% of the final selling price for their fee. That means they'd get £10 from your £100 sale. PayPal take a 3.2% fee for checking out via their system. That's £3.20. This means on a normal day, without taking other factors into consideration, you'd be charged £13.20 in eBay and PayPal fees for a sale of £100.
Consider that there are different charges for using eBay if you are registered as an eBay shop. Think about the fact that figuring out the total amount of potential profit has to include shopping charges and listing prices. When you do all of that, wouldn't it just be super easy to have a website where you can input your details and discover how much you're going to be charged? I've got some good news to tell you. There is a way to easily figure out how much profit you're making, taking into account eBay and PayPal fees. Websites like Final Fee Calc lets you input your numbers and it essentially spits out a figure for you. It's so easy!
The Full Figures
Different websites which help you with your fees have different amount of detail you can input. One the website we've mentioned you can input the sold price, the shipping charge and the shipping cost pad by the customer. As well as this the item cost that you initially paid for it, be it from wholesale or wherever. Finally where you have a eBay basic shop subscription or not. This reduces the eBay fee from 10% to 8%. Giving you, in our example above, an extra £2 profit.
On other fee calculating websites you can detail whether you're a top rated seller which means you pay less fees to eBay. You can input if you've promoted the listing which changes your fees or if the sale is overseas, which changes PayPal fees. Find a fee website which works for you, the products you're selling and how you're selling them in order to get most from this help.
What Is Your Wage?
Have you worked out how much you're earning for the hours you put in? Let's say you sell an item at a £50 profit. It takes you two hours in total to complete the transaction from beginning to end. That's £25 an hour. Many people don't see or consider these parts of selling on eBay as work.
Don't forget that buying products, listing on eBay, packaging boxes up, printing out labels, going to the post office is all time. It's also fuel in the car if you have to drive to the post office. The post office isn't always the cheapest for posting. If that's the case, find a decent priced courier who will also collect from you. That means one less thing on your plate and you can continue working as you wait for the knock on the door. You need to work out the wage you are earning from the time you are putting into things.
How Can You Save Money On Fees?
There are ways to make savings on eBay fees. A lot of the time eBay will be running an opt-in promotion. This is where they reduce the percentage they take as a fee. Sometimes they have £1 fee weekends, which means that the maximum fee you will pay is only £1. This means you can save a lot of money. Especially if the usual 10% would be £10 of your final selling price. That's an extra £9 per sale which isn't worth saying no to. You should definitely take advantage of these promotions which can help add a little more bang to your bank account.
It's also worth noting that different categories also have different fees applying to them. For example, you don't get charged 10% for selling a motor vehicle. These specific categories have unique percentages which mean eBay still get a fee, but not 10% of a £3000 sale for a second hand car. For instance, it might be 1% instead.
You can always cut out PayPal fees by having sellers pay cash on collection. You'll still be charged you're eBay fee for using their site for selling through, however you won't be charged PayPal fees as they're not checking out in that manner.
What Are You Waiting For?
As you can see, there are some great ways that you can not only figure out your eBay and PayPal fees, but also cut back on those fees. So what's the next step and how do you start selling?
Find the items you want to sell on eBay, figure out the price you want to sell it for to give yourself a decent profit and start the process. Wait for those cheaper promotions to make more profit from your sales. Selling on eBay isn't for everyone but if you're ever considering even just listing some things you no longer want in your house, it's a worth having the knowledge. Know how to figure out those eBay and PayPal fees that you'd be faced with and you're laughing.