The facts are spelled out for you on eBay’s Seller Fees page.
Here’s what it’s really like;
The Bottom Line is: I just sold a Tonka for $18.49 and I received $13.96
It’s April first but this is not a joke.
The final sales price of my Tonka was $18.49. The buyer also paid for a calculated shipping charge. Here’s how it broke down for me:
- $18.49 Sales price of item
- $ 9.98 Shipping price paid by buyer.
- ==========
- $28.47 Buyer paid
- ($ 1.13) PayPal fee
- ==========
- $27.34 Money received
- ($10.67) Actual shipping cost
- ===========
- $16.67 Payment Held (see previous article) Money Received
- $16.67 Received.
- ($ 1.66) eBay Final Value fee
- ($ .90) eBay Final Value fee – Shipping
- ($ .15) Extra photo – to be more accurate
- ($ .00) Free listing fee this month.
- ===========
- $13.96 Total money received for Tonka.
Add use of my vehicle costs to drive into town to pick up boxes from behind a local store and the cost of packing noodles I ordered from Amazon and the half hour time to take a photograph and make the listing and the printer ink and paper and packing tape and …. What did it cost to get rid of that truck on eBay? …Wait a minute did I say that correctly? “Cost” me to sell?
The overhead is extreme. Consider if you already owned a digital camera, a computer, empty boxes, packing material, packing tape, a printer, paper, plenty of time and electricity… you could earn close to 75% of your sales. If you don’t have a free supply of computer equipment and packing materials and time on your hands then you will have to sell approximately sixty $18 items to break even ~ That’s assuming you don’t have to pay a penny to deliver them to the Post Office.
I guess if you order all these things from Amazon.com