Question
What are others doing to save money on eBay and PayPal fees? I am sellling relatively expensive items. My average sale price per item is 800-900 dollars, with some items topping $3000. My combined eBay/PayPal fees are around 6%. On a $3000 dollar sale that is a lot of money. Some of my items are sold with a Buy It Now, others are auctions. Is there anything that can be done to save on Ebay fees and PayPal fees, or do I just consider it the cost of doing business and focus on other costs?
Answer
Maintain an on-line store and move repeat buyers off eBay.
Answer
I dont really have repeat buyers with my products. How does a store save on eBay/PayPal fees?
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You can't really. Same as a BM retailer has to pay those Credit Card fees and rent for his store. No getting around it, especially if you don't have a lot of repeat buyers.
Jill
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OK, and I am OK with that. It is just the cost of doing business, and I don't need to worry about trying to get a better deal. My time will be better spent on other issues as long as I know there is no other way. I have noticed that getting a merchant account and accepting credit cards saves a few points, but only after you reach a pretty high volume, otherwise it is about the same or more, once you add in all the other little gotchas that CC companies do. Thanks
Answer
if you are at 6% you are doing really well...
a store is 2 or 3 cents to list an item vs the 4 or 5 dollars you are spending to list it with bin, but it is 8% final value fee, so they get you coming and going...
my advice, stop fussing over it, it is the cost of doing business.
Be grateful you are doing so well, and go find some more stuff to list, it might not be so good next year.....
who knows what online sales will do, they move and mutate so fast.
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My figure is up above 20% because I sell low $ items.
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8% Final Value fee would kill me when added to the 3% paypal fee. On a $3000 sale my ebay/paypal cost would be
$330! My cost now is at approx 3% ebay and 3% paypal for a total of about 6%. This because I sell high ticket items, that my % is relatively low.
Is that how a store works? Cheaper listing fee, but higher FVF?
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yep, that is how it works now, cheap listing fee, which means you can park a really high end itme cheap, but they make 8% when you sell it....
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Some people list on foreign sites with lower fees. I've seen this done for store items.