Ebay Question Once Again 3 3

[Math Teacher]

I need someone smarter than me to explain this spreadsheet to me in regard to Ebay fees.

Column 1 was the selling price for an item.
Column 2 was the amount Ebay collected from the buyer, which, to my understanding, means the selling price plus the shipping cost.
Column 3 was the amount Ebay charged for seller fees.
Column 4 was the amount I had to spend for postage.
Column 5 was my net amount earned (Ebay collected from buyer – Ebay fees – Postage).
Column 6 was the percent of the selling price I netted (Net amount ÷ Selling price)
Column 7 was the percent of the Ebay fees (Ebay fees ÷ Amount Ebay collected from buyer).

The rows in red are CDs that I sold; all other rows represent comic books sales.

Here's my first question. The items in both Row 1 and Row 2 had the same selling price and Ebay collected the same amount of money from the buyer. Yet, somehow, the fees that Ebay charged are different. How can that be?

Also, as I understand it, the fee charge for selling comic books is 12.55% plus a $0.30 transaction fee. The fee charge for selling CDs is 14.55%, plus, I assume, a $0.30 transaction fee. Ebay also charges 9% of the shipping fee. So, if you notice, the Ebay fee percentage varies from 13.8% for a $20 item to 28.1% for a $1.99 item. I am also having trouble understanding that.

Last of all, if you look at Row 5, I actually lost money selling a CD for $1.99. That seems wrong to me.

It seems to me that I could a little more money (not much by any stretch of the imagination) by shipping my items using Pirate Ship rather than Ebay.

Look, I'm not stupid. I have taught college level PreCalculus, Calculus, and Statistics. However, these charges just don't make sense to me

I don't know if any of you sell items on Ebay. If you do, could you please help me understand the variance of these sales?

[PopKulture]

Just do what most of my list of "saved sellers" have done: stop selling on eBay. Unless you're a big volume seller, the hassle has now surpassed the utility. I had some things I just gave away recently as opposed to the hassle of selling on there and making sure I'm ready for my shiny new 1099.

[WolverineX]

On 8/11/2021 at 6:40 PM, Math Teacher said:

I need someone smarter than me to explain this spreadsheet to me in regard to Ebay fees.

Column 1 was the selling price for an item.
Column 2 was the amount Ebay collected from the buyer, which, to my understanding, means the selling price plus the shipping cost.
Column 3 was the amount Ebay charged for seller fees.
Column 4 was the amount I had to spend for postage.
Column 5 was my net amount earned (Ebay collected from buyer – Ebay fees – Postage).
Column 6 was the percent of the selling price I netted (Net amount ÷ Selling price)
Column 7 was the percent of the Ebay fees (Ebay fees ÷ Amount Ebay collected from buyer).

 

The rows in red are CDs that I sold; all other rows represent comic books sales.

Here's my first question. The items in both Row 1 and Row 2 had the same selling price and Ebay collected the same amount of money from the buyer. Yet, somehow, the fees that Ebay charged are different. How can that be?

Also, as I understand it, the fee charge for selling comic books is 12.55% plus a $0.30 transaction fee. The fee charge for selling CDs is 14.55%, plus, I assume, a $0.30 transaction fee. Ebay also charges 9% of the shipping fee. So, if you notice, the Ebay fee percentage varies from 13.8% for a $20 item to 28.1% for a $1.99 item. I am also having trouble understanding that.

Last of all, if you look at Row 5, I actually lost money selling a CD for $1.99. That seems wrong to me.

It seems to me that I could a little more money (not much by any stretch of the imagination) by shipping my items using Pirate Ship rather than Ebay.

Look, I'm not stupid. I have taught college level PreCalculus, Calculus, and Statistics. However, these charges just don't make sense to me

I don't know if any of you sell items on Ebay. If you do, could you please help me understand the variance of these sales?

 

 

Low dollar items will lose you money on ebay.  Please don't sell on that platform.  Maybe offerup or facebook instead

[thehumantorch]

On 8/11/2021 at 4:40 PM, Math Teacher said:

I need someone smarter than me to explain this spreadsheet to me in regard to Ebay fees.

Column 1 was the selling price for an item.
Column 2 was the amount Ebay collected from the buyer, which, to my understanding, means the selling price plus the shipping cost.
Column 3 was the amount Ebay charged for seller fees.
Column 4 was the amount I had to spend for postage.
Column 5 was my net amount earned (Ebay collected from buyer – Ebay fees – Postage).
Column 6 was the percent of the selling price I netted (Net amount ÷ Selling price)
Column 7 was the percent of the Ebay fees (Ebay fees ÷ Amount Ebay collected from buyer).

 

The rows in red are CDs that I sold; all other rows represent comic books sales.

Here's my first question. The items in both Row 1 and Row 2 had the same selling price and Ebay collected the same amount of money from the buyer. Yet, somehow, the fees that Ebay charged are different. How can that be?

Also, as I understand it, the fee charge for selling comic books is 12.55% plus a $0.30 transaction fee. The fee charge for selling CDs is 14.55%, plus, I assume, a $0.30 transaction fee. Ebay also charges 9% of the shipping fee. So, if you notice, the Ebay fee percentage varies from 13.8% for a $20 item to 28.1% for a $1.99 item. I am also having trouble understanding that.

Last of all, if you look at Row 5, I actually lost money selling a CD for $1.99. That seems wrong to me.

It seems to me that I could a little more money (not much by any stretch of the imagination) by shipping my items using Pirate Ship rather than Ebay.

Look, I'm not stupid. I have taught college level PreCalculus, Calculus, and Statistics. However, these charges just don't make sense to me

I don't know if any of you sell items on Ebay. If you do, could you please help me understand the variance of these sales?

 

 

I'm pretty good at math but math isn't the issue.

When selling try to think like the buyer and try to think like the people who run the platform you're using.  

Buyers factor in shipping cost, every time.  A low value item has virtually no value to the buyer if he has to pay shipping that costs multiples of the item's value.  That's why your CD sold so cheap.  Now if your low value item has low demand BUT it's difficult to find you might be able to sell it for $10 or $20 or whatever as a BIN to that one buyer who really wants it.  As an auction he'll still get it cheap because nobody will bid against him.

The corporation who runs ebay doesn't really want low value items sold on their site.  Making 5% of a $1.99 sale just doesn't make them any money.  They're gonna charge you a higher percentage than a big value item just to make anything and they really would rather you use a different platform.  Your results with low value items certainly encourage you to sell them somewhere else.

It's important that you understand which venue works best for what you're selling.  Low value items with little demand are best sold in group lots to local buyers.  Consider Craig's List or local auction.

[Tnexus]

I think your fees are off. You should be making about $1.03 on that CD assuming shipping costs zero out.

[Math Teacher]

On 8/11/2021 at 8:28 PM, Tnexus said:

I think your fees are off. You should be making about $1.03 on that CD assuming shipping costs zero out.

I got all these numbers from Ebay. If you can explain where I went wrong, I'm all ears.

[Lightning55]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:15 PM, Math Teacher said:

I got all these numbers from Ebay. If you can explain where I went wrong, I'm all ears.

You have no column for sales tax charged/collected.  The eBay fees are charged on the item+shipping(buyer paid)+sales tax.  That could answer your first question.  Maybe the buyer of one of the $20 items was charged tax per his state requirement, and one wasn't.  That would generate different fees.

In column 4 you say it is "the amount I had to spend for postage".  What you spend does not on postage does not factor anywhere into eBay Final Value Fees, just what you charged the buyer for postage.  It is possible that the amount you charged was the same as what you paid, but you should check to see if that is the case in all rows.  I see in row 6 (6 on the spreadsheet, 5th row of info) that the sale of $1.99 plus the postage of $2.89 exceeds the Ebay Amount of $3.81, so at least there it seems you are charging $1.82 for shipping, or that was the tax amount (not likely).  Somehow it got to $3.81.  Maybe it cost you $2.89 to ship that, but that has nothing to do with eBay Final Value Fees.  You have to work with only cells that contribute to eBay FVF, not those that are posted as informational (postage you paid) and added separately.

My first suggestion is to try not to digest the whole table at once.  Break one line down by going to the source - the Managed Payments pages.  You can "follow the money" for each transaction.  You can go to your sales page where the order is and see the total eBay fee.  You can click on that to see how it was determined.  If the single sale info now makes sense in your mind, you can look at that row on your sheet to see to see if everything matches up.  Maybe you have a formula pointing to the wrong cell, or you left out a step.  Eventually you will see a pattern of how the info is generated, and also the differences in how it is generated (sales tax, no sales tax, shipping, free shipping, different FVF based on different categories, etc.)

The info from eBay is not user-friendly, more like user-hostile.  You have to keep working the info into a format you can interpret - it doesn't come logically.  If might look ok for accountants, but for most of us it is convoluted.  It took a lot of hours for me to learn how to import their csv file, take columns away that were impertinent, copy a block of pre-formatted  formulae from a previous sheet and paste it EXACTLY into position to get the right results.  One small error and you are doomed.  But I have to say, after doing all this spreadsheet magic, I have NEVER found there to be an incorrect entry - week after week for over a year.  Not even a penny.  If something was wrong, it was my error.

I use Pirate Ship.  It bolts up to eBay, your sales info flows right in.  The fees are about the same as eBay, both give you commercial rates, but there are advantages with PS. 

I don't have to constantly adapt to the semi-annual "new and improved ebay shipping page".   PS leaves the interface alone, no dog and pony show. 

I can ship by Priority cubic on PS, not on eBay.  Cubic is usually the best Priority rate around. 

If you insure your packages, the rate at PS is 80 cents per $100 of value, pretty low.  So I don't mind spending $4 to insure a $500 package. 

Best of all my shipping money doesn't go to eBay.  Any money I can keep from them is money well spent.

 

Edited August 12, 2021 by Lightning55

[Math Teacher]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:16 PM, Lightning55 said:

You have no column for sales tax charged/collected.  The eBay fees are charged on the item+shipping(buyer paid)+sales tax.  That could answer your first question.  Maybe the buyer of one of the $20 items was charged tax per his state requirement, and one wasn't.  That would generate different fees.

Thank you for this information. I was not aware of this.

The next time I make a sale, I will make a note of this.

[Math Teacher]

On 8/11/2021 at 10:16 PM, Lightning55 said:

You have no column for sales tax charged/collected.  The eBay fees are charged on the item+shipping(buyer paid)+sales tax.  That could answer your first question.  Maybe the buyer of one of the $20 items was charged tax per his state requirement, and one wasn't.  That would generate different fees.

This morning, I sold a lot of ten comics for $28.99 to a buyer in Illinois.

Selling price - $28.99
Sales tax charged - I couldn't find where this was indicated, so I calculated it by hand. $28.99 * 0.065 = $1.81
Total amount with sales tax - $30.80
Ebay fees - $3.87 ($30.80 * 0.1255)
Transaction fee - $0.30
Net amount - $24.82 ($28.99 - $3.87 - $0.30)

However, according to Ebay, the net amount I will receive will be $24.55. Can you check my math for any possible mistakes?

[MattTheDuck]

Sales tax is $1.88.  Also, is there a "local" sales tax for the City and/or County in which the buyer lives?  

This doesn't help find the "missing" $0.27, however.  You mention above that eBay "...also charges 9% of the shipping fee."  Does that need to be accounted for here?

It seems like from your earlier explanation the only other variable is the eBay fee, which you've listed here as 12.55%.  Something closer to the CD sales fee you list in your first post (14+%) would get you right in the $24.55 ballpark.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by MattTheDuck

[BriD.]

On 8/15/2021 at 9:54 AM, Math Teacher said:

This morning, I sold a lot of ten comics for $28.99 to a buyer in Illinois.

Selling price - $28.99
Sales tax charged - I couldn't find where this was indicated, so I calculated it by hand. $28.99 * 0.065 = $1.81
Total amount with sales tax - $30.80
Ebay fees - $3.87 ($30.80 * 0.1255)
Transaction fee - $0.30
Net amount - $24.82 ($28.99 - $3.87 - $0.30)

However, according to Ebay, the net amount I will receive will be $24.55. Can you check my math for any possible mistakes?

I'm curious, since you can't find the sales tax where did you find the percentage for your calculation? I ask because I pay 10.25% in sales tax in Illinois but I've noticed sometimes I get charged differently online. So maybe the percentage is wrong in your formula. 

[Math Teacher]

According to this site, sales tax for Illinois is 6.25%. 6.25% * $28.99 = $1.81. Also, the buyer is from Glen Carbon, IL.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=sales+tax+illinois

According to Ebay, the fee was $4.44. $4.44 - $0.30 = $4.14. $4.14 / $30.80 = 13.44%.

Look, I'm not quibbling over $0.27. I just want to make sure that I understand the math correctly.

[BriD.]

On 8/15/2021 at 11:50 AM, Math Teacher said:

According to this site, sales tax for Illinois is 6.25%. 6.25% * $28.99 = $1.81. Also, the buyer is from Glen Carbon, IL.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=sales+tax+illinois

According to Ebay, the fee was $4.44. $4.44 - $0.30 = $4.14. $4.14 / $30.80 = 13.44%.

Look, I'm not quibbling over $0.27. I just want to make sure that I understand the math correctly.

This is why things are so confusing (at least for me). I'm in Cook County so that's why my tax is so high . But I never know which of the 3 rates in this pic I'm going to get charged. I don't even know which one I'm supposed to get charged but often it's different depending on the site I'm making a purchase from. I usually figure it's going to be 10.25% but sometimes it's less. I agree $0.27 isn't much to argue about but it would be nice to be able to figure out what's right.

[Withering Wind]

On 8/15/2021 at 7:54 AM, Math Teacher said:

This morning, I sold a lot of ten comics for $28.99 to a buyer in Illinois.

Selling price - $28.99
Sales tax charged - I couldn't find where this was indicated, so I calculated it by hand. $28.99 * 0.065 = $1.81
Total amount with sales tax - $30.80
Ebay fees - $3.87 ($30.80 * 0.1255)
Transaction fee - $0.30
Net amount - $24.82 ($28.99 - $3.87 - $0.30)

However, according to Ebay, the net amount I will receive will be $24.55. Can you check my math for any possible mistakes?

Are you using the Seller Hub in Ebay?  If so, you can click through on the payment for the auction to see the sales tax charged as well as the fee calculation.

[Math Teacher]

On 8/15/2021 at 12:41 PM, Withering Wind said:

Are you using the Seller Hub in Ebay?  If so, you can click through on the payment for the auction to see the sales tax charged as well as the fee calculation.

No, I don't use Seller Hub. I have tried, but I find it to be very confusing.

[awakeintheashes]

On 8/15/2021 at 2:13 PM, Math Teacher said:

No, I don't use Seller Hub. I have tried, but I find it to be very confusing.

Do you use the eBay app? There is an easy way to see the breakdown. 
 

From the app:

1. Click on “my eBay” at the bottom of the screen
2. Click “payments” from the menu of options
3. Click “transactions”
4. Select the transaction in question
5. Click “see fee detail” under “transaction summary”

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by awakeintheashes

[awakeintheashes]

Also, I see you said eBay charges for 9% of the shipping. I don’t think that’s true. eBay charges their fee based on the total of the transaction which includes all of the shopping, not a percentage. 

[Math Teacher]

I can see the same thing on their website. But I'm not sure I understand why your FVF was based on 11.7%, but mine was based on 12.55%.

 

Edited August 15, 2021 by Math Teacher

[awakeintheashes]

On 8/15/2021 at 2:42 PM, Math Teacher said:

I can see the same thing on their website. But I'm not sure I understand why your FVF was based on 11.7%, but mine was based on 12.55%.

I have an eBay store. The fee is 11.68% I believe. 

Edited August 15, 2021 by awakeintheashes

[Lightning55]

All the info you are looking for is in Seller Hub.  I understand that you don't like it, find it confusing.  But that is the key, really, like a map to the answer. 

It connects what you see online to what shows up to your bank, so you really have no choice but to learn about it, understand it, master it.  Otherwise, you just have to blindly accept the result that eBay gives you. 

Which isn't the worst thing that can happen.  I have never seen them make an error.  But let's say it's possible that they do.  And you spend an hour per week (short side estimate) validating the figures.  If you value your time at $20 per hour, you are spending $1040 per year of your time to check eBay's results.  If you find less than $1040 worth of errors that year, you are losing money by pursuing it. 

I check it every week, but I'm anal.  I have it down to 15-30 minutes per week by automating my process a bit, so lessening my time investment.  Still haven't found an error worth ANY of my time, so I'm in the hole. 

At best, I've gained some peace of mind.  Maybe should have stayed out of the hole in the first place.