How Much Does it Cost to Sell on eBay in 2013?

What does it cost to sell on eBay?…

For those looking to make some extra money by buying and selling on eBay this will be among the earliest questions asked and in all honesty it’s only natural to want to know what you’re getting into.

The incredibly well-known and popular online auction site we now know as eBay was founded in September of 1995 in Pierre Omidyar’s San Jose living room. It was a little more than an online farmer’s market of sorts and has since grown into a place that brings sellers and buyers together in huge numbers for mutual advantage.

Thousands of sellers make money on eBay every day. It sounds like a merchandiser’s dream land, but like any significant advantage it comes with a few associated costs.

eBay Costs and Fees

The way eBay makes the money it uses to operate and maintain the website and pay the people who do so is through costs and fees. These are typically posting fees charged to sellers as a price for the advantage of being able to list their item on the website.

While fees at one time scaled based upon your items starting price determined independently for each of your postings, they’ve made a change recently and begun providing your first 50 listings each month without assessing a fee.

This gives new sellers a chance to get their sales going before their business starts incurring any costs and old sellers a way to avoid any unnecessary expenses by staggering their postings from one month to another.

How eBay Fees are Calculated?

There are several different types of fees on eBay.

1) Basic Fees – These are the most common and likely the most familiar types of fees

• Insertion Fee – When you post on item for sale you’ll be assessed an insertion fee. If so this fee will be charged once per listing for each category selected and isn’t contingent on the number of items.
• Final Value Fee – These fees are assessed if an item sells and their amount will depend upon how much the item sold for including the shipping costs and any other costs paid by the buyer. They are assessed for each item sold.

2) Optional Fees – These are fees that apply only if you select certain options when you post a listing

• Advanced Listing Upgrade Fee – If you choose to add any listing upgrades you will be charged a fee of this type. These options however are not always available.
• Supplemental Service Fee – Assuming you take advantage of supplemental services these types of fees will show up on your seller invoice.

What are the Fees for?

There are three different types of fees for eBay and different pricing information for each type.

• 1) Auction Listings – Basic Fees
  No posting fees for your first 50 listings each month.
  The “Buy It Now” option for your 50 free listings.
  The first 12 pictures uploaded for each posting using eBay picture hosting.

• 2) Fixed Price Listings – Basic Fees
  The first 12 pictures uploaded for each posting using eBay picture hosting.

• 3) Optional Fees
  Optional fees can include anything from Scheduled listings and Gallery Plus to Listing Designer and more, and vary based on the kind of upgrade.

Receiving Payments

Though some sellers are willing to allow their customers to pay using a check or money order through the mail, this can be a long and potentially nerve racking process offering little security for either seller or buyer.

However, most eBay sellers choose to process payments through PayPal, a payment company associated with eBay to offer quick instant payments and security to both parties. There is however a 1.9% to 2.9% fee for using this service in addition to a fixed rate $0.30 fee charged for each item being purchased.

Shipping Prices

Assuming the items being sold are not of a digital nature, once a product is purchased it will still need to find its way to the buyer. This means shipping costs that will include materials (boxes, bubble wrap, envelopes, etc.), postage, and time spent that can either be added to the cost of the item as your shipping charge or included in the price of your items initial listing.

Now, if all of this is giving you a headache and you just want to knwo how mcuh it will cost you to sell an specific item on eBay, you can simply use eBay fee calculator.

Though there are costs associated with selling through eBay, the higher level of exposure and larger market are well worth every minor fee. Utilizing the correct strategies and marketing techniques you can still make a living on eBay despite the costs required to do so.