Defunkd

[jimmyj]

Dear eBay sellers -

WTF? I'm back selling non t-shirt items on the bay - and just noticed in my fees - Final Value Shipping Fee on top of the Final Value Fee for the same item.

What's the scoop on this? I'm obviously out of the loop.

The weird thing is that I sold another jacket - charged the same for shipping and there was no fee applied to that transaction.

[matmin]

final value on shipping will be charge after you received the payment from the buyer..correct me if i'm wrong..did you get the payment for jacket?

[jimmyj]

I got payment for both jackets....both shipping rates identical. But that fee charged to one. I read somewhere that its a penalty for a higher than average shipping charge? So now eBay is profiting on that? But still doesn't make sense as its only applied to one jacket.

[Fatandyz]

That's new to me too...then again, I make it a habit to not look at those itemized ebay fee's too often. I'm afraid blood may shoot out of my nose.

[waxandthreads]

Ebay's customer support has improved drastically over the last couple of years. You can call and get someone on the phone in minutes now. I'd love to hear the explanation on that (and some details about penalties for higher shipping rates).

[waxandthreads]

Wait, maybe I'm confused. Was this fee different than the normal 10% shipping fee they've been charging for a while now? They said they added that to encourage sellers to keep what they charge for shipping low, but obviously it was just a way to make more money since sellers have to increase shipping to offset the additional fee. There was a minor drop in final value fee when they did that, but in the end it was still a fee increase.

[jimmyj]

Looks like its been a few years judging by the Google search and original complaints. Ive just been off the eBay grid. I called the rep. said they are trying to encourage free shipping blah blah. "Factor the supping in the price" doesn't work when you ship a box of 15 tees to Spain. Ground cost $58. The buyer paid $60. Ebay took $2.58 for the final value on shipping. So now I've lost money on shipping.

I love how eBay decides they are going to dip into another revenue source. Wasn't the detailed seller ratings a way to level the shipping?

I ended up hanging up on the rep. Just robots who have a script and don't understand the logistics behind it.

Blargh.

[oscar]

Hahah! I'm going to give you the "jimmyj" response: Sell here on defunkd- no fees! (winky face smiley)

[timetraveltees]

I think you may be getting hosed partially because you're in Canada. I haven't double-checked lately but if I remember correctly the final value fee is assessed based on what you charge to ship domestically. With big shipments like that it's obviously tougher to bake the cost into the price or eat the cost of shipping. I'm probably one of the only ones in our little world that does free shipping, I jack the prices up a little bit to absorb some of the shipping costs but shipping first class is only like $2-3 anyway so it's not a huge amount. But I think the benefit to that is when I charge $12 to ship internationally I don't get hit with a final shipping value fee at all since the fee is based on what you charge for domestic shipping. Again I'm not sure what the deal is with the Canada element to your shipping troubles but it's possible if you increase the price of your items and offer free shipping to Canada you may be able to skirt the final value fees on shipping.

Also you allegedly get a best match boost for offering free shipping. I haven't done an A/B comparison to see if that's actually true but I'll take them at their word since best match is nebulous at best anyway so who knows how it all works. But in my mind, in the US with first class shipping being somewhat reasonable you can adjust the prices accordingly and bake it in, avoid paying fees on shipping and ensure that you'll get 5 stars for shipping cost automatically which in turn helps ensure that you'll keep the 20% top rated discount if you qualify for it.

The free shipping thing is obviously a scam and they're trying to be like Amazon and make things easier for buyers while raking sellers over the coals. But it doesn't bother me that much, I figure there's a decent amount of people that buy based on the premise that they're getting the price all in and don't have to worry about factoring in shipping price too. I'm sure most of them realize that the shipping costs are included in the item price but an item priced at $24.99 with free shipping seems more intriguing than something at $19.99 + $5 shipping, in my opinion. It's all the same really but I think if you play the game the way eBay wants you to play it it'll work out okay in the end. It's not fair, but we're just l'il ol' cogs in the big eBay wheel.

[jimmyj]

Yup. She starting rambling on about better placement and an automatic full points in the shipping portion of DSRs.

Definitely makes sense if you are based in the US and do most of your biz there...and when you deal in mostly tees and know a standard shipping price -
easy to just tack it on and offer free.

Even if the logic is preventing sellers from making $ on shipping - they can't just create a blanket % that applies to a zillion different shipping scenarios.

They've got their hand in every possible cookie jar they can. They already made a commission on the shipping money through PayPal.

Useless rant. They are a-holes.

@oscar. TRUTH! I've only been selling non-vintage/t-shirt stuff on feEbay. This package was a 14 pc lot of modern day tees.