eBay, PayPal and the High Costs
March 19, 2008
Recently, I’ve been listing several of my parent’s antique items on eBay with a fair amount of success. Up until today, I never really paid attention to all the fees associated with selling on eBay and then taking payments via PayPal. I just finished listing and selling one of my father’s many antique brass musical instruments, a circa 1840 Prussian Soprano Cornet in B flat. When I finally got the invoice, I was shocked. This horn sold for $1,902.77 and $58.25 for shipping to Germany via US Postal Service Priority Mail International. The buyer used PayPal and I assumed used a credit card.
eBay Fee List:
- Featured Plus Fee $24.95
- Insertion Fee $4.00
- Picture Pack Fee $1.00
- Reserve Price Fee $16.98
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Final Valuation Fee $49.85
Total: $96.78
+ PayPal Fees:
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Payment Fee $76.78
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Grand Total: $173.56
After a little cross multiplication, that comes out to just over 9% in fees based on the items final selling price. Pretty expensive in my book, but what else are you going to do? They are the only show in town. There, now I feel better. I think I just keep listing his horns online on our own site in between auctions.
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