RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

mcevoyi wrote:Hi all my 2 pence worth

Facebook .. market place
seems to ve a way forward ...
Ebay /PayPal.. is just far to expensive

I only use Marketplace with local sales/purchases. I wouldn't trust anyone to pay remotely and ship.

Yes, but that's where PayPal earns it's keep by protecting the buyer, sorting out problems and / or refunds you and they are very good at it. Okay, it looks like we still get that protection as a buyer but does the seller have the ability to stop the buyer using PayPal if he doesn't like EBays terms? The future isn't clear.

I recently sold a $5.00 item on Ebay and it cost $8.00 to ship. Ebay charged me a little over $2.00 in fees so I made $3.00 on the item. The fees just keep going up and up.

Well all this will do for me is I will stop using both, just phone Forgebear and send my shopping list, pick it up at next meeting,and pay in cash.

regards pete

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tankme wrote:I recently sold a $5.00 item on Ebay and it cost $8.00 to ship. Ebay charged me a little over $2.00 in fees so I made $3.00 on the item. The fees just keep going up and up.

Are you sure you only paid it? eBay take's 10% plus VAT ( VAT in Poland takes 23% ). So this is 12,3%. The same is charged by eBay for shipping costs. PayPal takes an average of 5% (sometimes 7%) of the total payment (product price and shipping cost). So all together together it is about 17% - 19%.
As I can see eBay takes You 15%. Additionally, you should add PayPal commissions (say 5%). So you paid 20% in total. That's $ 2.6. Quite a good commission considering that you sold the goods for 5 USD. In fact, you made $ 2.4. For a long time I have the impression that I work only to maintain eBay, PayPal, FedEx, the Tax Office, Social Insurance, and my bank ... And they say that thieves steal, and the feudal times are long gone ...

There is no VAT in the US and I never include shipping charges or offer "free shipping". The buyer pays me for the shipping and I pay Ebay who pays the shipper. I specify the shipping method also and already know how much it's going to cost to ship my item. There are state taxes in the US on Ebay sales now, but I don't pay them as a seller because they vary from state to state. The buyer of the item pays the taxes to Ebay and not to me. Ebay gathers the taxes and supposedly pays the state of the buyer because each state has it's own sales tax in the US. I am an individual seller and not a business. I don't have a way to gather and submit tax payments to different states. The high fees are exactly why small items that have to be shipped on Ebay are at high risk of actually losing money on the sale.

What annoys me apart from the fees, is that in the old way when you sold something and the buyer used PAYPAL it was in your account immediately. Now ebat hold it for about 3 days before you get it. Think of all the interest they will make off that holding pot over time - starting to think that ebay is a non started nowadays and would rather go to a sellers online shop now.

Say what you will, eBay is a tremendous buying convenience. Whatever you want, it's out there and at a reasonable price. PayPal gives you free buyer insurance. If l want anything 'RC Warfare' my first point of call is always Dave n Julie but l know their storage situation and it's not quite as big as Amazon's biggest warehouse so l don't expect them to have hifi gear or cookery utensils for sale! I couldn't have purchased the selection of hardware materials l've used on my SU-100 build from a hobby shop.

Unfortunately, this issue is much bigger than our hobby.

I just bought a Trumpeter 1/16 T-72B1 with reactive armor that had a crushed box from Ebay. Seller said there was no damage to the model so if that is the case I saved $30 from the best price I could find online. Ebay has a lot more merit as a buyer than a seller these days.