ebay ups fees yet again....greedy greedy greedy

[Bigfellani5]

I got an email from ebay today basically upping ebay fees. They are now going to charge FVF on postage. There suggestion of overcoming this it to not charge postage cost. I basically don't make a profit on postage. I essentially charge Aussie Post rates...now I have to pay a fee on something I make nothing on. It is obvious ebay is against sellers making a livelihood.

 I get a very small discount from my suppliers the Royal Australian Mint about 20%, Perth Mint about the same & Downies about 18%. I pay approx. 10% in paypal/ebay fees, essentially halving my profit margin. Now ebay says to me here is another 80c fee on a standard rate parcel or to avoid that here is a profit margin of zero on a $100 item by offering free postage.

Yes I can offer fee post on my Second Hand Goods. My experience however this does not increase FV prices to enough to cover postage costs, particularly so on small value items...say under $50.00, so I generally charge postage....which now is going to attract a fee. Ebay obviously does not care that a small business owner has to cover costs and that they are charging a fee that sellers will just have to absorb.
 
The online market can not be ignored. The cost of trading online is increasing because of greedy companies like ebay whilst the profit margins of retailers is decreasing. The evidence of this is the fact that the number of professional coin dealers in Australia has decreased severely over the last 10 years. This means that the buyers ability to walk into a shop is ever decreasing. This is very bad for the hobby as it means less new collectors enter the market. The flow on affect is a hobbiests collection is decreasing in value.

If you are a business that deals on ebay your pocket is getting lighter because of ebays greed. If you are a hobbiest you probably don't give a damn now but I can assure you will care later on when you don't get the returns you expect.

Ebays greed need to stop.

[JeffH]

About time Trade Me expanded into Australia. They killed eBay in New Zealand. But, are we parochial enough to support a slightly more local competitor -we didn't in the past.

[trout]

This has been the way eBay in the US and Canada has been for quite a while now.
I think it is aimed at the sellers that sell an item for 99 cents and charge $50 to post it so that they can "Duck" the eBay fees.
this is NOT a new concept at all, we are just catching up with the rest of eBay :ok:

[JeffH]

And, what about the sellers that charge postage at cost (in my case less than Australia Post listed rates and less than the eBay discounted rates) and don't charge any packing and handling fee? It seems to me that small sellers doing the right thing by the buyers will be penalised; not just the fees but eBay's obsession with express post and "Free Post" will make it look like they are a bit shonky.

But, it has been obvious, for some time that eBay has been working away from the small seller model and pushing for large "stores". Do a search for something and check the relative number of auction and Buy it Now listings.
I just searched "cargo pants" in "men's clothing -37,917 buy it now and 126 auction!

[Bigfellani5]

we might be catching up but it is still a rip off no matter how much you sugar coat it

[trout]

we might be catching up but it is still a rip off no matter how much you sugar coat it

:agreed:
much like the Aussie post price increases :dodgy:

[JeffH]

Increasing the base on which the percentage commission is charged looks like a rip-off; unless the percentage rate is dropped.
Guess what? You got it! percentage charged is unchanged -amount charged goes up across the board.

[Bigfellani5]

The only way to cover your costs is to up postage by $1 per parcel to cover ebay fees. The market will turn around and say your charging more than Aussie Post charges so they wont by or negative you so most sellers will wear it and a lot will give it away or go out of business.

[Fulvio]

...a lot will give it away or go out of business.

We only have ourselves to blame, really. Who handed eBay a monopoly? Who sat by while they gobbled up every competitor? eBay showed their true colours at least as long ago as when they acquired PayPal, then tried to bend the market to suit themselves. How many people withdrew their support in protest at that bit of shonkiness?

There were alternatives. People chose to eradicate those choices. Just how much impact does that now allow, no matter how greedy the bastards get?

Speaking for myself, it will be a cold day in hell before eBay ever see one penny as a result of my activity. I simply refuse to either buy or sell there, and use it only as a reference now. I know that makes no difference, because I'm a minority of one. But it makes me feel better not to support crooks.

[Basil]

Yeah,greedy is the word but Karma cleans up Monopolies eventually,either another competitor or a Govt.I read where a US Senate(?) committee is looking at US Co. trading overseas and not paying Tax,some huge Organisations involved in the probe,Coke,Apple,MS,Ebay etc.

[Fulvio]

a US Senate(?) committee

Every government in the world is on this case, not just the yanks.

Trouble is, being governments, you can virtually guarantee that whatever they pull out of the hat will have unintended consequences, and hurt innocent bystanders far more than the intended targets.

[Basil]

a US Senate(?) committee

Every government in the world is on this case, not just the yanks.

Yeah,i think thats the G8 or G20 looking into Multinationals  Taxation liabilities.
I stumbled onto an obscure article a few Months back and it was a US domestic enquiry/probe into US Companies and their overseas interests including Tax avoidance,i think it was a Senate Committee but may have been Treasury.
I think this link was part of it but not much Info out there for some reason.  http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/03/12/apple-and-microsoft-among-us-tech-giants-reaping-interest-payments-on-offshore-cash/

[ausjack]

they might be on the case but will they actually achive anything..I don't think so and think it will be the small fish like us that they are really after (this is always the way), they don't want to hurt big business or make THEM pay like they should..and don't get me started about our rich that avoid taxes, eg the richest woman in the world right here and at our expense I might add

[Ozcoins]

Huge amounts of taxes not being paid by companies is a worldwide problem.
Where there are well known dodges (Irish or Dutch sandwich or something like that) it could not be that hard to fix.
How about a Tax on money gong overseas - at least to the countries implicated in the shonky practices, or get them to change the rules allowing the dodges or ban all transactions to those places.

[nealeffendi]

Huge amounts of taxes not being paid by companies is a worldwide problem.
Where there are well known dodges (Irish or Dutch sandwich or something like that) it could not be that hard to fix.
How about a Tax on money gong overseas - at least to the countries implicated in the shonky practices, or get them to change the rules allowing the dodges or ban all transactions to those places.

Define "shonky"
That is the problem, countries with bloated government payrolls, welfare queens and high taxes would define low tax countries as shonky.
I buy stuff online from dozens of countries, some have much lower tax rates than Australia or the US. HK and Singapore both have lower tax rates and I have purchased from both. So should Big Brother ban all transactions to those places?