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Ebay to start charging fees on shipping.


oldgames

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One of the problems I have run into is eBay putting a cap on what I can charge for shipping. I can't remember the exact numbers, but say I listed an item that cost $18 to ship. eBay would only allow me to list the item with a cap of $9 on shipping. So, basically you have to jack up the price on the item itself to offset. And as a result, your starting price is less attractive.

 

So, with the new shipping fees, which is more cost effective? Do you jack up the price on the item and offer free shipping or just pay the shipping fee?

 

I think the only categories that eBay caps shipping fees on are Video games, Books, DVDs and CDs. But the limit does not apply if you use the shipping calculator, you can put in the actual weight and charge the exact shipping cost based on eBay's shipping calculator.

Edited by kheffington
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This just stops the fee avoiders, it doesn't prevent the gougers. There's still incentive to have a low BIN price and a high shipping cost.

 

When are they going to do something about sellers shipping international orders via UPS? I'm okay with paying the sales tax and the $5 handling fee if Canada Customs decides to ding me since they almost never do. I however am not willing to pay insane brokerage fees.

 

No doubt that this will just hit fee avoiders and is also no doubt what eBay is targeting.

 

Shipping a low cost item by international mail is okay as the amount of loss risk is low. If it is something expensive the risk is too high as there is now way to get any kind of tracking internationally from post unless you ship it by express mail or some other ridiculously expensive mailing option. Unfortunately, this makes it not worth offering international shipping in most cases.

 

That isn't true. Your customs number is the tracking number. In fact, if you have a customs number from a past shipment, go ahead and type it into the USPS system and it will give info. Also, priority mail packages that use the large form are automatically covered by some insurance. The receipt will tell you how much.

 

Phil

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I agree. With the first 50 auctions listing for free including free buy it now option too is cool by me. I see the new policy update as a good thing not a bad thing. It's gonna get rid of the shipping gougers and let average folks list pretty much all they want for free.

 

Best. Update. Ever. This should pretty much eliminate the remaining douchebags left who overcharge on shipping. Those who don't like the change can thank those who have been fleecing their customers and ebay for years with hidden bullshit "handling" fees.

:thumbsup: Ebay.

 

No Shawn, the free 50 items are for people WITHOUT an Ebay store. They still charge fees if you subscribe. I never understand why they punish store owners. Though since my store is under my brother's account, I personally can get 50 free listings for myself. I don't like auctions. Many times I get too low of a price.

 

As for GG, I've never been to the site thus never have used it. There were many auction sites that kept popping up and it's extremely difficult to follow all of them, let alone put your items on them. I have a few items on Amazon, many comics, cards, etc on comiccollectorlive.com and of course a ton of stuff in the Ebay store. That's 3 sites I have to keep track of. Add more and it's nuts. I don't have time as it is.

 

Phil

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This just stops the fee avoiders, it doesn't prevent the gougers. There's still incentive to have a low BIN price and a high shipping cost.

 

When are they going to do something about sellers shipping international orders via UPS? I'm okay with paying the sales tax and the $5 handling fee if Canada Customs decides to ding me since they almost never do. I however am not willing to pay insane brokerage fees.

 

No doubt that this will just hit fee avoiders and is also no doubt what eBay is targeting.

 

Shipping a low cost item by international mail is okay as the amount of loss risk is low. If it is something expensive the risk is too high as there is now way to get any kind of tracking internationally from post unless you ship it by express mail or some other ridiculously expensive mailing option. Unfortunately, this makes it not worth offering international shipping in most cases.

 

That isn't true. Your customs number is the tracking number. In fact, if you have a customs number from a past shipment, go ahead and type it into the USPS system and it will give info. Also, priority mail packages that use the large form are automatically covered by some insurance. The receipt will tell you how much.

 

Phil

 

Not always, that may be true for the USPS but the receiving country has to be participating in the system to show tracking...

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This just stops the fee avoiders, it doesn't prevent the gougers. There's still incentive to have a low BIN price and a high shipping cost.

 

When are they going to do something about sellers shipping international orders via UPS? I'm okay with paying the sales tax and the $5 handling fee if Canada Customs decides to ding me since they almost never do. I however am not willing to pay insane brokerage fees.

 

No doubt that this will just hit fee avoiders and is also no doubt what eBay is targeting.

 

Shipping a low cost item by international mail is okay as the amount of loss risk is low. If it is something expensive the risk is too high as there is now way to get any kind of tracking internationally from post unless you ship it by express mail or some other ridiculously expensive mailing option. Unfortunately, this makes it not worth offering international shipping in most cases.

 

That isn't true. Your customs number is the tracking number. In fact, if you have a customs number from a past shipment, go ahead and type it into the USPS system and it will give info. Also, priority mail packages that use the large form are automatically covered by some insurance. The receipt will tell you how much.

 

Phil

 

 

Depends I guess on what you are willing to consider tracking. You usually only get proof that it was accepted by USPS and that it was delivered to Customs or the foreign post office and not much else. This does not constitute proof that the item was delivered to the recipient and gets you nowhere with PayPal or eBay.

 

According to USPS you have to either use registered mail, International Priority mail, Express Mail or Global Express. Per USPS Priority International provides tracking, International Express provides tracking and Global express is the only one that provided delivery confirmation.

 

PayPal does not care if you can prove you shipped an item, only if you can prove it was delivered to the buyer.

 

A 4lb package to Canada would cost around $30 for Priority mail and around $70 for Global express, not exactly cheap.

Edited by kheffington
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So what do you propose I do to make it better? It is free to list, free seller stores, free bulk uploaded, free promotional tools,etc,etc. And you have a free seller account so I can't imagine what I could do better? If you are still bent out of shape because I had to choose to have credit cards on file, that was simply a change we had to make to collect what small fees we do charge.

 

If GG has failed anywhere, it is with sellers who use it once, over price their items so they wouldn't sell anywhere, and then blame the site publicly. There is and has been a whole lot of gaming heart and soul poured into GG over the years so sorry it has been lost on you. GG is still the one only gaming auction site and we aren't going to stop until it reaches critical mass.

 

Yep, it sure would be a great time for Game Gavel to be a better site. Too bad.

 

AX

 

I can tell you what I see as a huge disadvantage for Gamegavel. The amount of users, plain and simple. I would love to use your site but it just doesn't have the users to generate the bids on the games that I would sell. I would much rather list my items on your site but you haven't reached the level of daily users that most buyers need. The buyers list items high because they are afraid they will only get a bidder or 2 and sell the item for way less than it is worth.

 

It is kind of a catch 22, You need the sellers and buyers. It was pretty much easy for Ebay to get the user base, they were a first to do it. A buyer seling an item really had nothing to compare what something was worth, so if an Air Raid sold for $100 that is what it was worth. As more users came more buyers came driving the price up along with it. Buyers and sellers became more informed together as Ebay grew. It will be a huge uphill climb for your site to succeed as you are jumping in with a small buyer and seller base and to get the prices that the items are theoretically worth you need a large buyer base.

 

Ebay was the first and it has been proven that it is hard to have any other, companies with lots of Money behind them have failed in the online auction world, Yahoo auctions and Amazon auctions are the two that really come to mind with toms of cash behind them.

 

Best of luck, I have bought on your sight before and continue to check it out every week, but you need to draw in the sellers. know you are doing lots of incentives to do so, but ?I think you are fighting an uphill battle

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Yep, I'd love for GG to take off and I have nothing against the site or its owner who seems like a very nice guy (and I love his Game Hunter videos) but as of right now, I don't think it gets enough eyeballs. Of course selling only video games really restricts how many people will visit or use the site.

 

As a buyer, I love GG. I've bought a few things and I don't think I've ever been outbid and 99% of the time I'm the only bidder so for a buyer its great.

 

As a seller, I'm not sold on it.

Edited by AtariLeaf
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Depends I guess on what you are willing to consider tracking. You usually only get proof that it was accepted by USPS and that it was delivered to Customs or the foreign post office and not much else. This does not constitute proof that the item was delivered to the recipient and gets you nowhere with PayPal or eBay.

 

According to USPS you have to either use registered mail, International Priority mail, Express Mail or Global Express. Per USPS Priority International provides tracking, International Express provides tracking and Global express is the only one that provided delivery confirmation.

 

PayPal does not care if you can prove you shipped an item, only if you can prove it was delivered to the buyer.

 

A 4lb package to Canada would cost around $30 for Priority mail and around $70 for Global express, not exactly cheap.

 

To me using a shipping method with brokerage fees is deceiving your customer. Listing an artificially low shipping cost knowing full well the buyer is going to get dinged hard. There are shipping methods available with the same security that don't have the hidden fees for the buyer. I'll take a $30 shipping cost over a $20 shipping cost with $45 worth of hidden brokerage, bond and invoice integrity fees any day of the week.

Edited by krae_man
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On second reading, this might not be such a bad idea. If they're giving you 50 free listings a month, and reducing the final value fees across the board, then including shipping costs into the final value fee is probably a zero-sum game at worst... if you're not a store owner that is, which I am not.

 

 

There is no FVF reduction for non-store auction-style listings, it will still be 9%. They are not being entirely forthcoming about that, you have to review the new fee schedule to see it. Reduced fees are for store sellers and fixed price listings. :x

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Depends I guess on what you are willing to consider tracking. You usually only get proof that it was accepted by USPS and that it was delivered to Customs or the foreign post office and not much else. This does not constitute proof that the item was delivered to the recipient and gets you nowhere with PayPal or eBay.

 

According to USPS you have to either use registered mail, International Priority mail, Express Mail or Global Express. Per USPS Priority International provides tracking, International Express provides tracking and Global express is the only one that provided delivery confirmation.

 

PayPal does not care if you can prove you shipped an item, only if you can prove it was delivered to the buyer.

 

A 4lb package to Canada would cost around $30 for Priority mail and around $70 for Global express, not exactly cheap.

 

To me using a shipping method with brokerage fees is deceiving your customer. Listing an artificially low shipping cost knowing full well the buyer is going to get dinged hard. There are shipping methods available with the same security that don't have the hidden fees for the buyer. I'll take a $30 shipping cost over a $20 shipping cost with $45 worth of hidden brokerage, bond and invoice integrity fees any day of the week.

 

 

I am not quite sure what this has to do with brokerage fees, there are none with mail which all I mentioned. Global express is a USPS mail option not UPS or FedEx both of which charge additional customs and brokerage fees. My only point was that with no delivery confirmation, there is no protection for shipping to international destinations. So unless it is a cheap item worth taking the chance on, it is not worth the risk (at least for me) to ship internationally. Customs form numbers do not provide proof of delivery, just proof of shipping.

 

Almost no one is willing to pay the shipping cost on a method of shipping that provides confirmation of delivery because they are all prohibitively expensive.

 

Additionally if it were an expensive item and insured, there would most likely be customs duties due at the receiving end. Shipping something in the $25-30 range and taking a chance is low risk. Shipping something in the $100 plus range is not worth the risk without some form of delivery confirmation.

 

On a different track but the same area. Even if an item is $100 or more, most international buyers request that it be sent airmail which is cheap with no delivery proof and a request to falsify the customs form with a value of $20 or less.

 

I am not advocating either pro or con for international shipping. Just stating the reality of the cost of shipping internationally with any protection required by both eBay and PayPal.

Edited by kheffington
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If they charge on shipping fees will this totally rape the seller if they sell internationally? I recently sold a lego set to a guy in Hong Kong and the shipping cost was nearly $50 for the cheapest form of shipping. :!:

First of all, When I ship I usually have ahandling charge of .25 to .50 for an item and sometimes nothing, When I ship internationally I charge 1.00 over actual to cover the extra Paypal fees on the larger Payment.. I sell lots of things internationally. Some of the items ship end up costing 10X what the item costs in the first place. Of Course the only thnig I will do is raise my shipping costs across the board. I'm not going to eat the cost. If Ebay won't let me raise my shipping enough to recoup the Ebay fees and Paypal fees I wil just stop selling internationally. Ebay is fast approaching the point where I may just stop Selling on it. I usually buy stuff and resell it, If it is not possible for me to do so making a profit, well It makes no sense to do so If I cannot make enough for the time it takes me. I definately wil continue buying but may just suspend selling for a while till another viable option comes around.

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Hey man,

 

I was in no way referring to you :) It is just that there are tons of times when people overprice their items and they don't sell. This also happens on Ebay all the time, look at all the overpriced stuff on there every day by the thousands. It just when their overpriced items don't sell on GG they blame the site. But when an overpriced item goes unsold on Ebay everyone just keeps relisting over and over again and never thinks twice. Think about it :)

 

I just want people to price their items with some intelligence when using Buy Nows and Reserves. That isn't to much to ask. Ebay and GameGavel would both be better places if there were accurately priced items, especially with Ebay going to the majority of Buy Nows over Auctions.

 

I think most here would agree about what I am saying. And, there are those that list a couple things on GG and then never come back. Give it a chance to work. There are alot of sellers on GG selling their exclusively doing just fine. We haven't had all that many listings in March and the site has sold over $10,000 so far so stuff does sell. It doesn't cost anyone to try it out and now with free Reserve's you can all protect yourself and not pay a dime unless your items sell.

 

We have consistantly 20,000+ uniques so there is enough traffic visiting looking for new items. And we are partnering with a couple very high profile, notable gamers with large followings that will start promoting the site in a variery of ways which will bring in significant amounts of new traffic.

 

The bottom line is I am a gamer first and foremost and have set out to create a site I would want to use. We as gamers deserve something better than Ebay and we are trying to be that alternative that we all want. And we won't stop until we reach that goal. So you can all choose to get on board now or later as we reach scale, your choice. It is my goal to get you all over here eventually, but it will take time. All we can do now is make it cheap to use and allow you to list your items with Reserves or Buy Now's if you feel you need to go that route and protect yourself. And we aren't charging anyone to do this.

 

We are coming up on our 3 year anniversary on March 24th. I am very happy with what we have achieved in this short time - growing to over 5,000 members and selling over $210,000 in merchandise. I realize I have grown this as much as I can with the resources I have had and am looking for outside funding to really give GameGavel the money it deserves to grow and reach a critical mass. Keep the faith guys!

 

 

 

 

 

If GG has failed anywhere, it is with sellers who use it once, over price their items so they wouldn't sell anywhere, and then blame the site publicly.

 

 

I sure as hell hope you aren't referring to me. I don't think I bashed the site but I did publicly state that I wasn't happy with the lack of traffic over there. Two fairly rare CIB Intellivision games starting at $5 IIRC, that got ONE BID EACH despite letting people on here and other sites know about the items. I think you actually bought one of the games and even you couldn't figure out the lack of bids. Put yourself in my shoes, which site would you use?

 

I'm not defending ebay, far from it, I hate this greed of theirs and will probably stop using them too, but GG is nowhere near a viable alternative IMO.

 

Blaming the sites failings on its users - very bad PR :roll:

Edited by Parrothead
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It looks like a store listing video games is going from 15% down to 11% on the final sale for under $50. Even if you put in a shipping price as a % of fee, it actually may work out cheaper for the seller. I have to do some more math on this.

 

$15 sale now = 15x.15 = $2.25 fee

$15 sale in July (shipping $6 priority for example) = 15x.11 + 6x.09 = $1.65 + $0.54 = $2.19.

 

Better in the long run if you ask me.

 

Phil

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It looks like a store listing video games is going from 15% down to 11% on the final sale for under $50. Even if you put in a shipping price as a % of fee, it actually may work out cheaper for the seller. I have to do some more math on this.

 

$15 sale now = 15x.15 = $2.25 fee

$15 sale in July (shipping $6 priority for example) = 15x.11 + 6x.09 = $1.65 + $0.54 = $2.19.

 

Better in the long run if you ask me.

 

Phil

 

 

For us non store owners it will be worse.

 

The new fee for video games is 13% (Is it different for store owners?)

 

$15 sale now = 15x.15 = $2.25 fee

$15 sale in July (shipping $6 priority for example) = 15+6 = 21 x .13 = $2.73 fee

 

This Fee Calculator is already set up using the new fees.

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/Feecalculator.html

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It looks like a store listing video games is going from 15% down to 11% on the final sale for under $50. Even if you put in a shipping price as a % of fee, it actually may work out cheaper for the seller. I have to do some more math on this.

 

$15 sale now = 15x.15 = $2.25 fee

$15 sale in July (shipping $6 priority for example) = 15x.11 + 6x.09 = $1.65 + $0.54 = $2.19.

 

Better in the long run if you ask me.

 

Phil

 

 

For us non store owners it will be worse.

 

The new fee for video games is 13% (Is it different for store owners?)

 

$15 sale now = 15x.15 = $2.25 fee

$15 sale in July (shipping $6 priority for example) = 15+6 = 21 x .13 = $2.73 fee

 

This Fee Calculator is already set up using the new fees.

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/Feecalculator.html

 

13% is only for fixed price listings, decreased from current 15%. There is no change for standard auction listings except that there is no insertion fee and BIN is free, FVF is still 9% for non-store owners. For non-store owner why would you want to even sell fixed price, just start it at the price you want to sell it for and hope for more. If you had a standard auction listing starting at $15 today your FVF would be .09 x 15 + .50 listing = $1.85 or in April .09 x 15 + 6 = $1.89, total of .04 more. Nothing to prevent adding a small and perfectly reasonable handling charge to cover the FVF increase which in your example would be .54

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One thing to be aware of on the comparison tool that I posted the link to.

 

I didn't notice this at first, but it rounds the fees up to the next dollar. For low numbers of lisings and/or low final price items, the percentages won't be very reliable.

 

Some on the Seller Central forum are asking the guy who came up with this to include the decimals so that it will be more reliable. Hope he does so.

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