5 Easy Ways To Lower Your eBay Fees
Have you ever wondered if your eBay selling expenses are too high? Are there ways to reduce them? Are you doing the things you need to ensure you are not paying more than you should, for your online auctions?
In the current economic slow (melt) down (the housing market falling through the floor, banks failing, companies closings, unemployment rates rising, etc.), it is more important than ever to get a handle on your expenses. Â As a small business owner/entrepreneur, one of your jobs… in fact, one of the necessities of remaining in business… is keeping a close eye on your operating costs.
Now, more than ever, it is imperative that you minimize seller fees. Keeping seller fees as low as possible may even be the difference between a profitable month and a losing month.
In recent months, eBay has made some significant changes to their fee structure and selling policies. This has left many sellers confused and a bit frustrated. Following are a few ideas to ensure you are not spending more than you should on eBay fees.
Launch Auction Listings at Low Prices
If you start your auction off high, you will have to pay higher fees. With eBay sales dropping in most categories, there is a greater potential for unsold auction items, which would result in lost fees. If it makes sense, you should start your auction listings at $0.99. This will ensure that you are in the lowest insertion fee category and that you have fewer unsold items. And, don’t forget to use the longest auction durations you can, in order to give your online auctions enough time to get as many eBay bids as possible.
If you find that your auction items are still not selling, even after lowering your opening bids, or you are even losing money on your auctions, you may need to take a serious look at your business model. It may not be sustainable, under current market conditions. You might need to look into other types of auction items you can sell.
Change Formats to Reduce Final Value Fees
eBay has been steadily trying to make fixed-price listings more attractive to its sellers, in an attempt to compete with large online retailers, like Amazon’s Marketplace. Fixed price listings have the following advantages.
- Very low insertion fees
- Substantially longer listing durations without surcharges
- Lower final value fees for computers and electronics
Avoid Undercharging for Shipping and Handling
The best way to make sure you are not undercharging for shipping is to buy a small shipping scale. This will allow you to weigh your items and calculate the correct shipping costs, rather than estimate them. You should also take into account your handling costs, which may include the cost of packing material, paper receipts, printer ink, boxes, etc.
Consider Other Payment Processing Systems
If you have a high volume, it may not be cost effective to use PayPal. You may be better off getting your own merchant account. PayPal works great for small sellers, to begin with. However, their fees are high, when compared to cost of a merchant account, if your volume is high enough to justify the start up expense.
On the flip side, you should take into account that many eBay shoppers prefer PayPal, for the convenience. If you normally only sell small value items that are in a highly competitive market, you may not want to make the switch. It could actually hurt you.
Track Your Fees
If you aren’t really sure where your fees are going now, you should track them on a spreadsheet or ledger, until you can get a handle on things. In order to make the right decisions for the future, you need to know where you have been in the past and where you are right now.
If you don’t have Microsoft Excel, you can use the open source spreadsheet in OpenOffice, for free. It works great.
A couple of tips – Obviously, you will want to track what you are paying. However, if you use other options (fixed price rather than auction format, merchant account rather than PayPal, etc.), you should also track what you would have paid. You should keep an eye on eBay’s fee schedule and PayPal’s table of fees.
After you have tracked your fees for a few weeks, it will become obvious where you are losing money and how you can save money. Ensuring that you are keeping expenses to a minimum will not only help you make more money on eBay, but it will help you sleep better at night, knowing that you are not wasting money on unnecessary expenses.
Tags: ebay auctions, ebay fees, ebay power sellers, ebay sellers, how to make money on eBay, how to sell on eBay, insertion fee, learn to sell on eBay, online auction, selling on ebay, Tips
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