Here’s some easy reading that will save you eBay fees. 

I realise you probably have lots of other things to be getting on with over this four day bank holiday weekend but whilst you’re enjoying a few well-earned days off I’d like to give you a little bit of easy reading to help you pay less and save some money on your eBay fees.

I often receive emails from people who say that the fees eBay charge eat into their profits so much that sometimes it hardly feels like it’s worth the bother. And I agree that whilst it’s true that between eBay and PayPal fees it can seem like all your profits are running out of your account like water, you must also remember two things.

Firstly, the fees you pay to eBay are for a service – a 24/7 service that gets your products in front of a massive worldwide audience without the hassle of setting up your own website, spending money on an e-commerce solution, marketing your website, generating reports…and so on. So it’s pretty fair really!

Secondly, there are always little tweaks you can implement within your business to ensure you save money. It’s that simple.

So, over the next few days, why not read through my four tips and apply them to your business. None of these tweaks are difficult to put into practice and will only take you a few minutes to take advantage of. Here we go…

Tip 1: Do you sell low value products? Save on your PayPal fees with ‘Micropayments’

I’ve mentioned PayPal Micropayments in the past and this is a great way to save money if you sell mainly low value items on eBay. You can really benefit from the micropayments pricing structure if you sell in high volumes but have low prices because PayPal’s charges are typically 5p per transaction and 5% of the total amount. That’s compared to 20p per transaction and 3.4% for a regular PayPal account.

So, basically you could save up to 12p per transaction. I know doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but if you sell 100 low value items a week, that’s a saving of £12.00 per week or £48 per month. Over a year that’s £624.00 – so definitely not to be sniffed at! There’s more information about Micropayments in a previous Source Report blog post which is free to access – just click here.

Tip 2: Do you sell one product in different sizes, styles or colours? Combine your listings to save on eBay fees.

If you have more than one of a particular item to sell (which you may well have if you are following my rinse and repeat method of continuously selling hot items in multiple quantities from a Fixed Price/Buy It Now listing on a daily basis) then you will be charged 30p for each listing if you don’t have an eBay shop and use BIN listings. So if you have a product – lets say it’s a teapot – and it’s available in 6 colours which are red, green, white, black, blue and floral pattern, and you are listing each pattern of teapot on an individual BIN listing, you’ll pay 30p six times which is £1.80.

However, to save money you can instead list all of your teapot colours on one listing for just 30p. This immediately saves you £1.50 every time you list.

This may seem simple but is so often overlooked. All you need to do is use a ‘multi-variation listing’ (MVL) which you can select when you open the ‘Sell Your Item’ form, add all your products to one listing and vary the colour or the size or any other variation that you may have. You simply add each variation to the one listing and then buyers can choose the option they want from the drop-down menu that will appear within your listing. I must advise though that you cannot use MVL’s in all categories, so do check before you try and list.

Tip 3: Do you have more than one product that is exactly the same which you sell at auction? Take advantage of ‘Second Chance Offer’ to reach interested buyers.

On a similar theme, another little trick is to take advantage of the ‘second chance offer’ button. You can only do this if you list your items as auctions rather then Buy It Now’s but it’s very simple and it works like this. Once your auction has ended and your item has been won, you’ll see a button in your ‘My eBay’ that says ‘Send Second Chance Offer’. If you have another of this exact same item available (and it must be exactly the same – same size, colour, make, model etc) all you have to do is select the number of underbidders (those who didn’t win your auction) you wish to send an offer to and then click send. eBay will send a message to those underbidders offering them the chance to purchase your product at the price they bid at. So, if your item sold for £19.99 and the bid below that was £18.99 then the bidder who bid £18.99 has the chance to buy at £18.99.

The advantage here is that you don’t pay an insertion fee for the items you sell at second chance offer so once again you’ll save on fees. You will pay a final value fee based on the selling price as usual though. If your items are hot sellers and popular, this is definitely a great trick to save money – and time spent relisting.

Tip 4: Are you listing in the correct category for your product? Choose a different, cheaper category to save on your final value fees.

You may be surprised to learn that not every eBay category has the same pricing structure for final value fees (FVF’s). For example, if you sell in Consumer Electronics you’ll pay an FVF of 5%. In Sporting Goods you’ll be charged 10% and in Clothes, Shoes & Accessories you’ll pay 11%.

What this means is that by choosing a different (but still relevant) category for your product you could potentially achieve savings on your final value fees. Even dropping your selling price by just a few pence could take you into a lower final value fees bracket – again saving you money. Current fees for business sellers are here

So there you are – my four tips to help you save money on eBay. And of course you can implement any – or all – of these tips immediately.

It’s a long weekend for most of us and I for one will be making the most of it. Whatever you’re doing I wish you and your family a Happy Easter and hope you have a very enjoyable break.

As always I wish you the very best of success,

amanda2