If you have been selling on eBay for any length of time, you will quickly become accustomed to fee changes and / or increases. Unfortunately, the price of your inventory won’t decrease, so you will need to take proactive steps to keep your profits from falling as fees increase. The answer isn’t always to raise your prices. Here are some suggestions for reducing other expenses that you may incur as you operate your eBay home business.
Pay close attention to eBay Insertion Fees and the tiered pricing. For example, pricing an auction item between $1 and $9.99 costs 35 cents. Pricing …read more

Part of running a business is knowing your expenses, so that you can then track your profit. Do you really know how much you make per item per sale? eBay and Paypal fees are always changing, so you must take these factors into consideration when calculating your profit.
If you look at the numbers regularly, you can make educated business decisions about pricing adjustments and when it is time to stop selling an item and move on. I came across this free spreadsheet on the eBay Groups board. eBay member unclejoeadamson has it all figured out based on listing …read more

If you receive more than $3,000 a month through your Paypal account, then you can apply for a lower fee rate. You must apply for the rate, it is not automatically applied to your account. The normal fees for monthly sales (incoming funds) to Paypal are:
$0.00 USD – $3,000.00 USD 2.9% + $0.30 (per transaction) USD
If your sales (incoming funds) are $3,000.01 USD – $10,000.00 USD, the fees are 2.5% + $0.30 (per transaction) USD. If your incoming funds are $10,000+, the rate drops to 2.2% + $0.30 per transaction.
To apply for the lower rate, visit this link, sign …read more

As a continuation of my post titled, “How to Reduce eBay Shipping Costs,” let’s look at some other ways to reduce eBay costs and increase our profit margin. You may have to do some analysis, but you can find ways to trim your expenses and therefore increase your profits.
1) Use caution with listing upgrades such as bold, highlight, gallery plus, and photo enhancements. Do your own research to determine if these upgrades affect your sales. Upgrades are expensive – do you really need them?
2) Pay attention to eBay Insertion Fees and the tiered pricing. Pricing an auction item between $1 …read more

Has this happened to you yet? Have you received an email from an eBay buyer like this?
“I bought this by mistake. I don’t want the item. You need to void the transaction.”
This scenario is rather absurd because the buyer has to complete several checkout screens before the purchase is complete. What happened is that he changed his mind. You will still be charged the final value fees unless you take action to recover them.
You can react in several ways.
1) Do nothing, ignore the sale, and move on. Your final value fees won’t be refunded.
2) File an upaid item dispute after …read more

Calculating shipping for an item is not as complicated as you may think. If you plan to start selling regularly on eBay, you will want to invest in a digital scale. You can find them for $10 or less at office supply stores, or my favorite place – eBay!
To calculate the shipping fee, weigh your item. Let’s say you are selling men’s polo shirts. The weight will be around 10 ounces. Go to USPS.com and determine the shipping cost for an item weighing 10 ounces.
Next, check what the competition is doing. Do a search on eBay for Men’s polo shirts, …read more