eBay Selling Tip: List 5 Free, Not a Good Option for All
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009Today eBay started their “List 5 Free” pricing structure. Sellers will get their first five auction-style listings free of any insertion fees when listed through the standard Sell Your Item or Simple listing form. However, the final value fee for these first five listings is 8.75% across the board or $20, whichever is less. Compared to previous final value fee pricing, this is actually an increase in fees for some scenarios.
Typically, the final value fees are tiered so that as closing price increases, final value fee fees decrease. For example, on an item that starts at $150 and sells for $300:
Old Fee Structure:
$2 insertion fee + final value fees 8.75% of the first $25 of closing value, 3.5% of the remaining amount = $13.82
List 5 Free Fee Structure:
Waived insertion fee + final value fee 8.75% of $300 = $26.25 (so you get charged $20).
So, for that same listing, fees would have been the $2 listing fee, $2.19 for the first $25, and $9.63 for the next $275. Add these all together and it totals $13.82. That’s a $6.18 (45%) increase. Those aren’t the greatest savings in the world…
How to take advantage of eBay’s List 5 for Free:
The special pricing isn’t all bad though. Items selling for $25 or less will be cheaper than normal because of the lack of insertion fees. This results in a savings of $0.10-$0.55 depending on what category the listings are in.
The other case where this ends up saving money is for items with higher starting values and closing prices. For example, if you have an item starting at $400 and selling for $500, the $3 listing fee is waived and the final value fee is $20 vs. $21.82 on the previous pricing ($3 listing and $18.82 in FVFs). So for low and high ticket sellers this is definitely an option where some money could be saved. However, for sellers who have mid ticket items please be advised as you may be paying more if you take advantage of this new pricing.
