austbounty
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posted on September 28, 2002 05:45:28 PM
PREMISE: Any charges which do not breech ebays regulations are LEGITIMATE.
Do any sellers out there have any ideas about how to legitimately minimise fees, or expenses, without breeching ebay’s policy on fee avoidance or any other rules??
I outlined one method in the ‘ebay outlook ‘ chat titled ‘How To Make NonPayingBidders Pay Up!!. ‘
Any minimisation of business expenses can give you a competitive edge and can make your item more attractively priced (in total). This saving can, if you wish, be passed on to your customers or you can pocket it yourself.
I am only interested in ‘legitimate’ methods, ie. Methods which DO NOT breech any of ebay’s regulations.
You are permitted to charge a reasonable handling fee. Take for example the people that sell cd’s for 1c and charge $’s for posting and handling.
You are also permitted to charge a fee for ‘curency convertions’
If I want to put an item in 2 categories, and I have another similar item or same, I will put one in 1 category and the other item in another, and direct browsers to the second item.
This saves paying for a 2nd category on any one item; as I said this is only if I have a 2nd similar item.
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on September 28, 2002 05:47:39 PM
There is no Final Value Fee if the item sells for a penny.
I've saved thousands in eBay fees since I started one cent no reserve auctions.
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austbounty
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posted on September 28, 2002 05:50:33 PM
Hi Fluffy,
That's a good one,
Do you charge a packaging & handling fee??
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slabholder
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posted on September 28, 2002 05:53:41 PM
Minimisation ?
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on September 28, 2002 05:59:19 PM
slabholder: It's an international forum.
austbounty: I charge a fixed shipping and handling fee. I also never, ever, not even on Sundays, no matter how nicely you ask, even if you buy 100 of my items, combine auctions.
I bought 17,000 Tyvek envelopes of the perfect size to hold one item each.
My steady buyers are the kind of people who send a check for 60 or so auctions at a time, accompanied by a neatly done spreadsheet that makes picking and packing a breeze.
You wouldn't believe how well this works. I can hardly believe it myself, but I've been using this format for eight months now. Beats the old oh-no-how-should-I-price-this, what's-shipping-gonna-be-on-three-items approach that was driving me mad.
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tomwiii
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posted on September 28, 2002 09:19:01 PM
My BALONEY has a first name,
It's O-S-C-A-R...
http://www.sparedollar.com?ref=260
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kiara
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posted on September 28, 2002 09:33:42 PM
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tooltimes
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posted on September 28, 2002 09:49:40 PM
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tomwiii
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posted on September 29, 2002 07:14:29 AM
My BALONEY has a second name,
It's M-A-Y-E-R!
http://www.sparedollar.com?ref=260
[ edited by tomwiii on Sep 29, 2002 07:14 AM ]
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paloma91
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posted on September 29, 2002 07:26:39 AM
NOT TRUE! I just tried to set up an auction for a penny = $0.01 and I am still charged their 30 cent listing fee!
AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE?????
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lindajean
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posted on September 29, 2002 09:33:33 AM
What they are saying is the people who list and sell items for $.01 and then charge shipping and handling around $10 (fluffy I'm not saying you do that because I have never seen one of your auctions -- I'm just using price and shipping as an example) do not have to pay the final value fee.
EX: item lists at $9.95 and sells for that.
$.30 listing fee and $.50 final value fee -- total cost $.80.
If item lists at $.01 and sells for under $1.00 but has a $10.00 shipping and handling added in then fees are:
$.30 for listing and $.05 or less for Final value fee making total of $.35 or less.
Big difference -- same profit.
I don't do this. I start everything between $7.95 and $9.95 but I see a lot of it going on and wonder when Ebay will put a stop to it by initializing a minimum starting bid.
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uaru
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posted on September 29, 2002 09:49:17 AM
If item lists at $.01 and sells for under $1.00 but has a $10.00 shipping and handling added in then fees are:
$.30 for listing and $.05 or less for Final value fee making total of $.35 or less.
You might get away with that for awhile, but eventually you'll get shut down for 'fee avoidance.' Either eBay will stumble on it, or a competitor will report you.
Listing Techniques that Circumvent eBay's fee structure Users may not use systems or techniques to circumvent eBay fees. Some examples include:
Listings with low prices but unreasonably high shipping or handling costs
Listing Policies
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Libra63
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posted on September 29, 2002 09:57:46 AM
I know a seller that lists used videos for 1 cent and S/H is $5.50. Very rarely do the videos sell for more than 1 cent so if he pays $1.00 for the video they are making money off his S/H I consider that fee avoidance.
Now I am not condoning this but I would never try it because I can't justify charging that much for S/H. It is just not in my nature. I think there are a lot of sellers that do that but I would never turn any of them in as it is their business how they run their business.
It becomes our business when eBay raises fees to overcome that. I wonder how many sellers do that? Is there anyway to find out.
[ edited by Libra63 on Sep 29, 2002 09:58 AM ]
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on September 29, 2002 12:46:34 PM
[i]NOT TRUE! I just tried to set up an auction for a penny = $0.01 and I am still charged their 30 cent listing fee!
AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE????? [/i]
Yes, reading for content is what you are missing.
I said that there is no Final Value Fee if the item sells for 1 penny.
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on September 29, 2002 01:11:16 PM
I'm very pleased that some of you believe that this cannot be done. Not that I was worried about competition... Making real money (aka "profit" as opposed to "cashing checks" on eBay requires a lot of hard work. Most people aren't willing to do it.
As far as most auctions ending at .01, that hasn't been the trend. Here's some hard data:
Our last 100 auctions started at .01 and ninety-two ended at prices ranging from $.01 to $84.00. Eight of those 100 auctions ended with no bids, so that's only 92% sellthrough, which is a little lower than I like. (These were Friday/Saturday auctions, though.)
Our average sale over those 100 auctions (units) was $9.73. Including s/h, our average revenue per unit should be $12.90.
As far as excessive shipping/handling fees go, our standard s/h (depending on the type of item) is $2.50, $5.00, or $8.00, which in the past AW folks have generally agreed is not excessive.
The folks who don't believe we sell 60 or more items to the same bidder should check out bidding in the jewelry categories, where we are far from the only seller doing lots of business to big buyers. Our customers buy for their consignment shops, for investment, for their Web stores and for eventual (hopeful) resale on eBay.
So, how have we saved thousands on eBay fees? Simple. Our listing fee is never higher than 30 cents. When we started auctions at $9.99 to $49.99, we were paying from $.30 to $1.10 per item auctioned. When you run 500 or 600 auctions a week, the savings really add up.
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on September 29, 2002 03:01:05 PM
austbounty: I have lots more ideas (apparently too radical for this crowd, who think posting images is the height of sophistication), so if you want to continue discussions of cost-cutting, you can email me at [email protected]. It's an old unused account. Thanks.
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kiara
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posted on September 29, 2002 04:44:13 PM
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tooltimes
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posted on September 29, 2002 05:34:37 PM
Does this look like an unsophisticated bird to you?
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on September 30, 2002 07:20:50 PM
Don't fret, kiddies, the discussion has been taken offline with a handful of interested folks.
Gee, I wonder how the PTB at AuctionWatch feel about you bollixing up legitimate discussion to the point that people have to talk elsewhere?
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tooltimes
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posted on September 30, 2002 08:44:12 PM
I hope some of the negative posters here take their discussions elsewhere permanetely. 
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austbounty
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posted on September 30, 2002 10:09:36 PM
AW chat boards seem to be happy keeping the level of discusion at about 50c worth.
Seems dominated by Lower End Buyer$ complaining about handling fees.
Which is only good for cheap entertainment value, responding to their "arguments" (I use the term loosely) as the joke they deserve to be treated as.
TOOLTIMES
Your postings could be viwed as negative.
In a previous chat you wrote-
""I wonder how ebay would react to a few of the bidders forwarding them the letter you send out?""
Your graphics are rather humorous, but your threats are without substance.
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kiara
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posted on September 30, 2002 11:29:21 PM
My sincere apologies for posting in your thread. I have had a serious talk with myself and I will make sure that I never do this again.
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tooltimes
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posted on September 30, 2002 11:49:41 PM
I'm not pointing a finger at anyone, but look who's calling the kettle black.
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austbounty
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posted on October 1, 2002 08:37:45 AM
If a picture be worth 1000 words;
tooltimes now up 10 points)with fingerguy.gif
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slabholder
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posted on October 1, 2002 09:16:42 AM
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JWPC
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posted on October 2, 2002 10:09:28 AM
Can I assume that those posting at $.01, and state their only fees would be .30 posting, and whatever the FVF is, then I presume you don't accept credit cards on PayPal on such auctions, correct???
[ edited by JWPC on Oct 2, 2002 10:10 AM ]
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paloma91
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posted on October 2, 2002 10:16:43 AM
Good Point!
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tomyou
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posted on October 2, 2002 12:24:58 PM
If they did and would not combine shipping I would be sure to make 60 seperate payments. One for each item.
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lindajean
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posted on October 2, 2002 12:28:55 PM
The few times I have purchased something where people will not combine items for shipping that is what I do.
I tell them since I will receive 5 different (or however many) packages I need 5 different transaction receipts in case of problems with mail...May not be true, but If they don't combine shipments, then I don't combine payments!
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