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Ebay shipping information?

eBay (product): How does free shipping reduce sellers' fees?

  • In several places on the website, Ebay says, "To pay the lowest fees, offer free shipping". E.g. http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/springupdate2013/springfeesimplification.html under "Best Practices". Or alternately, "Lower Final Value Fees when applied to the full amount of sale, including shipping." here: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/shipping/bestpractices.html But I don't see how this can be. I haven't found an explanation for this by Ebay. My thinking is: the price + free shipping will probably equal the price + buyer-paid-shipping on average. And (for non-store-subscribers) Ebay charges 10% on price+shipping (free or not). So I don't see how a seller will save money. I *do* though, see risks to sellers when they offer free shipping. E.g., for items heavier than 1 pound. And for heavy items in general. One must know the Ebay-market price must better in advance to know if the sale is worth it.

  • Answer:

    As far as i know and experienced, it's a con. They only say that because their reasoning is that if you offer free shipping, then you get better DSR ratings, which lead to a possible discount on your final value fees at the end of the month through their powerseller program. This will lead to lower fees across the board. But per sale, they're full of it. itemA for $100 + $10 shipping. Fees on this item is 10%, so you give ebay $10, keep $90, shipping isn't touched. itemB for $110 + free shipping. Fees on this item is 10%, so you give ebay $11, keep $99, shipping comes out of that.

Sean Reyes at Quora Visit the source

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on eBay, Shipping used to be separate cost from the product price, and eBay wasn't charging fees for the shipping cost. But since many sellers started placing low price for the product and high price on the shipping to save those eBay fees, eBay decided to charge a fee on the total price of the item (price + shipping) so now shipping cost is also charged fees by eBay. Bottom line is that it won't decrease your fees.PS if you find my answer useful, please Upvote :) Happy to advise further

Maxim Godin

The Final value fee is assigned to whole transaction fee so you add free shipping or not eBay is going to get same amount. In fact, in some case, you don't add free shipping and you pay more fees to eBay. So just correction the answer. For ItemA or ItemB the Final value fee will remain same. The fee is charged on item as well as shipping. So eBay at the end gets $11 fee for both the transactions. Secondly the discount for free shipping is because the final value fee (FVF) for item is less then shipping for some categories with eBay store. For example FVF for computer tablet category is just 4% as compared to FVF shipping which will be 10%.  But if you don't have eBay store or top rated discount then free shipping or not will land you same final value fee.  Still my suggestion is to increase the item price and mark it as free shipping as it provides psychological advantage and increases sales. Few links for you help:- http://www.fees.ebay.com/feeweb/feecalculator http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/storefees.html

Rahuz Shah

eBay will tell you one thing and do another. I don't believe you get no fees off using free shipping. One way or another, they will recover that fee by adding it to something else. http://auctionessistance.com/ebay-paypal-fees-killing-you-simple-steps-improve-margins/

Emma Bryant

Short answer: IT DOES NOT.

Dale Potts,The Ebay Professor

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