Transaction fees

[patternparadisect]

I became a business seller and opened a shop a couple of days ago. Ive just noticed that in the past 2 days ebay has charged me a transaction fee for nearly 500 listings. I havent sold 500 in the past 2 days, these listings werent due to end and needed relisting so I havent a clue why I have been charged this fee and is it likely to continue as I currently have over 4000 active listings?

[rainbowtrax]

You've had loads of listings that have renewed in the last 2 or 3 days so you'll have been charged a listing fee on any of them over your inclusive monthly listings. What level of shop have you subscribed to? You're midway between featured and anchor in terms of listing numbers (the break even point on BINs alone is 8,700 listings) so, even if you've got a featured shop, you're looking at an extra 2,500+ lots of 6p per month on top of your shop subscription.

[patternparadisect]

As far as I was aware, the listings were active til cancelled.

I have the first level of shop ( sorry this is all new to me) I have a limit of 250 free a month, I was listing new ones this morning and was being charged 12p for each one as I had already used the free 250 which was fine but this sudden 100s of transaction fee charges was a surprise

[rainbowtrax]

They are active until cancelled but, as a business seller, you don't get anything for free. They will all remain listed but you'll be cherged 12p a listing every month when they renew. So things that you listed, for example, on the 18th of a previous month will have renewed on the 18th of this month at a cost of 12p each and will cost you another 12p each on the 18th of next month and so on.

Fees and comparisons of the different shop levels can be found here: Fees for business sellers | eBay - don't forget to multiply all fees by 1.2 as the figures there don't include the VAT so you need to add that on. 

A basic shop costs £32.40 and includes 250 BIN listings a month, so with around 4,500 listings, you're looking at additional listing fees each month of 12p x 4,250 = £510.00 on top of your shop subscription. So your best bet is to upgrade to a featured shop before too many more listings renew at 12p a pop.

A featured shop gives you 1,500 BIN listings for £92.40 a month with additional BIN listings charged at only 6p each so it's a no brainer. Your 4,500 listings would then only cost you 6p x 3,000 = £180.00 on top of your shop subscription. 

There's also the anchor shop which would give you unlimited listings for £524.40 a month but you'd need 8,700 listings for that to be worth it compared to the featured shop. So if you're planning to double your number of listings then that's the way to go.

[patternparadisect]

OMG I didnt realise there would be all these extra fees and every month too. I think I need to have a good think and work out is it worth having a shop.

Thanks for explaining the costings, much appreciated 🙂

[ile136yz]

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@patternparadisect wrote:

OMG I didnt realise there would be all these extra fees and every month too. I think I need to have a good think and work out is it worth having a shop.

Thanks for explaining the costings, much appreciated 🙂

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Hello,

If you stop the Basic eBay Shop each listing will be 36p.

Basic Shop you pay £32.40 inc. VAT

You get 250 free listings.

Then you pay 12p inc. VAT for each listing.

[patternparadisect]

Im going to stay as I am with basic shop and see in a month the fees re profits and take it from there. All my items are cheap, no high profits so Im going to see if its worth getting a different shop or just stopping altogether

[rainbowtrax]

Fair enough, it's your call but the different shop levels and whether they're worth it is purely down to the number of listings you have in a month. If you stay at the basic shop then by this time next month your additional listing fees as everything renews will have run up to around £510 on top of the £32.40 shop subscription.

Whereas, if you upgrade to featured now then you'll reduce that outgoing to around £180 on top of the £92.40 shop subscription.

To stay as you are and have all your listings renew will literally be throwing money away.

If you base it purely on number of BIN listings and don't take account of the (unused by many) auction allocation then the break even points on number of BIN listings (newly created listings added to number of renewals) per month for the different shop levels are:

No shop → Basic: 90 listings

Basic → Featured: 750 listings

Featured → Anchor: 8,700 listings

Edited to add - if you went back to no shop and kept your 4,500 listings then your monthly listing fees would be 4,500 x 36p = £1,620 - that's every month just to list. Having a shop at the level that fits your number of listings is vital for any business seller once you hit 90 listings per month.