eBay’s outrageous 10% final value fees pricing themselves out of business

I have been a member of eBay since 1999 and back then the final value fees were around 2% if not even lower. In other words if you sold something  for $300 then eBay took a cut of around $6 which seems quite fair.  I haven’t used eBay all that frequently to sell in recent years, but I have used it to shop on occasion for hard to find items. I recently noticed my unused gold iPhone 5s sitting on my dresser.  because I now have an iPhone 6s Plus I decided I needed to go ahead and sell my older iPhone while it can still fetch a decent price. Luckily I still had the original box and all the accessories and my iPhone was in mint condition without even one scratch. Overall I was mostly pleased with my experience of selling on eBay until I got the invoice from eBay for $30!

Yes, you read that right. eBay now charges a whopping 10% final value fee for simply listing your item!

They had charged me a final value fee of 10% in addition to the excessive $9 “processing” fee from Paypal. Technically Paypal is now a separate company that was spun off due to pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, but  they’re still very closely linked. eBay recently forbade other payment options thus making Paypal a virtual monopoly for payments on eBay for five more years.

eBay and Paypal received $39 in total for a simple auction listing where they never physically handled the merchandise.  Add in the $5.25 for shipping and I was only left with $255.75 in my pocket. Now I realize I can’t blame eBay for my decision of offering free shipping but nearly everyone expect that now. That was my stupidity, as was selling my iPhone too cheaply. eBay also uses that 10% final value fee on shipping charges as well. So if you want to charge $6 in shipping for an iPhone, eBay wants .60 of that as well which seems ludicrous to me. How can eBay justify taking 10% for shipping expenses?

When I first joined eBay back in 1999 it was a joy to use. Selling items on eBay was a snap and they weren’t nearly as greedy. I don’t claim to be a power seller and perhaps those sellers with thousands of items for sell in stores get a nice discount. But if you are a casual seller like me, I strongly suggest you look for alternative place to list your items for sell. 10% is simply highway robbery and it is unconscionable that they feel that is a fair percentage to charge their sellers. Of course ultimately it is the buyer they suffers the most as charges will invariably go higher and the only people left on eBay will be direct sellers able to pay for the expensive monthly store rates which offers discounts to mitigate these high percentages to a degree. Pretty soon all the occasional and small sellers that made eBay so unique and so popular will be gone.

Charging 10% for a simple listing where eBay doesn’t handle or deal with the merchandise in any way is beyond excessive greed, it’s outrageous. I now understand why small sellers are fleeing. eBay’s February auction sales fell 26.2% year over year, according to ChannelAdvisor’s monthly marketplace report. Direct sales at eBay, meanwhile, rose 8.6%. If their intention is to scare off all individual sellers and replace them with middlemen distributors reselling imported junk from China then I suppose their greedy final value fees make sense. But pretty soon you will be unable to find unique or antique items because no one can afford the fees.

Here are what others are saying on the eBay discussion forums about these more expensive final value fees. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of complaints from users complaining about the more expensive 10% fees. All I can say is this eBayer of close to seventeen years is done with selling on eBay. I will use Craigslist, Amazon, and other sites from now on to sell any items. Bye Bye eBay, too bad you let the greed corrupt what was once a really cool community.

“Yea I think I’m done selling on eBay there fees are just outrageous they lost a seller this year…. Instagram and Facebook is the way to go now”

“They should stop charging shipping fee’s we are charging $10 or under.  A lot of my auctions I put exact fee’s but yet now I’m paying money to ship an item.  It’s insane. ”

“Not only are the fees outrageous but their seller protection is a flat out lie. I have been selling on eBay for years and am appalled at how little eBay cares about or protects sellers. Not to mention the profiteering on fees.  Back to craigslist for free!”

“eBay cheerleaders always forget that FVFs used to be just 2% and when confronted can never come up with a valid justification for it. Oh, eBay needs more money because reasons. Great, I’m sure you’ll appreciate an 8% tax hike too. Afterall, government needs more money because reasons too.”

“Haven’t sold on here in awhile and will never do so again. Way way WAY too many fees and being charged a value fee for shipping is almost corrupt and at the very least, insulting with double-dipping Paypal fees already in place. Already stopped buying as much stuff due to outrageous postal costs. Sorry eBay, used to really like visiting the site and doing business….you lost me.”

“Must admit, I’m shocked at the new fees too after not having used eBay to sell for quite some time. 10% seems pretty high considering the volume of sales and the fact eBay doesn’t need to actually “handle” any good like a normal auction house does. It does smack of greed to me. I’ll certainly be considering selling in other places from now on.”

“eBay is over as far as I’m concerned. I can sell locally via Craigslist and not have to worry about Paypal, credit cards, making cartons, printing shipping labels … or the 10% rip on both the item AND shipping. eBay is a business that is supposed to make money but it is pricing itself into bankruptcy. Bye bye, eBay”

“Yet another unhappy customer completely shocked to have to pay a 10% tax after selling my item. I think the worst part of it is that it was a complete surprise. I’ve even been searching for a policy after the fact, and it seems to have been made deliberately impossible to find. If they’re going to do this, they can at least be up front about it! Will avoid selling on eBay whenever possible going forward.”

“Have any of you contacted eBay directly?  I was attempting to find contact info when I came across this forum.  I just sold an item for $2000, and they billed me $200.  I just assumed this was an error on their part.  I was never expecting a 10% fee for a simple listing!!!”

“I hadn’t sold in eBay in 1.5 years. So imagine my shock when I recently sold a MacBook Pro for $999 and saw that eBay charged me $99! I thought it was a mistake at first. That’s on top of Paypal’s $29 cut and I had to advertise free shipping since buyers expect it and UPS was going to charge me $40! I cancelled the transaction and refunded the money to the buyer. It’s just not worth it to me. I do ALL the work and eBay+Paypal take a whopping 13% cut! For what? They are not a real auction house that inventories your items and does any physical work. It’s just a website, making PURE profit off of sellers. Just remember, the longtime former CEO Meg Whitman became a BILLIONAIRE off the hard work of sellers at a time when eBay had huge growth during the dotcom era. As a loyal eBayer since 1999, shame on you eBay for treating your loyal sellers this way! eBay used to be a nice, fun community back then. Back before it got greedy and prioritized lining its executive’s pockets!”