Ebay Paypal Double Whammy On Fees

PayPal has always taken their cut on the total sale price. That is how their fees are applied; Based on how much money the buyer sent you to pay for the item.

Yep they are separate companies (wink) and since you have to pay ebay fees separately. ....
We have something like this in Omaha. A restaurant tax that includes the meal and sales tax. Ax on a tax.

Tax on tax is all over the place... PayPal is just another in a long line of people who use tax tricks to bump income.

The Government is the master at this art... one common area that most people don't notice are income taxes. The Federal Government actually considers your State tax return as 'income.' Logic would tell you that the money was overspent when it was 'taxed' from your income by your State....

BTW... everyone on this thread will be audited by the IRS.

Another reason prices on ebay are creeping up. It's not always the sellers price gouging (though sometimes it is). When somebody sells something on ebay they're hit with 10% Final value fee (on purchase price AND shipping price). Then they're hit again with ~3.5% paypal fees.

Though it's against ebay's TOS to circumvent fees, you can often purchase the item directly from the seller at a discount since they don't have to pay the listing & FVF on ebay. I always check to see if the seller has a website and contact them that way.

The whole amount that the buyer pays you goes straight to your PayPal account. Then PayPal deducts their cut from that. I don't know about everyone else, but at the end of the month, ebay charges the total fees for that month to my PayPal account, as if I had bought a product online.

Gotta love how they don't' advertise that they own PayPal, so that it makes them look nicer. Then they charge you as if they are completely separate without any relation!

That's completely irrelevant. The only opinions such a disclosure would affect are those who want to look at the glass as half-empty in the first place, and I don't blame them for wanting to avoid that. ebay has their fees, Paypal has their own fees, regardless of ownership they're still separate corporate entities who have to show a profit on their own initiative, and with all due respect I don't see this as a point of contention.

Yeah, they're trying to push the limits of their profitability. They have no choice, being publicly-held. They couldn't do what is "morally right" if they wanted, because the stockholders are more important than the customers. That's how it works if you're a publicly-held, stock-issuing company.

At the moment, ebay is the 800lb gorilla in an arena where the competition's weight is measured in ounces. I'm guessing they're not stupid, and trying to move forward in a world where the only bottom line is the bottom line, without crossing that tipping point where their business model justifies the rise of truly-competitive alternatives. I loathe this, but I get it.

I was mildly active on ebay about 10 or 12 years ago, stopped, then got back into it (and opened my Paypal account) a couple of months ago. Every time I got dinged with a new fee I was first incensed, then astonished at how naive I had been. At this point I think I have the economics of the two nailed down (not that I like them), but I still get a nasty surprise now and then from the post office- I don't think I'll ever completely figure them out. Somehow I'm always one ounce over some magic price point and it costs me two bucks more to ship than I had anticipated...

I started selling on ebay again to generate a little extra pocket cash to support my hobby, but geez- with the couple-dollar items I have to sell I'm sure my time would be more profitably spent donating them somewhere, taking the tax break and then working weekends at McDonald's for spending cash. Sad but true. At least I get some solace knowing that the item I'm sending off is going to a someone who appreciates it...

cheers,
tbg

This works great until you get taken by a scammer.