Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about whether eBay fees are worth it to be able to sell on the platform.
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Reseller Hangout Podcast - Are eBay Fees Worth It To Use The Platform?
Rob: What up, guys? eBay fees are what we are talking about today. Are they really worth it to be able to use the platform?
Rob: So today we are talking about eBay fees, if they are really worth it to be able to use their platform.
Melissa: So, such an exciting topic. We touched on this before, but we wanted to revisit it, got a couple comments on social media. So I wanted to talk about the lovely eBay fees that you get.
Rob: That's right, and there are a lot of different angles and a lot of different topics, that we can jump into, I guess a lot of things to consider when you are listing and selling on eBay.
So, we wanna touch on all those throughout this episode, to give you guys a fair assessment of if it is really worth it for you to be selling on eBay.
Melissa: Yeah. So, kind of, they can, why can they charge eBay fees? Really?
Rob: Yeah. So that's a great question, because eBay is huge. eBay has been around/ They are the first, as far as I know, the first platform, to, you know, it, it's an, the internet platform I'm trying to say.
So they're the first ones to the market to be able to sell used items. Now Amazon is, is, I don't think Amazon's a good comparison with them, but that's they.
Melissa: Yeah. Way different models.
Rob: So yeah. And that's the other platform that has a model of selling online and has been around. I think similar to the same length that eBay has, but eBay is definitely a used platform.
More they're, they specialize more in used sales for used items for sure.
Melissa: So, and they have how many registered users right now?
Rob: I think it's like in a hundred. It switches around, but I think it's hovering around 159, 159. So right around 160,000. No. 160,000,000.
Thank you. 160 million registered users on eBay currently. So, you could tell that it's just a monster. It's a bohemoth of a platform, that has people all around the world using it.
Melissa: And a lot of times people will say, well, I don't wanna sell on eBay because I don't want the eBay, I don't wanna pay the eBay fees.
But the one thing about most of the fees is they're after you sell the item, so you're not paying them up front. There are certain situations where you'll pay them up front if you do like certain categories or you're doing the listing, what is it?
Rob: It's not really fees. Well, insertion fees.
Melissa: Okay. Yeah, insertion fees. So I guess, yeah, those aren't, the end listing fees. But yeah, a lot of people say, why don't you just sell that locally on, or like, on Facebook Marketplace? And we could, especially our larger items we're like, why pay, you know, several hundred dollars in eBay fees?
But it's worth it because we can make so much more money with the fees. So.
Rob: Yeah, and we used, even with the fees, I mean, and we used to sell on Facebook Marketplace, our larger items, our big stuff. Yeah. But I'll give you an example of a sale we just had last week. It is that, crown wave. It's some type of lift or stocking machine that you stand on.
You drive it around, it picks up, I think 300 or 400 pounds of stuff in the front of it where you can get it up onto a power rack or something like that. Anyways, we've sold that on eBay. We had that listed. We cross posted that locally on marketplace and on eBay for the same amount of time, and it did not get any bites whatsoever locally.
So we could have sold it locally if it would've, but the problem is the reach is so small when you're doing local large items, it does not go to as many people as eBay can reach. So.
Melissa: Because how many people really need a lift? Well you're limited to your local market and then if you go to the national market, so many more people could be needing the same item that you have.
Rob: Absolutely. And we had to pay, do you remember what our fees were on that?
Melissa: I don't know that one.
Rob: Okay. I think it was $500 or $600 is what we paid eBay.
Melissa: No, it was $200.
Rob: Plus the promotion.
Melissa: $202 plus $250. I just did that one.
Rob: Yes. Okay. So under $500 is what we paid total to eBay. This is what actually sparked this whole conversation between Melissa and I today.
Somebody actually on social, wrote in and said.
Melissa: No, that was on a different one, but yeah, it was on the bus wash. But somebody wrote in and they a, they said, why would you pay? It was the bus wash we sold for $14,500. The eBay fees were $600 on that one. Okay. And some of these people are like, how did you, how are you such low eBay fees when it's 13%? But when you hit a certain category or you're in certain categories or you hit over $2,500 in certain categories, the fees drop. So it's like 2.5% after the first $2,500. So that's why it was only $600 for that. But they're like, why are you paying eBay $600? What the heck did they do?
They did nothing. They just let you list it on their platform and then you have to pay them that. That's bogus. Yeah. But the answer really is, well, we could have sold it locally. Like the guy did sell it locally for $500, but we wanted to make more money.
Rob: Exactly. Well, you're talking about the bus wash.
I was back on the list.
Melissa: I know. Sorry. That was the bus watch.
Rob: So you're swapping around, but that's okay. But yeah, that's what it boiled down to is, the bus wash. I don't remember I had that listed locally, but it's the same thing. You're only reaching anywhere from 30, 40, 50,000 people that might be looking for that in your local area to where, depending on the size of your town, to where you can get it out to a nationwide, to a even worldwide, you can get some items out, and use global shipping to do it.
So, for us, the answer really is, yes, eBay fees are worth it because we're getting it to a bigger market and we're able to sell it to where we can't sell it locally. I had this lift listed on marketplace at the same amount of time that I had it listed on eBay and it sold on eBay. So would I be willing to pay that extra, what was it?
Less than $500. Now, for you guys that don't know the history on it, we got it free outta the trash. Yeah.
Melissa: We just did this episode a couple.
Rob: So you might remember if you didn't see this episode. Yeah, I don't remember what number it was, but we got it free outta the trash. We sold it for $7,500, an extra $500 on eBay fees.
Plus it cost me $575 to ship it. So roughly, a thousand dollars when I used eBay to sell it. Is that worth it to make $6,500? Absolutely, it is totally worth it for us to do that. Thinking about just the eBay fees and, what we, yeah, what we paid out of that sale. So when we couldn't sell it locally, all we could do is sell it to where, I don't remember where, oh, that went to California actually. Yeah, so that was a pretty long shift from Florida to California. But it's one of those things that if you can reach more people because of eBay, and we'll break this down a little bit too, where people think, why is eBay charging this money for this?
One of the reasons is because they can, but another reason is, eBay's a company, guys. They are not, they, they're a growing company. They're not like.
Melissa: A lot of overhead.
Rob: Exactly. They cost them money to operate and they've been in the business for so long. They're constantly, using new, technology.
Exactly. Technology, new systems and new stuff. They're constantly bettering their platform. That doesn't happen for free. I guarantee they have invested millions and millions of dollars into their platform. And that's how they're recouping it. That's how they're recouping it, making it a better experience for us.
Melissa: They have to pay their employees too.
Rob: Absolutely. Making it a better experience for us. Making it a better experience for, the buyers, for everybody all around. So that does take money. So definitely something that you want to consider when you're using eBay.
Melissa: Yeah, and this is not just a pitch for eBay because we just had our fair share of unhappy stories with eBay, which I'm sure we will get to more of those on this podcast at some point.
So I just.
Rob: And we don't get anything for recommending eBay guys. We don't. But this is what we use, what our business works with. Yeah. And it works very well with eBay, so that's why we're telling you guys this. They, they're not paying us a thing. We don't get any affiliates or anything like that with eBay. Nothing.
Absolutely. It's just what we use and what works well because if you logically look at it, it really does work the way that we're telling you that it works because of how many people they reach.
Melissa: And we have thought about in the past, listing on our own website, like listing on our own, but then we have to drive traffic to it, and that costs money too.
So it's like, ugh, you gotta get traffic. There's so many different ways you can get traffic, but a lot of it takes either a lot of time or paid ads. And so it's like is it worth it to do that and have it on your own or just list it one time here and then pay the fees and have them do it. Yeah. And collect all the taxes for you and that set of sort of thing.
Rob: So yeah, just think about it. If you jump onto Google right now and you're looking for a specific item, a crown wave, type that into the search bar. Guess what is gonna come up on that first page of Google? eBay is. EBay's gonna come up with items of that? Especially if you put a model number in there, they're gonna come up there.
That traffic is not free that eBay is getting from Google. They're having to pay for that. And they've had a been in business for so long to where they have seo, where yeah, all that stuff is optimized. So that's how I'm able to sell something and get it on the first page of Google because of what eBay is able to do with their bohemoth platform that they have for sure.
Melissa: And one way that we can also justify, justify fees I guess. But, the reason why we can pay em, I think you touched on this a little bit earlier, is that we get our items for so cheap. So like we're looking for a really good deal. And I like everybody's looking for a good deal on items, but because of the types of items that we like to sell are typically items that people are getting rid of or just don't know.
They don't know how to ship 'em. So they're gonna get rid of locally for cheap cuz they can sell them for more. So as long as enough money is in your buy, like the money is made in the buy.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: So, so making sure that your profit is there to account for eBay fees.
Rob: So, yeah, and that's a great point.
If you are only making a couple dollars on the items that you're selling, eBay might not be the right platform for you. Right. Or you have to reevaluate your business and try to look for those items that you can get a lot less money, cheaper, that you can get to a larger market and be able to sell them for more money.
So, like this lift that I told you about, if I was selling this lift for, say $3,000 versus $7,500, it might have sold in the local market if somebody did find it and did want to take a chance on it, it might have sold. But I didn't have to pay that much on the local market by reducing it that much.
I made more money by getting it onto eBay. So it all really weighs out to using eBay and how much more you can ask by getting it to the right buyer who's looking for it on eBay. It definitely all weighs out.
Melissa: Yeah. And it, we may in the future have to change because if the fees get ridiculous or whatever, and the, and that's one thing to be ready to adapt if things change and you need to go to a new platform, you know, we'd be ready to do that. And maybe we'll do our own at some point. Yeah, do our own website and have to deal with that headache. But for now, it makes sense with our business when you look at the numbers and that, that is another big thing in your businesses, knowing your numbers.
That has definitely not been a strength of ours till more recently. Like we never really, we just needed to make money. So go flip something like, yeah, we need some money. Go flip something, like that was kind of our mindset back years ago. So, yeah. Wanna go on vacation? Go flip something. .
Rob: And it's a great point what you just said because eBay does there right now where it, where they are.
It does make sense for us, even that lift that we're, we're referring to, we had to pay, I think it was $250 on promotion fee. Was that what it was?
Melissa: $202. Oh no, the ad fee was $250.
Rob: So our fees were $202, $200 for the final value fee. And then $250 we paid for promotion. So that's one of the things that they recently have changed, where if they hadn't done that, we wouldn't have to pay that promotion fee of an extra $250.
But still, if you think about how many more people you're reaching and how much more money you can ask, that's one of the tweaks that eBay has done within the last probably couple years is wanting people to pay that extra promotion fee. But the cool thing is you're not paying it up front. You're paying it after you sell it.
So if your money's made on the buy and there's enough money to do this, what eBay's asking you, you, or what they're wanting you to do is pay more money on the promotion. Right now, it still makes sense for us to sell the items that we're selling on eBay because there's still so much more money to be made, than what we're buying the items for.
So, all this being said is there might be some changes in the future where it doesn't make sense for us to do. Another platform might come up that's better and a lot cheaper. But until then, eBay definitely is the place, for us to be for sure.
Melissa: Yeah, So don't let fees scare you off. Make sure you know your numbers and it makes sense in your business that you're looking at how much you're spending on the items, how much the fees are, and then what is your profit and then your time invested.
So that's really, we're really big on the time you have invested and are you getting paid for your time. So, we, that's why we've gravitated towards our business model cuz we believe that it gives us more time. So, and it does. Cuz we're doing the, the bigger flips and the higher profit flips. So, but yeah, it gives us more time, but it makes sense for our business.
Rob: Awesome. You guys rock. Have a great day. We'll see you on the next episode.