Rob & Melissa Stephenson from Flea Market Flipper talk about how much it costs to start selling on eBay.
Free Flipping Course: freeflippingcourse.com/
eBay category fees: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4822
eBay store subscriptions: https://www.ebay.com/sellercenter/payments-and-fees/subscriptions-and-fees
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fleamrktflipper/
Check out our FREE Workshop: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar
You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
Appliance Flipping Course: applianceflipping.com
Reseller Hangout Podcast - How Much Does It Cost To Start Selling On eBay?
Rob: What's up, pro flippers? On today's episode, we are diving into the question of how much does it cost to start selling on eBay?
Rob: All right, guys. So the question that we get, and one of those questions out there is, how much does it cost to start selling on eBay?
Melissa: And are eBay fees even worth it? So we're gonna dive into both of those things because when we post stuff, sometimes people like, well, the eBay fees seem like they're too much. Like, is it worth selling on eBay? So we're gonna dive into some of those fees, what they are, and when does it make sense or when does it not make sense for you guys.
Rob: Absolutely.
Melissa: So let's just start off with what is. What are the eBay fees? So if you want to get started on eBay, you don't have to have a store. And you can have up to 250 listings for free. So you don't have to pay anything up front. That's the one thing that's kind of cool, is you don't have to pay anything up front.
You're paying mostly just once the item sells.
Rob: Yep. Which is very, very important because it's nothing out of pocket. When you're selling on eBay and you're starting out selling, you only have to pay for the item if you are flipping or if you already have the item in your house and you're just liquidating stuff, you don't have to pay for anything to get it listed on eBay. You can list it and then you pay the fees after it actually sells. So that actually is the next thing is, what are those fees?
Melissa: Well, and then there is also insertion fees. Like, so if maybe you started, you don't wanna get a store yet, then you'll pay 35 cents for an insertion fee, anything after that 250 listing.
So you'll pay, and you do pay that up front, so you'll pay that as soon as you list it. Well, they bill you like monthly, so, but you'll pay that in the beginning versus when the items. So.
Rob: If you do choose to do the insertion fee.
Melissa: Yes. If you get over 250, and you don't have a store. So.
Rob: Yes, but starting out, you don't have to go over 250.
We are 20 some years in and we still do not sell or list over 250 items in a month. That's our business model. We sell less, we make higher profits on the items that we sell. So you can totally do this without selling 250 every single month without doing that many listings. So you can totally list for free, when you're starting off and you do not have to pay those insertion fees.
Melissa: And that's one thing that I don't like about, Facebook Marketplace is how they have done their listing, their boosting their listing. Like, if you wanna get your items seen to more people, you have to pay that it's an ad cost and you have to pay that up front. And it's just, It's annoying , like I don't wanna pay it up front if I don't know my item's gonna sell.
Whereas if you do promotions on eBay, if we'll talk about that in a minute, but if you do promotions, then you're paying that still at the end. So once the item sells, you're paying a percentage, whatever you choose. So.
Rob: Yeah, and this is definitely worth noting that you can, when you are listing an item, you there, eBay has certain fields and certain things that you can, click like subtitle.
You can actually, if you want to do a subtitle, you have to pay extra on the insertion, which is part of the insertion fee. But you don't,
Melissa: you never, you've never done 'em.
Rob: Never. I never put a subtitle in. There's a couple different fields that you can do when you're listing an item. You don't have to do, it's optional.
If you wanna get charged for that, the insertion fee, you can do those on the get go when you're starting your listings and stuff like that. But you can totally do it for free. That's how we do it. And like Melissa said, with the promotions, you can decide that you wanna promote that item. Which promotion just is eBay's way of saying they're gonna show your item to more people, but you do not pay on the front end of that.
You don't pay until the item sells. And then eBay takes the whatever percent you agreed to do the promotion for. They take that after the item sell and you have your money or the person, the buyer pays for that item. So, which is really, really cool. .
Melissa: Yeah. And so we also need to dive into some of the store costs too, because is it worth it for you to have an eBay store?
So when you first start out, you're jumping in, the fees are gonna be 12.9% on average. This is like some of the categories range, and we'll put a link in the show notes. You can look at all the different categories, the percentage rates that they are, if you have a store versus if you don't have a store.
But on average it's 12.9%. And on average, if you have a store, it's 12%. So it's almost a 1% savings, which you could end up allocating towards promotions anyway. Yeah. But, it's almost a 1% savings if you just have any, any subscription to a store. So, and there are a couple different types of stores. I wrote 'em all down so I didn't forget.
For the, there's a starter store for only $4.95. Well, okay, so there, they give you two different options. You can pay annually or you can pay monthly. So there are five different types of stores. The starter store, you get 250 listings, $4.95 a month that you pay annually or $7.95 if you just pay monthly. So.
Rob: So one of the cool things about, these options with the store, I believe it's even on the basic, isn't it? Yeah. The 250 or $2,500. Yes, cap. So one of the really, really cool things, if you're trying to decide if I should have a store, if I should not have a store, if you're using the business model that we use, which is higher profit, lower volume.
Melissa: It almost doesn't make sense for the amount of listings, but the thing that does make sense.
Rob: Exactly. So you are charged a less amount of fees on the overall sale. So if you're gonna sell stuff between $2,500 and $10,000, having one of these stores totally makes sense because how they calculate the fees that you owe on the backend, depends on if you have a store. When you do have a store, they cap it at 12%, depending on the categories.
Don't take us exactly 12 to 13% in that area, they're gonna cap it at $2,500. So if you sell an item for $5,000, The first $2,500 of that sale is gonna be a 12 or a 13%, whatever it is. It's the higher rate, but it caps at 2,500 and then the remainder of the money, which is another $2,500, they drop that down to two or 3%, which in itself alone is totally worth the subscription of the store. You'll save it on your first item that you sell, you know, at $5,000, something like that, or the monies that you do. And they only do this on the single sale, so it doesn't. What's the word called? If you're selling like 50 items and you get over 200, right?
$2,500. It doesn't work that way. It's on a single item. But for us, that's our, that's our business model is the higher profits, less volume, higher profits. So we're into that $5,000, $10,000 range, on a single item and it totally helps with us. Yeah. Being that way.
Melissa: And if you don't have a store, I think you mentioned it, that you will pay, you'll only get that 2.35% after $7,500.
Rob: It's a huge difference.
Melissa: It's a big difference. So for us, since we do a fairly good amount of sales over $2,500, it definitely makes sense for us to have a, a store subscription. So, we actually have a basic store subscription, which gives you a thousand listings, buy it now listings, and also 250 auction listings, which we never use our auction listings. Do you do any?
Rob: Very seldom I ever do an auction, because it. Sometimes longer auctions, you can only do up to seven to 10 days. I think 10 days a cap for an auction. And sometimes, well, the majority of the time, the stuff that we sell, it might take longer to find that right buyer than 10 days.
The right buyer won't come through eBay and search for that item. Plus eBay actually throws their listings out onto Google, and it takes a little bit of time to get your listing out to Google to find that right buyer. But when they do find it, they'll come in and buy it cuz you're offering it at the right price.
So yeah, we, we definitely, it's one of those things that
Melissa: we don't use that much.
Rob: Exactly, exactly.
Melissa: But some people do. And if you are a collector, like if you have collectibles or you have stuff, consistently that is high, like hot items and stuff, it could be worth it to do an auction.
Rob: For sure.
Melissa: And you'll do one every once in a while and stuff that you don't care what it goes for. Yeah. And just to get stuff moving again, so that could help too. And that is $27.95 if you pay monthly or you get a savings of $21.95 a month if you pay annually. So, which we need to pay ours annually, cuz that's a decent savings.
Rob: It is. Absolutely.
Melissa: The premium store, you get 10,000 listings a month, for $74.95, or if you pay annually $59.95 a month and you get 500 auction items, the anchor store, I'm just gonna go through these quickly, you get 25,000, listings a month, or a thousand auctions, and that is $349.95 a month.
I could just round it up, but, or $299.95 a month if you pay annually. And an enterprise store 100,000 listings or 2,500 auction and 2,500 not, or for, and they only do an annual plan of $3,000 a month or annually. Yeah. But then you gotta, yeah times 12 . So there you go.
Rob: So definitely if your business is higher volume or you're going into the business to go into higher volume, anything, above the basic store, you probably want to look into those because you're gonna be churning, you're gonna be selling and listing and doing a lot of sales in your business. That's when you wanna go above that. But people who are trying to do less sales or even starting out in the business, you don't, you don't, yeah. You totally do not need to go above that basic store.
And you could really get away with the, with the starter store. The starter store, absolutely. And be at that savings of, the biggest thing for us is the $2,500 to $7,500 cap, that you're getting charged, that initial 12, 13%. That's the biggest thing for us with our business model that we do.
Melissa: Yeah. And you get that extra 0.9% savings on most categories, so. Yep. Which adds up, you know, as you start doing more. So, yeah. So we could even probably get away with a starter store. Yep, if we look at it. You also do get, I didn't see on there the coupon each month or each quarter for shipping supplies.
So they have a little store set up, so that is another benefit to having a store. And, and you save on the fees, so what was that? Yeah, the 2,500 verse 7,500. Yep. And then, so that is a comment we get on social a lot is like, well, why, why pay eBay fees when you could sell it locally? So how would you answer that?
Rob: Yeah, definitely. And the cool thing, like we stated originally, you can totally go through, list something on eBay without paying a penny so you can get your item out there, to everybody who's looking for it without paying a penny. Once it sells, that's when you have to pay the fees on the back end. Now remember what we said.
There are certain parts in the listing process that you can opt to pay for an insertion fee. The title, if you wanna do an auction, all that extra kind of jazz, you can totally do that. And pay for the insertion fee. But we don't do that. We don't pay anything to list our items, we list them without it.
Sometimes we'll do the promotion. A lot of times we will do the promotion, but we don't pay it on the back end. So that's one of those things that you definitely, can get started without paying a penny, which was our original question. Yeah. On that, that's something that you can totally do without paying a a, an original penny to get started.
Melissa: Yeah. So why would it be worth it to still sell on eBay if you could have hardly any fees on marketplace or no fees if you meet locally versus, or 5% fees if you end up shipping it.
Rob: And, sorry, I got sidetracked on that. You did . So the main purpose on selling on eBay is it's a bigger, you guys, you've reached such a bigger pool of people looking for that specific item. Facebook Marketplace offer up Craigslist, any of the local apps that you have their local for a reason, they're only reaching that local, 50, 60, 70,000, depending on how big your town is. A lot of times it's less than that, are actually looking in that area for those items. And that's what, that's the people that you're able to get in front of.
With eBay, there's no cap on local. I mean it does it global, definitely nationwide, but you can even do global shipping or international shipping where you can get your items to other countries and eBay will take care of that. Being able to ship it to, eBay's global hub and then they forward it on and do all the customs, all the paperwork and all that extra kind of stuff.
So, the biggest point of this is you're gonna reach so many more people looking for that specific item that you're selling. Yeah. Where eBay, I think last time we checked, what was it, 150-some million registered users. Yeah. Have the potential of seeing what you're selling. Within the local markets, you're limited to that 40, 50, 60,000, range of people that are in that local area that are able to see your item.
You're not getting it out to a nation or a global market.
Melissa: Yeah, and I have to add, we're not paid by eBay or anything.
Rob: No, absolutely not.
Melissa: We're we're definitely not like full on, no paid by them advertising. It's just what's worked for us and we've had our plenty of our issues with eBay too. Absolutely. So it's not like they're perfect.
There is no platform that will be perfect. But for us, we haven't found, and there's new platforms up and coming all the time and we're definitely check them out if it makes sense for us. But we've always gone back to eBay, to be our main bread and butter because it's just worked. Now if the fees get too astronomical, I mean, sellers have left the platform, so maybe at, you know, that we'll get to that point.
But that brings us to another point, is that your money is made in the purchase of the item. Like you, that is where your money is made. And so getting those items at the right cost, not investing too much, not tying up too much money, so that you can still make a profit after all the fees. So.
Rob: Absolutely, it is a huge, huge point.
And some people might be watching this, listening to this, just trying to get rid of stuff that's in your house, not a big ordeal. If you wanna go into this as a side hustle, a full-time business, it is super, super important. Your money is made in your buy. The cheapest you can get your inventory for, you're gonna make so much more money on the back end of it.
So that is our goal with all of the items that we have in our inventory, everything that we're looking to purchase, we wanna get those as cheap as possible. So we can make the money on the spread on the back end. That's where your money is made, is in the buy.
Melissa: So we'll make sure we put the link in the show notes for, you can go check out all those different, compare the costs and see if it makes sense for you to have a store, see if it makes sense, you know, at what level to have a store. Oh, I did wanna add too, you do get access. There's a couple things you do get access to, which you can see in the chart on that link. But like Terapeak is one of their sourcing things so that you get access. You don't have that with a starter store. You get that at with a basic store and above.
So you can look up if an item, like if the sell through rates, if it's trending, like what it's selling for. So there's a lot of data you can look up using that. So we don't really use it that much.
Rob: No, you can, you can do your own research and your own data by looking at completed listings, looking at active listings and just seeing that data by yourself.
You can go through and look at that.
Melissa: But you can compare some of your store's Absolutely. Stuff to that and see, like if you have some stagnant listings, it might be good information for you to see. Yep. Listings that are selling and it could help you with that.
Rob: But not a must. Definitely not a must.
Melissa: But we don't use it that much.
Rob: So, so what if you wanna learn more about flipping, what if you wanna learn more, where should people go? What should they do?
Melissa: Go to freeflippingcourse.com. We have, five mistakes that resellers make that can cost them money. And we, it's just a five day email, free intro course. So we're excited to give that to you.
And thank you for listening and watching.
Rob: You guys rock. We'll see you next time.