DOIN' THE MATH

I don't know if anyone who reads this blog sells on ebay or not, but you get some interesting questions from potential customers. I currently have a few things on ebay for sale. Not big items, just some stuff I have found at yard sales, estate sales and a few things of my own that I don't need any more.

I have a pair of tassel loafers that I did not wear, no longer need and would like to get some cash for. Can't for the life of me understand WHY I bought them in the first place. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I think I wore them once, maybe twice about 15 years ago. Now, when you price things on ebay you have to consider what they are worth, what you think someone is willing to pay for them and how much ebay is going to eat of your price in their never ending fees. I felt that $10.00 was a fair price, considering they cost about $50 when I bought them new. Shoes are heavy to ship. It will cost me about $9.00, plus shipping confirmation, to ship them across country. I had a generous offer today of $12.00, in total, for the shoes.

Lets do the math!!

I will cost me 94 cents as the final value fee charged by ebay and 90 cents for the fee for shipping. Ebay now charges the final value fee on the total, auction price and shipping costs. If the purchaser pays with paypal, as most customers do, it will cost me another 90 cents for the paypal fee. Paypal, by the way is owned by the same company as ebay. Hummm..... So let's see how much profit I would be raking in if I accepted the "generous" offer of $12.00.

Purchase price    $12.00
ebay fees              -1.84
paypal fees            -0.90
shipping                -9.00
"profit"                $ -.26

You'll notice I did not include the delivery confirmation cost, printing and paper cost,and packaging cost.I reuse shipping supplies when I can. I do have to buy tape and paper for the printer, printer cartridge (yeah, those are cheap!!) and all of this takes time. If I had added all of those costs I would have been in the hole even deeper.
Wow....what am I going to do with all that profit? 
What profit?


I did have enough sense to tell the person willing to take the shoes off my hands for $12.00 that I didn't think I could accept the offer.

Oh and a word of advice about ebay. Never, never, never set your starting bid for less than you paid for the item. It is never guaranteed that you will get more than the opening bid. Don't ask me how I know this little tidbit. But it only happened should happen once to learn your lesson.

And folks think you can make a fortune by selling on ebay....yeah if you sell a CD telling how to make money on ebay...