eBay Sales and Fee Breakdown - Example Widget

I thought I would walk through an example of the numbers of an actual eBay sale which covers all fees and see what the actual profit was. In this example, it was a Vintage 1950s Smith Corona Sterling Typewriter. It sold for $126 and buyer paid a total of $156.81. An item I got at OMT Auction in wonderful condition, provenance, and buyer got a very fair deal.

So lets look at the numbers:

Buyer paid:                $156.81     (Item $126.00, Shipping $20.55, Tax $10.26)

eBay Fees:                 - $21.65     (Final value fee $16.94, insertion fee 0.30, and promotional fee $4.41)

Actual shipping:        - $16.43

My cost:                    - $5.00       (I got it for $5 or so at auction)

Shipping supplies:    - $2.00       (Ballpark, but bubble wrap, box, it was heavy item…roughly close)

My time packing, etc.   (Priceless, so wont include that here as it will skew the numbers)

Profit:                        $111.73

If it were an international order, there would be an international transaction fee of 1.65%. As you can see, the shipping discount is approximately 20% which equates to $4.12 which reduces my selling fees from $21.65 to $17.53 shipping discounts with UPS are not unheard of at 40% - 50%. Overall, the shipping, fees and taxes account for almost 37% of total sales.

Net selling fees are 13.9%. A lot of eBayers I talk to say that eBay is taking 20% to 22%, but my math isn’t working that way.

My overall goal is to find items I can sell for double the cost at minimum. I have done well on this item being able to acquire it at a lower cost and thus increasing my margin. They all don’t go like this. So…when I sell an item, I may bring home 50% - 75% of that as profit. Again, this was a more profitable example, and most fit into a lower 25% - 35% margin which is my average after all costs.

John