roy

Lessons learned from eBay:

Let's say you have procured an item for $184. You wish to sell this item on eBay. Let's say, due to high demand, the item sells for $230. Being an honest person, you charge break-even on shipping/handling, not wanting to overcharge like some people ($10-$20 for S/H?!).

The listing fees from eBay:

• Initial fee: $3.60
• Bold/Image: $1.35 (something that everybody seems to be doing)
• Final selling fee at $230: $6.95

eBay, in its infinite wisdom, purchased PayPal, so when you handle a $230 transaction via PayPal, they take a nice cut of: $7.95.

Doing the math, you're working up roughly $20 in fees to eBay, Inc. to sell a $230 item. Although you've made roughly a $46 profit on the particular item, you're still only breaking to about $26 profit per item after eBay fees (not counting opportunity cost of shipping it, obtaining it, etc.). You're still looking at a 10% ROI, which is not bad for merchandise that you've gotten from retailers, but still...

Now I know why the power sellers charge so much for S/H. Retailing has such razor-thin margins (besides this month) ... you gotta make it up every way you can.

Time to jack up S/H.