I have spoken at length with two seller "Customer Support" representatives about this. What it comes down to is that Ebay fears they are loosing market share to e-commerce sites that offer "free" shipping or that O site that charges $2.95 for whatever you buy at one time. That might be true for sellers of new merch where there are comps out there, but for the antiques and collectibles I sell it just isn't applicable.

Their suggestion is that I include my shipping charges in my opening bid amount and offer free shipping. Of course they do, that will raise all of my insertion fees and they will still get a cut of my shipping as part of the regular FVF. It will also make lower priced items almost impossible to sell.

I plan to stick with my $5.95 opening bids and adjust my shipping charges accordingly. I also plan to add a shipping disclaimer to all of my sales explaining that Ebay is now effectively charging the buyer an additional 9% on the shipping THEY pay. It would be great if we could come up with a uniform disclaimer for all Ebay sellers to use, mine will be the following:

Dear Buyers,
Due to Ebay’s recent decision to start charging Ebay Sellers a 9% final value fee on shipping charges, on top of the 3% we already pay on shipping payments made through Paypal (An Ebay company), I have no option but to increase my shipping charges accordingly. Ebay will now be making 12% on the shipping charges you pay.

That would be great. First PayPal skimmed off the shipping,now eBay wants their cut. I feel there is som illegal goings on here. How can they get a cut of the Govetnment postal money anyway?

Sellers are between a rock and a hard place. Add free shipping in the listing,or make the buyer pay. At the end,PP and eBay win

This i s excellent pigeon.....


Dear Buyers,
Due to Ebay’s recent decision to start charging Ebay Sellers a 9% final value fee on shipping charges, on top of the 3% we already pay on shipping payments made through Paypal (An Ebay company), I have no option but to increase my shipping charges accordingly. Ebay will now be making 12% on the shipping charges you pay.

Of course it is...just like putting in your TOS about giving 5 stars or you can't sell. I still think its excellent

Just wait...eBay my soon take a percentage of the State taxes charged by sellers who sell within their State too. Oh wait,they will since they will take a percentage of the bundle.

Great info Ruzgar..something to look into.

Some good points raised by Ruzgar, well worth looking into.

I received the email that starting sometime in April, eBay is going to get a commission on the seller's shipping cost, something to that effect. This sucks big time. They already charge you on your shipping cost on PayPal and they are going to do the same now on eBay. The least they could do is lower the FVF to offset the shipping charge. They will lose more sellers this way. Greedy bastards!

This may be illegal in some countries, same as ebays "paypal monopoly" is in some places, anyhow it is certainly something I`m going to look into. Stamps after all are legal tender in many countries & so in effect ebay are saying a $1 stamp now costs $1.03, sub-post offices & corner shops in the UK who sell stamps aren`t allowed to do this so I don`t see why ebay should be allowed to. Of course it may mean you have to go to the PO yourself & not charge any handling fees but I do that anyway.

so... in a couple weeks I can add this? (I was just getting back into selling so am trying to get my head wrapped around understanding this)...

NOTICE:
Effective April 19, 2011

to buy on ebay you pay for all of the following three:
1) the item
2) the cost to ship the item
3) eBay and PayPal's fees they're charging on the total shipping costs.

eBay is now charging a fee for the shipping charges, even though shipping is not a service they are providing.

This is on top of the 3% we already pay on shipping payments made through Paypal (An Ebay company), so it appears to be a double charge on the service they're not providing.

This fee increase is only for ebay, neither the post office nor us sellers realize any money from it.

Upon the sellers' objections at the ebay Town Hall Meeting, ebay's reply was to raise our (sellers) prices, so on ebay's advice we are passing on those fees to you.

If you are unable to give us a 5 star rating on shipping, then please do not buy from us.

Note: This is probably temporary. There's a good chance in the future that ebay will charge more fees for services they don't provide.
Examples are: a fee based on the gas we purchase to get our vehicle to the post office to mail items. And a fee based on the upkeep we pay to keep our vehicles running to get to the post office. And a fee based on the clothes we buy so that we don't get arrested for nudity when we go out to purchase our stock and mail our items. And a fee based on the groceries we buy so that we can stay alive to stay signed in with ebay. And a fee based on the packing materials we purchase. And a fee based on our time to pack items. And a fee based on our energy bills to keep stock housed in warm dry conditions. These are just estimates.

So buy now before we are advised to raise prices again to cover for ebay's double fees for non existent services.

My guess is, it's because of John Donahoe, President and CEO of eBay since 3-31-08. He's a bigshot in the corporate world. From 2-2005 to 3-2008, he served as eBay's President Of Marketplaces, and during that 3-year period, revenues and profits for that division doubled. In my opinion, he's the reason we've been seeing all these changes that affect eBay sellers. Certainly, eBay doesn't look the same as it did 2 years ago.

Now eBay wants a cut of what sellers pay for shipping. It's outrageous, and seems illegal at first glance. So, instead of simply complaining on these boards, I'm done selling on eBay. On my way out, I'm submitting to them my objections to this new policy.

"The eyes of man are never satisfied."

We had to create a mind shift at our company we had to think bold and not just incremental.
We had to create a vision of the future so people could let go of a very successful past.

eBay CEO John Donahoe

I guess the future will be increasing the fees & commissions that ebay/paypal can squeeze out of sellers to the maximum amount possible.
It`s pretty obvious that ebay/paypal having recognised that their largest source of revenue is commissions is simply intent upon making that pool as large as possible whilst not forgetting the two other main sources of revenue for internet companies, advertising & the sale of personal data.