One more ebay question

I see people selling coins for 1.00 and free shipping on ebay. How can you do that? With the ebay, paypal fees, and the shipping fees how can they make money. Can anyone tell me what I am missing? Last time I shipped a coin it cost me over two dollars.

 

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If it's a US Seller, then they are probably shipping without tracking (regular envelope with a stamp). Best case scenario, they are making several cents. Many are losing money (it could have been an auction and the seller didn't expect the coin to sell for only the opening bid).

For sellers from China, they have subsidized shipping costs and cheap labor costs. They might make 30-40 cents per item but when done in large volume, it is worth it to them.

 

I guess it relies on the amount of sales. Another theory is to build up reputation quick. Sell fast, receive feedback fast, collect a lot of it.
I have seen this with jewellery sellers.

 

This, it also may just be people essentially buying feed back. Send out a 100 dollar coins and your feed back score bumps a lot

 

I haven't sold on eBay for years. And won't. When you buy a coin from the US Mint for $50 and can't sell it for that much. eBay still wants you to give free shipping.

 

Why should ebay care if you are selling an item for a loss or a profit?

 

Sounds like my business model.

Lose money on every sale but make up for it in volume . . . . .

Z

 

They don't and shouldn't. But, credit you get for being a rated seller is based upon following what they think are best practices.

 

They are "Buy It Now" auctions at .99 cent or 1.00. So no auctions that is the final price. I am curious so I bought three coins today from 3 different sellers. It came to a total price including shipping 3.47 cent. I want to see how these come in the mail. I will follow up on this post if anyone is interested, but they won't be here till late next week.

 

They did change it where the discount really isn’t much and you have to offer a real long return period to even get it which I think is like 30 days now for the top rated discount. Regardless it’s really not worth chasing the discount

 

I have a hard time understanding how people can sell stuff for less than the mint charged originally and then offer free shipping. Doesn't make sense to me. I quit selling on eBay a few years ago. I'm giving all my surplus to the grandkids.

 

You just don’t have a choice for most people. The mint does sell stuff cheaper for big dealers but a lot of the raw stuff can also be grading rejects. There’s not a simple one sentence answer

 

Thanks. But, I have a simple answer - I won't sell anything for less than I paid for it. I don't need to. If I was in a jam I might.

 

If somebody takes a hundred pennies that they found in Pocket Change sell them for $0.99 after he eBay fees in the price of a stamp they make about $0.40. So when everything is said and done they made $40 for their effort.
Wouldn't be worth it to me but somebody with nothing but time on their hands that $40 is a bag of groceries.

 

Plus, if they are nice about it they get considerable positive feedback and that helps them sell other stuff. It does make a little more difficult for the occasional merchant.

 

They actually don't make anything if they are paying the full price for a stamp (and this doesn't take into account the price of an envelope/packing supplies or time spent).

Item sells for: $0.99
eBay fee is 10% = $0.10
Paypal fee is 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction = $0.03 + $0.30
Stamp is $0.55
Coin is $0.01

So we have: 0.99 - 0.10 - 0.03 - 0.30 - 0.55 - 0.01 = $0.00

 

Technically you could have a huge pile of old forever stamps where you could make money but yea it' for feedback

 

I've bought any number of items for less than the Mint originally charged. At some point, you've got to decide whether you'd rather have some money for the item, or no money for it at all.

 

There is a Paypal option to switch to microtransactions. It comes with a higher percentage fee with a smaller transaction fee. It is 5% + $0.05 per transaction.

 

And if you sign up for that you get charged that rate for EVERYTHING you sell. You can't pick and choose which ones you do.