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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 1194257, member: 27832&quot;]Huh?</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m willing to pay (say) $55 for (say) a nice-looking 1920-S half (ahem).</p><p><br /></p><p>If I&#039;m bidding on eBay, on an auction with $5 shipping, I&#039;ll put in a top bid of $50. If I win at that level, I pay $55. After shipping, eBay and PayPal fees, the seller sees around $44 -- around a 14% total loss to fees.</p><p><br /></p><p>If I&#039;m bidding on a site that does a 14% buyer&#039;s premium, I&#039;ll put in a top bid of around $44. If I win at that level, I pay about $55 ($44 plus $6 buyer premium plus $5 shipping), and the seller sees $44.</p><p><br /></p><p>The venue needs its cut. Whether it&#039;s couched as &quot;final value fee&quot; or &quot;buyer&#039;s premium&quot;, it ends up as a difference between what the buyer pays and what the seller gets. Whether I&#039;m a buyer or a seller, the end result is the same.</p><p><br /></p><p>Extending final value fees to include shipping just increases eBay&#039;s cut. (It would be great if they&#039;d made it revenue-neutral, but I don&#039;t see any indication that that&#039;s the case.) It protects them from sellers who try to avoid fees with low prices and inflated shipping. It provides added incentive for sellers to offer &quot;free shipping&quot; -- which, again, merely folds the cost into the item&#039;s price.</p><p><br /></p><p>I&#039;m sorry, but I just can&#039;t get very worked up about this, except that it represents yet another fee increase. If they start to see reduced sales, they&#039;ll back the fees down. If they don&#039;t, I guess it was the right business move for them to make.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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