How to save eBay fees for valuable items

Here is a tip for eBay sellers to save on fees for higher priced items ($500 or more).

eBay has a new policy that can actually greatly cut down the Final Value Fee of higher priced items. The policy allows the first five listings per month generated directly through the eBay listing page to be free of insertion fees and a fixed final value fee (FVF) percentage rate.

The FVF rate of 8.75% is higher than normal for lower priced items, but where it gets good is that there is a $20 cap on the FVF. So a $3000 coin that would normally get hit with about a $70 FVF, but instead one would only be charged $20. I make sure to list my higher valued items each month to qualify for this program, and they do indeed stop at a $20 FVF.

The cut off to where you start saving is for items over $500. The reasoning for tis is because a normal FVF for a $500 item (not the higher fixed rate) is about $19, plus the cost of the listing fee, which roughly equals $20. Anything that ends higher than $500 would have a higher FVF than $20, so you begin to save by following the "5 free listings" program.

I should note that I normally list my eBay auctions through an auction management company and not directly through eBay, so when I have an expensive coin to list I just do it directly through eBay and it automatically qualifies as one of my first five listings for that month. If another seller lists all of their items directly through eBay, they would have to make sure to line up the higher priced ones to be within those five special listings each month.

Here is the eBay link for the program:
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/June2009/List5Free/index.html

I wasn't sure which category to list this topic in, so please feel free to move it if FAQ is not the right place.

 

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It ends Sept 30th. I found it saved me a couple hundred in fees.:bow:

 

Daboz, Can you point me to where the September 30th deadline is mentioned? I can only find the date it started (June 16), but no mention of any ending of the policy. Thanks.

 

It was in the email they sent me as notification, if memory serves me right. I'll have to see if I still have it. It may have been extended, but I did not see it.

 

Just found it, and I was in error. Sorry for the bum info.

 

Hey, no need to be down, that's good news that there is no end date in sight. :thumb:

 

Great post, Numiscent ! I appreciate it.

 

It's very tempting to list a few things for sale.

 

Great Info. Does this include BIN listings because they have higher fees then auctions? I

 

It applies to auction style listings only.

I use my 5 free listings as virtual Buy It Nows (only on coins over $500 or so though). I just start the auction at the price I would take for the coin and if I get a bidder then wonderful!! If I don't then no big deal, didn't cost me anything.

 

Thanks Tom.....Small potatoes, but my last Ebay bill was $316, anything can help. Also a thankyou on the customer referal:high5:

 

I read the thread and seen it was unsure of the 9/30 cut off, it is it still ending
9/30? Thanks

 

Jack,

I think I know who you are talking about, and you are welcome. I'll keep check my account for the commissions to start rolling in. :goofer:

Detredwings, I believe there is currently no expiration date set for this eBay program.

 

For those of us who rarely sell stuff on Ebay, I also found the reverse is true. I listed an auction that came in a little under $300. Since I only list once every other month or so, it was a "free listing", which saved me $0.15 for my listing fee (started it under a buck). Well my final value fee was 8.75% instead of the normal 3.5% (after the first $25) so it cost me $20 in final value fees instead of $11 if I had paid the listing fee. Another way for Ebay to make money I guess. Now I know for next time I guess.

 

Be careful with the 5 free listings though. I schedule 9 listings to start a few days ago and paid the extra $0.10 per listing to set the start time 5 minutes apart from one another. My 5 highest dollar auctions being the first 5 to begin to be my 5 free with the $20 final value fee cap.

The auctions started as planned but when I checked my invoice the first auction to start actually showed up last on my bill with an entry time of nearly two hours after the auction actually started, so it didn't end up being one of my 5 free. After 45 minutes on the phone to eBay India, I was able to convince them to give me a final value fee credit, but I will have to call when the auction is over since they can't calculate the credit until the auction ends next week. They said the auctions are not billed when begun, but when they become searchable in their system. That can be anywhere from 30 seconds after listing to 6 hours after listing I was told. The only way they agreed to credit me in this case was because I was able to prove my auction was searchable before the time on my billing because I was fortunate to get a bid only a few minutes after I listed (that person had to find my listing somehow!!!).

Just something to be aware of I guess. Sort of a pain, but it's a $2500 or so item so it being one of my first 5 of the month saves me around $50 I think.

 

Very good point, Mike.

 

Mike,

Are you saying eBay was bumping that listing back to your previous invoice, which you had already maxed out the five free listings? Or did they bump it forward to the beginning of the next billing period? If it is the latter, I imagine it would qualify as a free listing.

Actually, one thing I'm unsure of is whether the availability of the five free listing refresh 30 days after you first of the last five, or simply every 30 calendar days no matter what you have sold. I haven't run into the issue yet, listing less than five per month.

 

No, all of my listings were on the same invoice. I had it set up to where the first 5 I listed in this 30-day period were the 5 most expensive. I thought eBay would bill them in the order that I listed them so that the first 5 I listed would be my 5 free for the month. But eBay didn't bill them to my account in the correct order so the first coin I listed was actually the 8th item to appear on my current statement (and thus wasn't one of my first 5 in their view). It's hard enough to explain here... so you can just imagine what it took to get eBay's foreign call center to agree they messed up :headbang:

 

oh, okay, I gotcha now. Glad to hear Mumbai ended up working with you in the end.

 

Well, I emailed Ebay about the extra fees and, amazingly, they refunded the difference. They had this to say about how to avoid the new fees if they will cost you more.

"The new fees are not applicable to sellers who list items through the
API/Listing tools such as Selling Manager, Selling Manager Pro,
TurboLister, Bulk Sell/Relist/Revise flows (except when you relist
individual listings), File Exchange, Mass Listing Editor, third party
listing tools, etc."