Well I've ditched the free listings over there.

[poppyrowan]

I don't know if I have this right, or whether I am reading my paypal details wrong, but they take a percentage of the whole sale price of an item including postage as far as I can tell??
There seems to be no rhyme or reason to their fees. I made a sale including postage for £1.89 and got charged 26p in fees. Another sale inclusive was for £11.60 and I was charged 60p.... go figure.

[sherlock07]

I don't know if I have this right, or whether I am reading my paypal details wrong, but they take a percentage of the whole sale price of an item including postage as far as I can tell??
There seems to be no rhyme or reason to their fees. I made a sale including postage for £1.89 and got charged 26p in fees. Another sale inclusive was for £11.60 and I was charged 60p.... go figure.

You are correct in that Paypal do take a percentage of the total price of the item + a fixed cost of I think 20p per trasaction.

[LovesVintage43]

I don't know if I have this right, or whether I am reading my paypal details wrong, but they take a percentage of the whole sale price of an item including postage as far as I can tell??
There seems to be no rhyme or reason to their fees. I made a sale including postage for £1.89 and got charged 26p in fees. Another sale inclusive was for £11.60 and I was charged 60p.... go figure.

Paypal fees SHOULD be 3.4% of the whole sale amount plus 20p, so the first one is about right, but it sounds like you got a bargain on the 2nd one :-)

[Armstrongs]

Free listing days

I've found it's better to play them at their own game...........

List for a price that you'd be happy to accept (factoring in fvf & ppal)

Collection only

A good result if your buyer turns up with cash!

Nothing lost if the item dosn't sell.

Yvonne x
ps. I have cctv so am not unduly worried about folk turning up at the door, it's no different to giving stuff away on Freecycle

[poppyrowan]

You are correct in that Paypal do take a percentage of the total price of the item + a fixed cost of I think 20p per trasaction.

I didn't realise they charged 20p per transaction too!! Heavens above, its not worth selling low cost items!

[kreativebargains]

[chuckle] Yes, I'm not quite in his league, but last month my wife needed a simple SD/SDHC card reader. Daft to keep plugging in the camera and running down the battery with long downloads, a card reader is a better way. Won one for 50p, brand new. So pleased I snapped up another at much the same price, just to give away.

No such bargains here though. 178 card readers, but even the cheapest are well over a quid (figuring in postage).

Presumably the competitive prices here that you mention are in other categories? I need some 1GB DDR ram, so I looked here first. Cheapest here is 8 quid. Can get a pair for little more than that on the dark side.

I see much discussion of goods I don't buy, collectibles such as postcards, comics, stamps, and practical things like clothing and craft goods. Perhaps those are where the prices here are competitive? I do have a stamp collection from the 1960s that I ought to sell, but since I have no idea of value of stamps I'd need to put them on a venue where I'd be sure of the bidding being active enough to find the right level. Would that happen here? If it would I'll give it a try.

I'd much appreciate advice.

It is all down to the seller. Personally I would rather be the most competitive. I do have some computer items, but not DDR. Another thing with those type of items is the often rapid price changes, usually downwards. I have some SanDisk memory and pen drives but have not checked against the competition for a while, it might be that I do not now compete, and sadly there are still sellers who list on eBid without keeping an eye on their listings, they just check in now and again and hit the relist.

But the same pricing issues appear on other sites. I just gave a bit of advice to a newbie, including getting on to Google Shopping. He has an old radio at about £10 or so, on eCrater the same item is over £92. I check the prices on the competition when I list and I have seen items at 100% more than I charge, and at times they have sales which I find amazing. I do as you, check eBid and hopefully the item is available, then I Google to see if the eBid price is competitive, if so eBid gets the sale. Did this the other day and am pleased to report that the item, a tool for opening waterproof watches will be bought on eBid.

[kreativebargains]

Paypal fees SHOULD be 3.4% of the whole sale amount plus 20p, so the first one is about right, but it sounds like you got a bargain on the 2nd one :-)

Fees are right on both, for the second the fees are £0.3944 + £0.20. if anything they were ripped off as the fees should have been rounded down.

One more thing on the £0.20 is that they do not return that if you refund, they class it as a transaction fee and keep it as the transaction has been completed. So a refund on a small item can still cost a high percentage of the items value.

[johnwash1]

Paypal fees SHOULD be 3.4% of the whole sale amount plus 20p, so the first one is about right, but it sounds like you got a bargain on the 2nd one :-)

Second one is right as well. 11.6 * 0.034 = 0.3944, then add 0.20, gives 0.5944 which they're rounding up to 60p. [pauses a moment to recall with sadness the demise of the half p... which I refuse to call a ha'penny, which is a pre-decimal coin]

It's fair enough that Paypal charge on the whole amount, after all they're transferring money, it doesn't matter what the money's for. But ebay's change to charge on FVF for postage is just yet more gouging.

LovesVintage: if all your use of Paypal is for low value amounts, it could be worth you comparing the charges if you go over to their other system, micro payments. Cheaper for small amounts, more for higher amounts. Unfortunately you don't get to pick and choose, you have to do it all one way.

[Teddyrose54]

One question ~
Why are we talking about them over there, on here.
When them over there, do not talk about us, over here?

[sherlock07]

LovesVintage: if all your use of Paypal is for low value amounts, it could be worth you comparing the charges if you go over to their other system, micro payments. Cheaper for small amounts, more for higher amounts. Unfortunately you don't get to pick and choose, you have to do it all one way.

Open 2 Paypal account 1 for micropayments and 1 for regular payments