Comparison of eBay and Etsy Fees + eBay's International Shipping Program

Many people do not read my blog posts or else they skim, missing important details.  That has been rather apparent. 

I have mentioned that I am mentally stressed, meaning that I easily become anxious and overwhelmed.  I am forgetful and make many mistakes while completing simple tasks.  I won't notice many of my typos.  You probably have seen some mistakes in my posts.  Normally I find all of them.  I haven't done that great of a job lately, and I don't care as much as I typically would.

I assume that this has been caused by my low T3 levels, but I feel it could be more than that.  I may have a touch of long Covid.  My thyroid was further damaged by Covid, and it's possible that I also have lingering brain fog caused by Covid.

I remind you of this in hopes of getting more people to understand that I must do everything I can to keep my stress to a minimum.  This is why I have a message in every listing telling prospective buyers that I do not accept offers.  I need to avoid any extra tasks.  Answering unsolicited offers is an extra task that I do not want.

I also will not be selling any books through private transactions.  In a private transaction, I have to do everything manually.  This isn't a big deal to most of you, but it is to me due to brain fog.  In a private transaction, I have to take the photos and send them through a private message.  I have to type out what I want for the books.  

After I know which books the person wants, I then have to make sure that I have collected the correct books together.  After all, I have no handy eBay or Etsy invoice to guide me.  I'm doing it manually.

I then have to figure the amount owed manually along with any shipping.  I tend to make mistakes due to brain fog, even if I use a calculator.  I have excellent math skills, but the brain fog causes silly mistakes, which are dangerous when money is involved.

I then have to send a money request.  Unfortunately, at least 50% of the time the buyer doesn't give me their address.  Repeat buyers tend to think that I have their address right in front of me, so no need to send it.  I have to ask for it.

I then have to manually create the shipping label on PayPal, making sure that I don't make mistakes.  Finally, I have to send the tracking information to the buyer.

Do you understand why I don't want to do all of that?

If I do have a particular book that someone wants, then it will be listed on either eBay or Etsy.  If the book is something that several people want like library editions, then I will use auctions.  Multiple people have contacted me in the last few years wanting me to consider them first when I have certain library editions.  The solution is to run auctions and let the buyers decide who wants it the most.

It's worth it to me to pay the high fees on eBay and Etsy.  Paying the high fees makes my life easier, which reduces my stress.  Lower stress is more important than saving money. 

Did you know that the selling cost on Etsy is nearly as high as on eBay?  It certainly is.

eBay's final value fee is 15% in the books category.  Etsy's final value fee is 6.5%.  However, Etsy also has a payment processing fee of 3.0% in addition to the 6.5%.  Etsy's final value fee is actually 9.5%.

Both sites also charge a flat fee in addition to the final value fee.  eBay charges $0.30 plus the fee.  Etsy charges $0.25 plus the fee.

Here is what my total fees were in 2022 as a percentage of my gross sales.  I used my actual gross sales and fees paid to determine the percentages.  I'm just not sharing the raw numbers with you.

My Etsy fees were 13.9% of my gross sales while my eBay fees were 18.1% of my gross sales.  

Postage is also a selling cost, especially since many buyers earn free shipping through my shipping promotion.  The fee gap between eBay and Etsy lessens when postage is considered.

My Etsy selling costs including postage were 27.1% while my eBay selling costs including postage were 29.8%.  The difference is not enough to matter.

I'm unsure why the postage causes the Etsy selling costs to increase to be nearly as much as the eBay selling costs.  I thought that maybe I had more international buyers on Etsy, but I had very few.  I'm confident that I had far more international buyers on eBay.  The cause may have something to do with combined shipping.  I may have had more sales on Etsy with multiple books in each transaction.  I'm not sure.

I did have more returns on Etsy, so perhaps that is part of the cause.  I dislike accepting returns when the buyer changes their mind, but I do so simply because it is good business practice.  Those returns are expensive.  They usually happen on cheap books which didn't have much of a profit in the first place.  The returns cause me to take a loss on those transactions.

eBay has an international shipping service.  If you are one of the sellers who is afraid to use it, you should reconsider.  On your end, you only have to pay the standard U.S. shipping to eBay's international shipping center.  eBay takes care of the rest, guaranteeing that you will not take a loss if something goes wrong.  eBay even provides free international tracking.  You are notified when the buyer receives the package.

Furthermore, since the seller only pays the U.S. shipping charge, then the seller avoids exorbitant final value fees on the high international shipping.  Before I started using eBay's international shipping program, I would have to charge international buyers $30 or more for postage.  I then had to pay 15% final value fees on that $30+ shipping charge.  With international shipping, I only pay the 15% fee on the media mail shipping charge.

I have had far more international transactions on eBay due to how easy the process is for both buyers and sellers.  There is no downside.