I like to sell things online on different platforms which includes Ebay, Amazon, Mercari, and Etsy. I enjoy using Ebay the most out of all four platforms.
SELLING ON EBAY
When selling on Ebay, you have to keep in mind that you will be charged a final value fee after the sale depending on which category you sell in. The amount can between 2%-12% of the sale price. There is one exception. For athletic men and women shoes selling for over $100, thee final value fee is $0. A lot of time people don't think about the final value fee and then they get hit with a separate bill later. Just keep that in mind when pricing your items.
Here is a link to view the Ebay Fees: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/selling-fees?id=4364#section2
Also, if you are using Paypal to accept payment, there is a 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction fee, which get deducted automatically in your Paypal account. Ebay is launching a new thing called managed payment, which will allow them to process payment thus eliminating Paypal fees. According to Ebay, eBay will manage payments for most sellers in 2020, and all sellers will eventually be required to have eBay manage their payments in order to keep selling on eBay. Registration allows you to get your business ready early for managed payments. If you are new to Ebay and wondering how much it cost to sell on Ebay. It's free to sell there if you list 50 items or less. Fees will incur after a sale. I do recommend the "Starter Level" Store subscription if you plan on selling about 100 items per month. The monthly fee for a Starter level store is $4.95 per month if you commit to a year., which is pretty inexpensive. With an Ebay store subscription, every now and then you would be able to take advantage of special monthly promotions such as 200 bonus free listings. Due to the Covid pandemic, the new promotion is "pay no insertion fees on up to 50,000 fixed price listings for the month of July." It is also very likely that this promotion will get extended until the entire month on August. Now is the time to start decluttering the house and sell things you don't need or don't spark joy.
SELLING ON AMAZON
I have a free "individual plan" Amazon seller account as opposed to a paid "professional plan".
It is free to list things on Amazon to sell. I paid 0.99 + additional selling fees if an item gets sold. I chose not to get the professional plan which cost $39.99 per month, because it didn't fit my needs and the things that I am selling are not in high demand. I also price most products higher than my competitors. Keep in mind that Amazon fees are higher than Ebay and the fees also depends on what category you sell it. For Amazon, in additional to the per item fee of 0.99 you have to pay a referral fee, and a closing fee. For books, there is a 15% referral fee (on item and shipping cost) + $1.80 closing fee. To get an idea of how much the fees are, I recently sold a rare book for $1600. Amazon fee was $249.77. Profit $1350.23. Although Amazon fees can seem high, Amazon is a household name and people love to shop there. My advice would be to price you items accordingly.
SELLING ON MERCARI
I don't get a lot of sales on Mercari. The traffic there is not as big as the other top marketplaces. Maybe it has to do with what I am selling. I sell mostly books on Mercari. New, used, and books that I illustrated are listed on Mercari. For awhile, I did not know how to relist a "sold" item. I recently found out that you have to go to the SOLD / COMPLETE section to relist an item. The payment transfer process is a bit slow. After an item get sold, you have to wait for the buyer to confirm that they got it. The buyer has 3 days to confirm after the tracking shows that it was delivered and then you have to rate the buyer in order to get paid. My strategy is to use Mercari to promote my coloring books. The way I see it is that people will not buy your book if they do not know that it exist. It doesn't cost anything to list on Mercari and they only take 10% off all sales. I noticed that most of my buyers on Mercari are female. What I don't like about Mercari is that media mail isn't available as a shipping option on Mercari. Media mail is the most cost efficient method for shipping heavy books. I only started using Mercari this year so I will see how it goes.
SELLING ON ETSY
For Etsy, I just wanted to focus on selling digital products. My digital products are illustrations that I create. I did not want to deal with shipping a physical product. Once a customer buys a item, they can download it instantly without me getting involved. I only started selling on Etsy this year. Etsy charges a flat $0.20 per listing fee plus 5% of the total payment collected including the shipping price charged to the buyer. If the transaction is processed by "Etsy Direct Checkout" you'll pay an additional 3% plus a $0.25 fee. For example, if I sell an item for $1.99, the profit will be $1.38 with Etsy Direct Checkout. If you sell more than one quantity of an item, there is an additional $0.20 charged for the 2nd item to be automatically relisted.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment down below.
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