Ebay fees

cupric

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I used to sell a lot of stuff on ebay. This was mostly back in the 1990s. But I have sold other things as recently as a few years ago. I remember a time when the selling fees were nearly a non consideration. I was just looking at the fees to sell musical instruments and found that the final value fee is about 6%. There are fees on top of that. And this includes the price of shipping!
With the cost of shipping etc. this adds quite a large sum on top of what you want for the guitar.
I'm getting old!
 

richardp69

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I'll have to recheck but I think the Ebay final value fee on Musical Instruments is 3.5% + of course the 3% PayPal fee. If I'm right, still less than Reverb which is 5% selling fee + 3% financing fee + bump fees if you so choose to do that.
 

Sal

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I'll have to recheck but I think the Ebay final value fee on Musical Instruments is 3.5% + of course the 3% PayPal fee. If I'm right, still less than Reverb which is 5% selling fee + 3% financing fee + bump fees if you so choose to do that.

Unfortunately eBay's special 3.5% rate applies ONLY to guitars listed in the "guitar" category! Not amps, or pedals, or accessories. Not trumpets, drums, keyboards or anything else. And the guitar has to be listed in the guitars category. A vintage guitar sold in the Vintage Musical Instruments category pays the full 10% fee.
 
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richardp69

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Thanks for the clarification Sal. I only deal in guitar sales on either Ebay or Reverb so that's where my thinking always is. I occasionally still list on Ebay but I have boatloads more success on Reverb. In my mind anyway, the 8% to 10% fees is not a show stopper on Reverb. There's quite a bit of service/exposure offered for that. The one that just really upsets me is the sales tax on either site. But, that of course, is not caused by the state itself but rather by the pressure from the States themselves.
 

Cougar

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In my mind anyway, the 8% to 10% fees is not a show stopper on Reverb. There's quite a bit of service/exposure offered for that.
10% on ebay is pretty steep, but like you say, ebay has one heck of a broad reach. Nowhere else are you going to find potential customers all over the country and the world, and that's for anything, not just music-related stuff.
 

Guildedagain

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When I started eBaying, 3% FVfee + 3% PPal = 6%, nearly 20 years later, the combined fees are 12%, so it seems about normal, besides being horrible ;]
 

Sal

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A vintage guitar sold in the Vintage Musical Instruments category pays the full 10% fee.
Wow, good to know!

So of course a vintage guitar should be listed in the guitar category but maybe with "Vintage" or model year prominently in the title and the seller will pay the lower fee. If that even needed to be clarified.
 

fronobulax

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So of course a vintage guitar should be listed in the guitar category but maybe with "Vintage" or model year prominently in the title and the seller will pay the lower fee. If that even needed to be clarified.

eBay has a written seller policy that "items must be listed in the correct category". I suspect someone who tried that would eventually get a message telling them how eBay defined "vintage".
 

Sal

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eBay has a written seller policy that "items must be listed in the correct category". I suspect someone who tried that would eventually get a message telling them how eBay defined "vintage".

Hey Frono, your comment got me searching further and I turned up this announcement from eBay back in 2017 “eBay Reduces Fees for Music Enthusiasts” https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-reduces-fees-for-music-enthusiasts/
“Reduced final value fee (FVF) of 3.5 percent for the guitars and basses category reinforces eBay’s commitment to the music category.” “3.5 percent for guitars, basses and guitar accessories (e.g., amps, pedals), effective immediately.”

So I was wrong about the scope of their fee reduction it does include amps and accessories! But I was right that the category distinction is critical to the reduced fee. And I’m sure listing a guitar as “Vintage” fits within their intended promotion guidelines. It's not like someone trying to list a banjo, mandolin, or a sitar in the guitar category just because there are strings attached … because there are strings attached.
 

twocorgis

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Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but it seems to me that if you just list the year the guitar was made somewhere in the listing, potential buyers could figure out the "vintage" part.
 

Sal

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Maybe I'm oversimplifying things, but it seems to me that if you just list the year the guitar was made somewhere in the listing, potential buyers could figure out the "vintage" part.
Sure. But the point is that people thinking a "guitar" qualified for the lower fee got burned when they put their old guitar in the "Vintage Musical Instruments" category and then were hit with the higher fee. Just remember that it's the category you list under that's important. It turns out you can put all your guitar oriented stuff in the Guitars and Bases category and pay the reduced fee.

Right now there are 44,500 listings in the Guitars and Bases category using the word vintage so eBay doesn't care about the descriptor: that's not the intent of their promotion.
 
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mavuser

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the fees are manageable for the service they provide. shipping, however, has become a real buzzkill.
 

richardp69

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Although I don't like to pay fees of any kind and I doubt anybody does, I've accepted them because I get something of value in return.

Sales tax, although not necessarily a show stopper, is my main peeve.. You get nothing of value from sales tax and the same instrument has sales tax levied upon it each time it's listed on a major site. Seems a bit unfair to me. But, I continue to buy and just bitch about it so I have nobody to blame but myself.
 

fronobulax

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You get nothing of value from sales tax

Must be where you live :) I can walk around town and point to infrastructure that was paid for out of sales tax revenue. Sales taxes, like room taxes at hotels, are very popular with politicians because most of the taxes are paid by people who can't actually vote for or against the politicians who imposed the tax.
 

wileypickett

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Whatever the fees and taxes, you're still likely to do much better online than you would selling to a store. Having kicked around long enough to remember stores and the newspaper want ads as the only options in terms of selling an instrument, we mightn't complain too much.

And there's always Craigslist. Glorified yard sale -- no fees, no taxes for most of what you sell.

I've been kind of amazed at how far-flung the responses I get to things I put up on Craigslist. I've gotten messages from all over the country, Hawaii and Canada.
 

cupric

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Whatever the fees and taxes, you're still likely to do much better online than you would selling to a store. Having kicked around long enough to remember stores and the newspaper want ads as the only options in terms of selling an instrument, we mightn't complain too much.

And there's always Craigslist. Glorified yard sale -- no fees, no taxes for most of what you sell.

I've been kind of amazed at how far-flung the responses I get to things I put up on Craigslist. I've gotten messages from all over the country, Hawaii and Canada.
Well, when you out it that way! So true!
 

richardp69

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Must be where you live :) I can walk around town and point to infrastructure that was paid for out of sales tax revenue. Sales taxes, like room taxes at hotels, are very popular with politicians because most of the taxes are paid by people who can't actually vote for or against the politicians who imposed the tax.

What I'dlike to say would be contrary to the forum policy but I stand firm on what I said about Sales Tax.
 
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