paypal fees

[tommypenguin]

I am one to believe if you are including paypal fees you should include it in the original description and say to add 3% to the item prices or list the item with paypal fees included which is what I did when I sold my vf40 18g turbo. I don't think there is anything wrong with asking for the buyer to pay shipping and paypal fees on the forums, the buyer is typically getting a better deal on here than they could ever get elsewhere even after incurring the relatively small costs, just my .02.

[fweasel]

No ,I got that part.Private sale is not what I'm talking about.There you get wha t you can.

I'm talking a regular business transaction like AKLGT.

Makes sense. But this thread started off about private sales on this forum which is why I thought the business world concepts didn't apply.

[fizxman]

PayPal is just a service that allows the little guy to accept payment off of someone else's Visa or Mastercard, etc. They allow the transaction to be quick, trouble free (in most cases), and pre-verified. This costs them money - they don't do it for free, it would cost them money. So they charge you for the service they provide - no different from a mechanic charging for his labor on your car.

 

If you were a small shop wanting to accept Visa / MC / AMEX, you would pay 2-6% on every sale (depending on volume, credit rating, etc). PayPal's 3% is far better than most of us would get if we just opened a small business.

 

Stop whining that you want everything for free!

[chenc544]

I don't know if this is still the case but you used to be able to set up a "personal" account at PayPal. Where you can't accept credit card payment but you can accept bank transfer. PayPal doesn't charge a service fee for those IRCC.

[BigT]

This thread is crazy!

 

IRCC.

 

Er, I think you mean IIRC (If I recall correctly)

 

however, if i can't sell something here locally first, THAN I'll post it up in the general forums.

 

I think you mean THEN not THAN

 

OK, now that I've got that off of my chest... Paypal is charging because it is providing a service. Who is this service for? The seller. What usually happens when sellers incur fees? They get passed on to the consumer.

 

When you look at the options, Paypal is pretty good. Personal checks and bank checks are often withdrawn after they have cleared, if they are found to be fraudulent. That is the funds will be withdrawn from the account they were deposited in. Money orders, COD, and Bank checks are also usually expensive. They often have fees that range from $1 to $10. I guess your best bet is to evaluate if the 3% would be more than the other methods.

[BDII]

I can always charge $125.67 for my grills

 

That covers the pay pal fee and no one would know but me

[qikslvr]

The small 3% fee charged by PayPal is nothing compared to what I have to pay to process credit cards directly. A Merchant Account will cost you at least $15 a month if you use it or not, plus the extra $10 a month to accept American Express, plus an extra $10 a month to accept Discover and then you get charged between 3-5% per transaction. This is called a cost of doing business(CODB) and is tax deductable.

As stated by many others; you have two choices, eat it or pass it on to the consumer. If you do plan to pass it on to the consumer; just add it in as part of the shipping and PROCESSING charges. People don't get pissed about that, but they do get upset when you say "If you are going to pay me instantly, I will penalize you for it." You still come out ahead over buying locally when you take out the sales tax you would pay at a store, so it's six of one or half a dozen of the other.

[lvethesnow]

As stated by many others; you have two choices, eat it or pass it on to the consumer. If you do plan to pass it on to the consumer; just add it in as part of the shipping and PROCESSING charges. People don't get pissed about that, but they do get upset when you say "If you are going to pay me instantly, I will penalize you for it." You still come out ahead over buying locally when you take out the sales tax you would pay at a store, so it's six of one or half a dozen of the other.

 

i could live with the fees being add to the price and not stating "plus3% paypal fees". of the stuff ive bought off ebay no one has put in plus 3% paypal fee.

[chenc544]

So basically people don't care if the 3% is added to the total, they just don't want to see it? Why does it matter?

[lvethesnow]

i think people just dont want to see the fees.

[qikslvr]

It's a perception that you are charging them extra for paying faster. I think that people would rather see "3% discount for paying with cash , check or money order" than to see "add 3% for additional fees when using PayPal". Again it's easier to just bump the price by 3% and not tell them than to explain why.

[chenc544]

It's a perception that you are charging them extra for paying faster.

 

I think that's the problem. There are convenience and savings on the buyer side that perception doesn't taken into account. If you were to pay with a money order you gotta taken into account the cost of a stamp ($0.41), money order ($1.05 for USPS), gas money/time to go to the PO, envelope, etc. It could easily add $2-4+ expense to the buyer. For anything under a $100-200 you would probably break even if not save money by paying with PayPal. If you have a reward credit card, you would at least get 1% of that fee back if not more. On top of that you will probably get the item you bought faster too. All these things should be taken into account when you judge the worth of the 3%.

[NSFW]

So basically people don't care if the 3% is added to the total, they just don't want to see it? Why does it matter?

 

Because economics is confusing and math is downright scary.

[BigT]

It's a perception that you are charging them extra for paying faster. I think that people would rather see "3% discount for paying with cash , check or money order" than to see "add 3% for additional fees when using PayPal". Again it's easier to just bump the price by 3% and not tell them than to explain why.

 

That math doesn't work out, but I know what your saying. $100 with a 3% fee is $103, but a 3% discount on $103 is $99.91

$.09 may not seem like a big deal to you, but if you move $100,000 worth of merchandise a month with this math you lose over $1000 a year. But yes you could just give them a discount for paying with cash. This however would lead to a problem for internet based retailers, because often consumers only look to compare prices, not extra services, discounts etc. The internet retail game is tough, in fact it is often considered by experts to be a lot tougher than normal retail because of the stiff price competition and lack of informed consumers. Not many people know of other large retailers to get books from besides Amazon, which had over 80% market share for e-commerce a few years ago (not sure what it is now). Try starting up a competitor. If you compete on service not that many people notice, and it is so hard to compete on pricing because of the leverage they hold over publishers. And, for the real killer, the attitude of most consumers is that they already know where to get their online books from they don't need another site, and often don't even hear about these other sites. E-commerce is a bitch, and paypal is just trying to get their cut. Sorry for the long rant. Hope I wasn't too off topic

[Infamous1]

This was the first site I experienced being charged for PP fees....

[qikslvr]

That math doesn't work out, but I know what your saying. $100 with a 3% fee is $103, but a 3% discount on $103 is $99.91

$.09 may not seem like a big deal to you, but if you move $100,000 worth of merchandise a month with this math you lose over $1000 a year. But yes you could just give them a discount for paying with cash. This however would lead to a problem for internet based retailers, because often consumers only look to compare prices, not extra services, discounts etc. The internet retail game is tough, in fact it is often considered by experts to be a lot tougher than normal retail because of the stiff price competition and lack of informed consumers. Not many people know of other large retailers to get books from besides Amazon, which had over 80% market share for e-commerce a few years ago (not sure what it is now). Try starting up a competitor. If you compete on service not that many people notice, and it is so hard to compete on pricing because of the leverage they hold over publishers. And, for the real killer, the attitude of most consumers is that they already know where to get their online books from they don't need another site, and often don't even hear about these other sites. E-commerce is a bitch, and paypal is just trying to get their cut. Sorry for the long rant. Hope I wasn't too off topic

 

Believe me I know it's hard to make a buck online. After you get done paying for the products, websites, shopping carts, checkout fees, credit card processing, phone bills, fuel, postage and everything else it's a break even ordeal most of the time. It's just like those commercials you see all the time where the poeple say "I GROSSED $200K last year"; what they don't tell you is that they NETTED about $12K after paying all of the above mentioned fees. Try selling on Ebay for a living and you will soon realize that you need to have a 20% mark-up on your stuff just to break even.

PayPal does provide a value added service and deserves the small amount they get for transactions, but it is kind of a turn-off when people directly mention that you need to add extra money to use it. As stated by others; PayPal doesn't charge much if anything at all for personal accounts that receive funds from a bank account. It's the credit cards that they hit you up for.

[BigT]

Believe me I know it's hard to make a buck online. After you get done paying for the products, websites, shopping carts, checkout fees, credit card processing, phone bills, fuel, postage and everything else it's a break even ordeal most of the time. It's just like those commercials you see all the time where the poeple say "I GROSSED $200K last year"; what they don't tell you is that they NETTED about $12K after paying all of the above mentioned fees. Try selling on Ebay for a living and you will soon realize that you need to have a 20% mark-up on your stuff just to break even.

PayPal does provide a value added service and deserves the small amount they get for transactions, but it is kind of a turn-off when people directly mention that you need to add extra money to use it. As stated by others; PayPal doesn't charge much if anything at all for personal accounts that receive funds from a bank account. It's the credit cards that they hit you up for.

 

Word, people assume that the internet is an easy way to make a buck, but they don't realize that what you make by not paying rent, you lose with all the competition. If you open a local sports shop and it has to compete with maybe 15-25 other sports shops in your area, now if you opened one up on the internet it is like you are competing against every shop in the country. It would be like if you entire town was made up of nothing other than sports shops. Anyway, if you're trying to run your own business, it usually means that you are doing it because you love it, not because you are trying to take out walmart.

[AKLGT]

wow. we're still talking about paypal?

 

and my friends have an online ebay store. they have to pay an insane ammt of $$ for processing and fees. however, they still do pretty well.