The Most Useful eBay Upgrades With Fees + eBay Store Guide

Published – Apr 27th 2018

Don’t you just hate paying out fees for eBay listing upgrades and other stuff? As you know, your aim is to rake it in. The common cliché is “you have to spend money to make money“. This rings true sometimes and as a business owner I can understand this.

One way or another there are always expenses when it comes to conducting business. This is relevant whether it be eCommerce or whatever else.

However, there are options available for you to try minimize these fees as much as possible. This could mean shopping around for the best deal. You can also try cutting unnecessary costs altogether.

eBay’s global revenue for 2016 totaled a whopping $8.99 billion. It’s an understatement to say that there is plenty of money floating around this popular online marketplace. This is one of the reason why it is important to educate yourself about upgrades. This will give you an edge over other sellers.

“Guess what? The world changes. eBay has defined e-commerce.” – Meg Whitman (Businesswoman & CEO of Hewlett Packard)

It’s true, for better or worse eBay really is the true evolution of commerce. You can say the same about Amazon too.

Things will notch up a few more gears when you factor in extra tools on eBay such as upgrades. Maybe the biggest upgrade of them all is the eBay store. I will talk about in more depth later on.

Check out a few of my ideas and see if any of them work for you. I have also mentioned a handful of upgrades connected with these fees. The advice I give out will be about opening your own eBay store/shop too. I think all this information might be worth your time.

These fancy bells and whistles that eBay offer can make you more appealing to buyers if used correctly. Some of the listing upgrades are helpful in terms of functionality. The rest are pretty unnecessary if we’re being brutally honest. I will try to separate the treasure from the trash for you the best I can.

How do I pay my eBay fees?

You will be due to pay your invoice if your fees exceed £1/$1 per month. This means you can rest easy if you’re only taking in a few sales at a time. The fee payment will be set up to automatically come from your PayPal or bank account. It happens the same way you receive payments from buyers.

Many eCommerce platforms only make you pay a fee after you successfully sell something. This is really encouraging for new sellers. It’s also great for those with limited financial means as there are no upfront costs.

It was certainly something that inspired me to sell on eBay in the first place. You don’t even really need much initial capital to begin with.

[bctt tweet=”eBay store owners will receive a free gift card each month. This can be used to buy postage and packaging supplies.” via=”no”]

What happens if I don’t pay my eBay fees?

If there is any major delay in your fee payment, then eBay may freeze your account. You won’t be able to sell anything until you pay what is due. If things escalate even further then eBay may terminate your account. I always make an extra effort to stay on top of my fees just in case this happens.

You could also get in trouble with the law. This may be in the form of debt collectors knocking on your door if the worst comes to the worst.

Which eBay listing upgrades are available?

If you really want to, you can pay for optional extras like listing upgrades. Which is the best eBay upgrade?Do eBay upgrades work? Many people ask these questions. I have mentioned a handful below that might spark your interest:

Subtitles – There is the option of adding a subtitle just under your heading. You should ideally put the important information in the subtitle. This is the stuff that you couldn’t originally fit into the main title. This is great for people like me who run out of characters when completing their titles or even description box. Always useful for cramming in that extra bit of necessary detail.

Highlight & Embolden Words – You can highlight and use bold words in order to make your listing stand out in a crowd. This comes in most useful in search results pages. I wouldn’t call this a vital upgrade but it’s nice to have. It sets you apart from the listings of other sellers. If you’re going to do this then make it count by picking the most relevant words.

Extra Photos – You usual get 12 pictures per listing as standard. Although, you will have to pay extra to upgrade and add more. You can pay the extra fee for a greater number of larger, higher quality (more pixels) pictures with gallery plus. Photographs are an important ingredient of online selling. It can’t hurt you to add as many as possible. This is most helpful if you’re selling something large and complex. If you’re trigger happy with a camera like me then this is certainly an upgrade to seriously consider.

Increased International Visibility – There is an another upgrade that will boost your visibility in foreign countries. This is particularly helpful if you are interested in selling globally.

Dual Categories – If you pay the required upgrade fees then sites like eBay will let you list your item in two categories instead of one. If you are selling a television set then you might select ‘televisions’ as well ‘monitors’ or ‘electronic devices’. By doing this you are improving your chances of double the amount of people noticing you. A customer might originally miss your listing if they are searching for a similar product in a completely different category. With this you are putting yourself in front of their faces whichever way they turn. Sometimes I struggle to know which category to best put my item in. With this upgrade eBay doesn’t force you to choose, you can have it both ways.

Which fees will I have to pay per sale on eBay?

The bare bones fees that everyone has to pay are insertion and final value fees. The insertion fee isn’t that much but will rise as you increase the item price. The final value fee is around 10% of the sale give or take. Although this can vary depending on the category.

How much will the eBay fees cost me?

The fees are a normally a small bite out of your overall sale price so not really that steep. However, for big purchases like cars and properties it can be extremely dear. It can go over £30/$30 in some cases.

Why are eBay fees so high? You might view the fees as unfairly high which I can sympathies with. However, you have to understand the full extent of what you’re getting from eBay itself.

They are a hugely popular website generating lots of traffic. This means you get more exposure to your listings than selling with most alternate methods.

The fees may be lower with other routes. However, you will be missing out on the boost in exposure if you sell independently. This is why I sell with eBay more than any other platform.

Where can I find my fees on eBay?

They will break down your fees for you regularly on a monthly basis. This will be in the form of a handy invoice so that you can keep track.

Your monthly invoice will contain a summary of all the different kinds of fees that you owe in detail. This can include promotions/discounts and fees or other money that has been refunded back to you.

Overall, it will account for all the money coming in and going out. This has made record keeping a little simpler for me and I’m sure it will for you too.

[bctt tweet=”You can add a subtitle underneath your listing title. This is useful for details you couldn’t fit into the main title.” via=”no”]

Are there any more fees outside of eBay?

PayPal is so popular that you may have no choice but to offer it as a payment method. This is because so many buyers trust it nowadays.

However, the alternatives are often less costly because of how much PayPal fees can bite into your profits. PayPal charge you 20p/20¢ for every transaction plus an additional 3.4% fee. It can be a real downer if you are on the selling end.

There’s no real way around PayPal fees. This is down to the fact that eBay forces you to offer them to your buyers as a payment method. They make the rules so you just have to grin a bear it if you want to continue to sell with eBay.

On the plus side, PayPal offers yourself and the buyer a high standard of security. This is usually higher than other online payment services.

Are eBay listing upgrades really necessary?

I personally don’t think you need listing upgrades to be successful. Although, I can understand if you may disagree. One can’t help but see them as a luxury add-on rather than a vital necessity. You can go through your entire selling career without using a single upgrade and you can still achieve profits.

I would suggest upgrades to you if you are a big seller who is already making a lot of money. You can then enhance you’re already successful business.

Like I say, you don’t need listing upgrades. I would advise you only choose the upgrades that will increase your sales/profits. These ones should also make life easier for the buyer in terms of usability.

Upgrades can also cost a surprising amount of money. Only utilize them if you have a big enough budget. You need to be able to factor them into each transaction while at the same time still making a profit.

How do eBay stores/shops work?

Should I get an eBay store? Which is the best eBay store to subscribe to? Let me break it down for you. eBay stores work by having different tiers which are:

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Each one has different features and upgrades to offer. Also subscriptions fees are higher every stage that you advance.

If you want to enjoy the benefits of an eBay store then you will need to pay a monthly subscription fee. This may or may not be worth. It depends on how much money you can turnover in a week or month.

eBay will assign all sellers a door symbol next to their listings. This will tell buyers that they have an eBay store. You won’t qualify for an eBay store if your status is labeled as ‘below standard‘.

Paying for an eBay store will replace a lot of the fees that you already pay. Most expenses will be in one monthly amount rather than on a pay per transaction basis.

How can I customize my eBay store?

eBay stores let you create a domain name for your own store. This gives your business that extra bit of authority. An example of this might be stores.ebay.co.uk/Viking-Electronics if you had a business called ‘Viking Electronics‘. It’s a bit like owning a website … but not really owning a website if you see what I mean.

You can upload a special image for your eBay store. It tells buyer about your brand and what you sell. This would be sort of like a banner advertisement of your own design for your listings.

You can also customize the navigation links for your store. This is in order to make it user-friendly and functional for your buyers. It works sort of like a website designer.

The listing designer lets you add code using an HTML editor. Your listings look more professional and appealing to the eye this way. This gives the impression that it is your little corner of the internet. It beats having a default listing page and then blending into obscurity with thousands of other sellers.

If you don’t know code then you can learn. It isn’t that hard to teach yourself the most basic lines of code. You can even change the colors within your eBay store in order to personalize it even more.

Are there any other benefits of an eBay store?

eBay store owners will be able to sell to buyers in select countries without paying any additional fees. eBay will also be give you a gift card each month. The voucher can be used to spend on postage and packaging materials for your business. How good is that?!

A really handy quirk of eBay stores is the search feature. This is a search box specifically for your listings. The buyer can quickly find whatever they want to buy from your inventory. This will make your eBay store even more user-friendly.

Can I promote my eBay store/shop?

eBay are quite defiant about marketing. They don’t want business channeling off from them and going elsewhere.

However, they do give you some slack by allowing you to add a company logo. You can add this to emails and your eBay store (if you have one). Having a company logo will make your brand recognizable even outside of eBay.

Having an eBay store means that you will be able to market and promote your shop by email. You can even send your subscribers promotions and discounts to spend on your products on eBay.

The quantity of marketing emails you can send is dependent on which eBay store subscription you have. If you want to send extra emails without changing subscriptions then you will need to pay more. This will be a £0.01/$0.01 fee for every additional email that you send over your monthly allowance.

It’s against the rules to include contact details and links to other sites in your emails. Like I said before, they like you to conduct all business with them. If you sell with eBay then they will take their cut from your fees. There will always be a financial incentive for them. They like it this way.

eBay listing Upgrades & Fees Table

I have created a table below showing available eBay upgrades. It also shows how much the fees are for each one . (All fees correct at time of writing.)

[table id=2 /]

If you can think of any that I left out then please let me know in the comments. Some of the information presented may be different depending on the category you’re selling in. For instance, the fees are vastly different if you’re selling cars or properties. Always check this on an individual basis.

(You may want to bookmark this page so you have it at hand to look at when you need it.)

I suspect at least some of these upgrades might have peaked your interest. However, they will cost you a little extra. You will have to calculate if you think this is all worthwhile for your business in particular.

Looking back, we have learned that eBay offers a wide range of different upgrades with fees attached to them. Some will make a meaningful difference to your business depending on your individual circumstances. One the other hand, others simply won’t.

Here’s what I suggest you do next. Why not go through your budget or business records? You can then figure out which upgrades and fees you can afford to take on. Also, go through and compare all three tiers of the eBay store. Work out which is the right one for you, if any.

Where do I go after this? Well, let me put this to you. Have you ever pondered the question Why Won’t My Buyers Give Me Positive Feedback & Reviews? Find out the answer now with this post.

Do you have a personal favorite eBay upgrade? What are your views on eBay’s fees? Do you have an eBay store and do you believe they are worth it? Please don’t forget to share this with your friends and comment below. Thanks for reading!

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