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Hey Guys – I have a very nuanced question. I am currently a “premium” store subscriber (1000 free fixed priced listing per month) and have been thinking about upgrading to an anchor store (10,000 free fixed priced listing per month). One of the perks that caught my attention was that anchor store final value fees are capped at $250 vs $350 for premium stores. I was chatting with a friendly ebay rep and she told me that only the final value of the item and not the final value fee for shipping counts towards that cap.
First, can anyone verify if this is true?
If it is true, then that makes a strong argument for having free shipping and upping the cost of the items to include the shipping cost. That way you’ll get to the cap quick and save more money on final value fees. My fear, though, is that the higher item price will have a psychological effect and scare people away (even though the total cost of the item+shipping is actually the same either way). So here’s my pressing question. Has anyone experimented with embedding the cost of shipping versus regular shipping and how were sales affected?
A few facts as you consider the question — I sell mainly paper goods such as magazines and books. My average price is around $13 and shipping is $5.
Thanks, in advance, for your thoughts.
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One of the perks that caught my attention was that anchor store final value fees are capped at $250 vs $350 for premium stores.
Not sure I understand or even knew this was a thing. Can you better explain this statement?
Do you mean if you sell an item for $500, you only get charged a final value fee for $350?
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Nope. What I mean is that your cumulative monthly (item) final value fees are capped at a certain amount based on the level of store that you have.
For example – if you sell 1000 items at $10 apiece in a category that has a final value fee level of 10% you would expect to have cumulative final fees of $1000 (1000 x $10 x 10% = $1000)
Now — if you had a premium store, your final value fees would be capped at $350. and if you had a anchor store they would be capped at $250.
The rub is that this final value fee cap supposedly only applies to the those FVFs associated with the item and not the ones associated with shipping. I’ll give an example. My final value fees are currently $350 for item final value fees and $120 for shipping final value fees. At my current premium store level, the caps don’t really save me any money. If I upgraded to an anchor store, I would save $100. If I embedded the cost of shipping in my item price, I would save $220 — provided that my sales didn’t fall as a result of the higher item price scaring buyers away.
Sorry – it’s little complicated to explain via text. Does it make sense now?
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I think I understand your thought, but I’m not sure what you say is true.
We have an Anchor subscription and paid $795.87 in final value fees in June. Are you saying our fees should be capped at $350 and we paid $450 ore than we should?
Where on eBay.com do you see your assertion documented?
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Here’s the reference on the eBay site.
It’s on this page
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/store-selling-fees?id=4122About 2/3 of the way down the page it says “* Final value fees are capped at $250 in all categories for Anchor and Enterprise Store subscribers. For Basic and Premium Store subscribers, final value fees are capped at $350 in all categories, except Guitars & Basses (3858), Heavy Equipment (177641), Commercial Printing Presses (26247), and Food Trucks, Trailers & Carts (67145), where the final value fee is capped at $250. Maximum fee caps do not apply to the additional final value fees charged to sellers who are not meeting our performance expectations.”
Maybe I am mis-interpreting what they are saying, though. Maybe they mean an individual final value is capped at $250. So, if you sell a $10,000 item it’s capped at $250 (instead of it being $1000) and not that cumulative value fees are capped at $250.
It hasn’t been relevant for me until now as I am premium store subscriber and my final value fees (on items) have always been just below $350 (their stated cap).
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Yep, I wish your interpretation was true because we’d save several thousands of dollars per year. But it’d be a dumb business model for eBay 🙂
eBay caps the total FVF for a single item. If you sell an item for $10k, they will only take a certain amount. So only helpful if you sell very expensive items.
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