A Small Leak Can Sink a Great Ship – Reduce Your eBay Expenses

As a continuation of my post titled, “How to Reduce eBay Shipping Costs,” let’s look at some other ways to reduce eBay costs and increase our profit margin. You may have to do some analysis, but you can find ways to trim your expenses and therefore increase your profits.

1) Use caution with listing upgrades such as bold, highlight, gallery plus, and photo enhancements. Do your own research to determine if these upgrades affect your sales. Upgrades are expensive – do you really need them?

2) Pay attention to eBay Insertion Fees and the tiered pricing. Pricing an auction item between $1 and $9.99 costs 35 cents in listing fees. Pricing an item between $10 and $24.99 costs 55 cents. Study the insertion fee costs and decide if it is more cost effective to set your starting price in the lower tier to save money on your insertion fees. So, assume your item sells for $10. You have just paid 20 cents to make a penny. Doesn’t make much sense, right?

3) When shipping USPS Priority Mail, consider using the Tyvek envelopes instead of a box. The envelopes weigh less, and you will pay less for shipping. (This isn’t always possible if you are shipping fragile or breakable items, but something to think about.)

4) Use generic or recycled printer cartridges. eBay sellers print a lot of shipping labels and invoices. Consider trimming this expense by investigating recycled printer cartridges.

5) Take advantage of relisting credits. From the eBay Help Index, ” if your listing ends without a winning buyer or ends with an Unpaid Item (UPI), you may qualify for a credit by relisting the item. If the item sells the second time, eBay will refund the Insertion Fee for relisting.”

Read a complete list of 12 suggestions for increasing your profit margin on eBay. A small leak can sink a large ship. Pay attention to the little things, they can add up in a hurry.

[Image Source: Flickr]