eBay international fee rise for Eurozone & Northern Europe

No primary category set

You probably aren’t even aware that eBay charge an international fee when the delivery address for the item (entered by the buyer during checkout) is outside the UK. It’s similar for other countries as well and the info is buried in the fee schedules that came in with eBay payments. This is nothing new – PayPal also used to sting sellers an additional percentage for handling overseas payments.

Now you know that there are higher fees for selling cross border, you’ll probably be even more unhappy to hear that these fees are going to be doubled in January, from 0.5% to 1.05%, when you sell to Eurozone & Northern Europe countries.

Eurozone countries are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain

Northern Europe countries are: Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden

For the US and Canada the international fee is 1.8% and for all other countries it’s 2.0%.

eBay international fee for Business sellers

The international fees for Eurozone & Northern Europe will increase from 0.5% to 1.05% (exclusive of VAT).

You can get more information about the international fee here.

eBay international fee for Private sellers

The international fees for Eurozone & Northern Europe will increase from 0.6% to 1.26% (inclusive of VAT at 20%)

You can get more information about the international fee here.

These new fees will apply whenever you sell internationally, including if you sell though the eBay Global Shipping program. The only way to avoid them is to cease selling cross border.

11 Responses

  1. Might be time to turn off Global Shipping soon. Not worth the extra fees on ebay that are already very high for the poor service and website they provide. Plus all the extra risks with sending abroad if the buyer claims not as described.

    Wish they would come up with something where sellers could put a extra percentage on the cost to cover the extra fees.

  2. Does this include the “international” fees you are charged when the buyer’s address is in the UK, but who originally registered in another country? (for example: they’re having their order sent to a consolidation center).

    That really irks me – because it is not my fault that a buyer is registered in another country. So I object to being charged an extra fee. I switched off international shipping 2 years ago – thanks to high postage costs, high fees and high fees on those postage costs! It was making it not worth the hassle. Especially when you get sent messages which you then have to translate and formulate a response your buyer can understand.

    Let me give you an example. If shipping something to France cost £20…well the buyer in France would not be happy if I charged more than the postage label price to cover my own fees, so let’s say I charge them 20 in my listing. Now that’s about £3 I am paying eBay just in fees on the postage charges. Plus more on the item, and all the rest. It left me with a high turnover but little profit. Especially as most of the items I sold were in the £10 range. Oh yes, in all my time of selling overseas most people paid more in shipping costs than the actual item itself. Mad right – but there is obviously a market for items that were only available in the UK. It’s just a shame that market has been made so hard to access for a number of reasons. Worldwide there were some hardcore collectors of what I sell, and it’s a bit gutting to not be serving them anymore.

  3. It’s eBay.
    Large fees.
    Enough said.

    Value for money? Only you can decide if your margins allow this type of gouging

  4. I can probably swallow the extra 0.5% as I figure if an overseas bidder wins, it will at worse break even on that with my sales prices, as that overseas bidder will have upped the bid slightly. Also there are some hardcore overseas collectors who can bid really high prices for some stuff.

    I hate / refuse to lose money on postage, though, so will accordingly increase my Europe postage prices by 0.5% to cover them. One of my biggest bugbears with eBay is that they take an approx 10% cut of the postage, which ultimately means the buyer is paying 10% more than they should do to cover it, cos I’m certainly not paying it.

  5. Didn’t take eBay long did it! They were praising the virtues of MP and how it might save you something, but it’s cost me more than PP as 99% of my sales are overseas. I can’t even hold different currencies and exchange them when the exchange rate is more beneficial.
    The irony is eBay sent out a message today saying how they’ve listened to us. They really only care about how to extract the most possible, and I think they’ve already superseded that limit, it’s easy to hide under MP where it’s not so obvious.

  6. As usual, a lot of crying over next to nothing, so let me put some perspective on it:

    My business is VAT registered. International sales are all done through ebay GSP, so the international fee (which I don’t like, but it isn’t much) only applies to the item, not the shipping costs as well.

    Here are the fees for the same item, sold this month to a UK buyer and a buyer in Germany.

    UK:
    Order total £17.50
    Total fees (includes VAT) £1.60

    Germany:
    Order total £14.58
    Total fees (includes VAT) £1.48

    The order total to Germany is actually the same price as the UK sale, but without VAT, because that is how it’s done now. Ebay GSP does all that stuff automatically. But the main point is, as you can clearly see, the fees on the German sale are slightly less than the UK sale. Even after the increase in international fees, it will still be slightly less.

    From time to time, I also do some private sales and always put ebay GSP on them. Like Phil said, you do indeed get some hardcore overseas collectors of items that are otherwise only sold in the UK, and it can often result in a higher sale price if you open up to them. The pesky international fee just doesn’t matter if your item sells for £25 abroad, instead of £20 to the UK.

  7. Gav – if only it were just that, but there’s the international selling fee, a currency conversion charge fee along with a bad exchange rate, not to mention listing fees, FVF’s (inc. those on postage) etc. etc. It all adds up over a year if you’re doing a lot of international trade.

  8. Gareth –

    The figures I posted included the international selling fee. There is no currency conversion charge to add on, at least not with ebay managed payments and a shop.

    Listing fees, FVFs etc are the same percent regardless of where an item ends up, so that has no bearing on whether or not it’s good to sell internationally. If you don’t like paying fees on the international postage, then don’t. Use GSP. Your postage costs will be the same as the UK.

    Unwelcome as any increase is, this does not matter enough to storm off shouting “I’m not selling abroad anymore!” I’ll go off the business prices here, but for every £1000 of sales to European countries, ebay will be taking £10.50 in international fees, instead of the previous £5. Not a big deal.

  9. Nobody said anything about storming off and not selling abroad, I was just pointing out that it’s a slippery slope – costs will continue to increase (convoluted and hidden by MP), and for many sellers, increased sales do not follow suit. Every year it seems to get harder.
    As I said the vast majority of my sales are overseas – my market is there and I list on other eBay sites outside of my country of residence.

    From eBay’s page: “If eBay converts your funds, the conversion will be completed at the transaction exchange rate we set for the relevant currency exchange. eBay’s transaction exchange rate is composed of a base exchange rate plus a conversion charge.”

  10. Gareth –

    I wasn’t accusing you of storming off, but plenty of that noise going on from others.

    Bottom line is, if you run a proper business, make a good profit, this is next to nothing in terms of importance. Half a percent isn’t a big deal and can easily be dealt by putting prices up, something sellers should be doing at least once a year.

RELATED POSTS..

eBay.com offer White Glove Consignment for luxury apparel

eBay.com offer White Glove Consignment for luxury apparel

eBay Shop: Automate Offers to Buyers

eBay Shop: Automate Offers to Buyers

Why do people shop on Temu?

Why do people shop on Temu?

2024 Circular Fashion Innovator’s Fund Finalists

2024 Circular Fashion Innovator’s Fund Finalists

Button Batteries - eBay Safety & Awareness webinar

Button Batteries – eBay Safety & Awareness webinar

ChannelX Guide...

Featured in this article from the ChannelX Guide – companies that can help you grow and manage your business.

Register for Newsletter

Receive 5 newsletters per week

Gain access to all research

Be notified of upcoming events and webinars