Please stop charging fees for small transactions... :(

[genesis1]

I am a casual Ebay seller. I'm not some big business selling thousands of products a day. I just sell about 1 or 2 items a week, if that. Most of the things I sell go for about $5-30 and the fees even for small transactions are rediculous. Today I sold an item on Ebay for $3.00 and the shipping was $2.50. When I got the payment of $5.50, PayPal charged me a $0.46 fee to receive the payment. For me, if it wasn't for that $0.30 fee for every single time I get a payment then it wouldn't be so bad. But I really wish PayPal would turn their eyes for just a second from the big business and think about people like me. I am steadily starting to just stop selling things altogether because the fees are just biting at my profit and truthfully, its really not worth it.

Please consider doing something PayPal to remedy this. No games, no "special offers." Just make it fair for the little guys and please give us a reasonable system for small transactions.

[PayPal_Adrian]

genesis1,

PayPal understands the impact the $0.30 USD fixed portion of the fee has on sellers who receive smaller payments.  This is why we created our Micropayments pricing plan for sellers who average under $10 a transaction - you can read more about it here:  https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/?bn_r=m

Hope this helps,

Adrian

[genesis1]

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@PayPal_Adrian wrote:

genesis1,

PayPal understands the impact the $0.30 USD fixed portion of the fee has on sellers who receive smaller payments.  This is why we created our Micropayments pricing plan for sellers who average under $10 a transaction - you can read more about it here:  https://micropayments.paypal-labs.com/?bn_r=m

Hope this helps,

Adrian

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Thanks Adrian. I read about this and it seems like the thing for me. But I have a question/concern. On occassion I may sell an item of higher value on Ebay. But I think most of my payments recieved from selling items are $10 or less. Will this effect anything?

[PayPal_Adrian]

If the item is over $10, you would pay a higher fee than previously.  The difference between micropayments and the standard payment rate is this:

standard:  low percentage but higher fixed fee

micropayments:  high percentage but lower fixed fee

We recommend maintaining a separate account for each fee structure; you could have the larger auctions send payments to the standard rate account, and vice versa.  That way you can have the best of both worlds! 

Adrian

[genesis1]

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@PayPal_Adrian wrote:

If the item is over $10, you would pay a higher fee than previously.  The difference between micropayments and the standard payment rate is this:

standard:  low percentage but higher fixed fee

micropayments:  high percentage but lower fixed fee

We recommend maintaining a separate account for each fee structure; you could have the larger auctions send payments to the standard rate account, and vice versa.  That way you can have the best of both worlds! 

Adrian

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If I sign up for micropayments, won't it automatically differientate between the small payments and the larger ones and just apply the appropriate fee rates?

[PayPal_Adrian]

Each account can only have one pricing tier.  So, if you sign up for micropayments, all payments on that account are processed under the micropayment rate.  That's why we recommend the two accounts option if you receive both large and small payments. 

[genesis1]

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@PayPal_Adrian wrote:

Each account can only have one pricing tier.  So, if you sign up for micropayments, all payments on that account are processed under the micropayment rate.  That's why we recommend the two accounts option if you receive both large and small payments. 

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I understand now. So if I have micropayments on my account and get a payment of $100 then it'll be charged 5% + 5c. Is there a way to take micropayments off my account if this becomes too much a fee? I only have 1 bank account so I can't have 2 premiere PayPal accounts.

[PayPal_Adrian]

Certainly!  We can remove the micropayments pricing tier for you if you decide it's not the best choice for you; however, once it is taken off of the account, we won't be able to put it back on. 

[Jaylat]

Adrian, thanks for your helpful answers.

It would be preferable if Paypal had automatic pricing tiers that kicked in for smaller items rather than having to create two different accounts for regular and micropayments. 

So if I understand correctly I can switch my existing Paypal account to a micropayment account? And if I don't like it I can switch back to standard? But once I've switched back I can't switch to a micropayment status again? Do I have this right? 

Where do I go to switch my existing account to a micropayment account? 

[Customer268]

PayPal's policy is to structure the pricing such that the merchant must jump through various inconvenient hoops (multiple accounts, doing the math to determine the even-price point, steering their customers to different payment destinations for different products), rather than offer one pricing structure and stand behind it.

This way, any time a merchant fails to spend time in analysis and structuring to fit PayPal, it will cost them money, and more profit to PayPal.  This business practice gives the illusion of lower prices, but in the real world, the cost is higher than it looks.

In the PayPal-provided example of 100 $2 payments, the actual fee comes to

7.5% with micro, or

18% with standard pricing.