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paying to sell plants on ebay
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Posted by synsepalum (My Page) on Fri, Dec 18, 09 at 5:13
I see today on ebay plumeria grafted plants sold from Thailand 6 $ with a transport cost of 14 $. Unfortunately as I try to show below with my calculation, in such operations the sellers are just paying to ship plants, ebay-paypal taking the most part of their money. Assuming that the real transport cost will be only 10 $ instead of 14 paid by the buyer, we get :
EBAY INSERTION FEE 2 WEEKS = 0.6 $
EBAY FINAL FEE 12% on plant price = 0.72 $
PHYTOSANITARY DOCUMENTS = 1.8 $
TRAVEL TO PHYTO OFFICE 350 THB FOR 20 PLANTS = 0.53 $
REFUND 15% OF NON SATISFIED BUYERS ( plant price + transport )= 3 $
PAY PAL FEE IN THAILAND 3.9% + 0.3 $ on plant and transport = 1.08 $
COST OF PRODUCING/PURCHASING PLANT = 1.5$
MISCELLANEOUS ADMIN. ( CARTON, OFFICE SUPPLIES, PRINTER ETC )= 1 $
TOTAL COST = 10.23 $
FINAL REVENUE of the ebay seller is therefore -0.23 $ or minus 3.84% of the price of the plant.
I don't mean that we should avoid using ebay-paypal of course, but a consequence of neglecting to use a calculator or an excel sheet to make variations of numbers is an international doomed market. Like other growers I have plumeria with rare colors but how could we sell them with a market price set so low on ebay that the revenue is below 0 ?? I wish I would be wrong in my calculations but I am not .. |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: paying to sell plants on ebay
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| Sounds like it's not very profitable. Why sell on Ebay then? Might be more profitable to just create their own website. Part of the problem may be that some foreign sellers have exploited the buyers by not selling exactly what was advertised. Photos have been doctored showing unusually saturated colors, for example. Therefore it has become risky to purchase from abroad. That risk will bring prices down. Also, the market may be saturated. |
RE: paying to sell plants on ebay
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| Synse, yup ebay & paypal are getting really expensive...I feel for the honest Thai sellers, unless they have their own website with many personal referrals... John, you're right, that's why I only buy from a few...sometimes you see one picture appears on many different sellers' auctions with the names spell wrong too!! I stay away from them :) |
RE: paying to sell plants on ebay
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| I bought some of those 6 dollar cuttings feel bad for sellers too. They put cuttings in very thin box tissue paper it took a month and half to get to me by then i had inquired about it they never answered me. Hit paypal up for my money back they made me wait. Seller uses different name same plants sneaky people. Then almost 2 months here it is at post office go pick up a mangled box that looked like it had been run over 5 times. open it up crushed plants. It took awhile but i got my money back and a couple cuttings for my trouble. Buyer beware they made these plants worth drop like a stone. Feel sorry for the people here that invested in them . |
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