For everything that you sell on eBay, there is a list of costs related with it. Well, making money online or on eBay isn’t exactly free, you just need to accept the fact.

Tell me, how much money do you actually made when you make use of free resources or free platforms?

You may tell me you are making money when you earn that $1, but earning money online to me really means getting at least a 3 figures income or better still a full time 4-5 figures monthly.

Calculating the costs of making money online and selling on eBay.

Costs of selling on eBay are divided into two parts, namely direct and indirect costs.

DIRECT COSTS:

1. Insertion Fees - Also known as “Listing Fee”, this is the amount eBay charges you when you post your listing, whether they sell or not. They are charged based on the price or start bid of an item and any other extra features you are adding to your listings. For clearer guides, just click here.

2. Final Value Fees - This is the percentage that eBay takes from you if your item sells. Final Value fees are based on the item price, excluding the postage. Final value fees vary when you sell your item from a standard or from a store. Click here for a guide on the percentage eBay gets when your item sells.

3. PayPal Fees – Most of the buyers will pay by PayPal as Paypal is now been quite a requirement if you want to sell on eBay. The PayPal fee is based on the total amount you received for any particular transaction, which typically means Price-item-sold plus postage. PayPal fees will depend on the type of PayPal account you have. Look at Paypal fees here.

Are your online costs killing you or profiting you?

4. Cost of Item - How much does your item cost when you purchased it?

5. Cost of Shipping the Item - How much does it cost to ship to the customer? Ideally, you should be charging the same amount to the customer.

6. Cost of Getting Your Supplies - How much did you have to pay to get the item? Your petrol, toll charges if you get the items yourself or any transportation charges from the supplier if they send it to you. These costs can be very invisible and are often overlooked by eBay sellers.

Are you keeping track of making money online costs and profits?

INDIRECT COSTS:

1. Cost of Supplies – Bubble wraps, envelopes, tapes, boxes and other materials you used to ship your items. When you take the individual costs of each of these items, they are really small and minor, but can really add up in the long run. Other than buying your product supplies in bulk wholesale prices, you should also buy packing materials in bulk to save costs.

2. Time – Time is always a limited resource and many people deemed working full time from home, I have all the time that I want. But this is not always the case. You never know how much time it can really take up until you experience it. Creating listings, photos shooting, packing, printing and licking stamps all is a cost. (And I often heard people say blogging takes time too, it really does, and didn’t you thought they were easy before you started?)

You may thought you are making money from eBay transactions when in fact you are probably losing money. And the worst part is, you don’t even know it! Keep an eye on every costs and keeping track of your profits are vital to making a full time profit out of eBay.

Be smarter and make real money online or just losses.

If you want an advanced system to compute your eBay costs, here is a powerful eBay calculator that you can use. Stop feeding eBay with more of your profits. Give this ProfitCalc software a buzz. It really saves me time tracking things myself. Remember, time is after all, money.

You can make losses or make profits online. The decision is yours.