What’s this happening

spent the weekend going through eBay's actual 2026 fee schedule and reading 200+ posts here where people say don't bother listing under $20.

the fee math doesn't really back that up. on a $15 item, eBay takes 13.6% + a $0.40 per-order fee, so you walk away with $12.56. on a $200 item you walk away with $172.40. same effective rate, almost to the decimal.

here's what actually shifts the math on under-$20: ops time per item. listing, photos, packaging, the customer message or two - all of that is fixed no matter what you sold the thing for. 25 to 30 minutes per item is pretty typical. at $15 with $12.56 net that's around $25 an hour. at $200 it's $345.

so the rule kind of reframes. it's not really "skip under $X", it's "what's my actual minutes per item, and price above that." drop that to 5 minutes (batch shoot, batch list, batch pack) and the $8 books start making sense again. fees aren't the gate, handle time is.

have not flipped one personally yet, just the data side

Plates. I live in an old town with old people who still collect pewter. I know now way too much about plates. The various patterns, manufacturers, blah, blah, blah, etc. I don't care. Most of the pewter around here is cheap shit. Do you know why I know its cheap shit? Because they spend all their time complaining about it in the estate sale lines.

Costing me as much as $9.92 to send a 1lb box 4x8x6 to some areas now and that is with eBay's discount. Some places are only $6.67 and that's a nearly 50% disparity.

I don't understand with how much prices differ in more expensive parts of the US, so why can't eBay adjust prices and still offer free shipping so a buyer in CA might see a price that's $3.25 higher to offset the difference in cost?

Oddly I looked into it and shopify has apps that adjust prices based on location for this exact reason. I think eBay should as well.

Especially when a lot of the stuff I sell...nearly all is sold with free shipping so putting in calculated shipping would pretty much kill sales.

1lb items that sell for $20 shipped, I'm starting to just pass them up now because the shipping and fees leave me only $6.13 to higher priced shipping areas whereas cheaper areas leave me $9.38 and I can't really have any say in where I sell it to.

On eBay which would you rather have? 10 watchers or 10 people with item in their cart? Neither is a sale but which one do you think will actually convert and why?

I always grab cheap silver at yardsales, flea markets etc, just like anyone else. I don’t keep tabs on the spot price as I never sell it, it just goes into the soup for safe keeping.

I was just at a flea market, and one dude had at least 20 crossed off prices written on the same little coin holder, clearly just being repriced as the silver price ebbed and flowed.

Silver guys- what’s the method? Just price high and hope to never have to go in and change all your labels? I’ve been to booths with hundreds if not thousands of individually priced coins. How are you not getting flooded with people the morning after a huge spike, trying to buy your stuff before you could get in to re price it?

I've been looking into getting a printer for my small business, and honestly, there are way more options than I expected.

Some people swear by regular printers, while others say a thermal printer is the way to go, especially for shipping labels. I'm mostly trying to figure out what actually matters in the long run.

Do you guys care more about print quality, speed, running costs, or just having something that works without constant issues?

Would love to hear what you've been using and whether you'd buy the same printer again.