How to Calculate ACEO Selling Fees for eBay Auctions

Want to sell your ACEO art on eBay? This step by step guide teaches you about insertion fees and final value fees for your Art Card Edition and Original Auctions. Learn how to calculate eBay selling fees to find out potential profits on auction sales of your 2.5" x 3.5" art.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Initial list price of ACEO
• Final Selling price of ACEO
• Internet Access
• Calculator (optional)
• Pencil
• Paper

1. Write down the auction list price of your ACEO. This is the price that you will list as your starting bid on your auction. For purposes of this article, our list price is $8.00 USD.
2. Access the internet and go to the eBay fees web page at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html where you will see a chart for insertion fees. On the left hand side of the chart, go down to the column labeled Starting or Reserve Price under Insertion Fees. There you will see prices from $0.01 to more than $500.00 and a corresponding insertion fee for “other categories”. Write down the corresponding Insertion Fee that will be charged by eBay to place your listing. As our ACEO list price is $8.00 in this example, the insertion fee would be $0.35 as of the writing of this article.
3. Subtract $0.35 from $8.00 to get $7.65. This is currently what you can expect to receive after fees for your ACEO. Leave space to subtract the Final Value Fee, as eBay still has additional costs for operating your ACEO auction which we will figure out in the next step using Final Value Fees.
4. Look to the right hand side of the same web page where you will see a chart titled Final Value Fees. Find the final selling price of your ACEO under the Closing Price column. Again, for our example, our closing auction price is also $8.00, so the Final Value Fee that will be charged by eBay is 8.75% of the closing value. Write this down. Calculate the Final Value Fee by multiplying $8.00 x .0875 to get $0.70. This is the Final Value Fee (or FVF) that eBay will charge to complete your listing.
5. Go to your running tally where you subtracted your Insertion Fee from your $8.00 (the amount you received for the ACEO in our sample problem). Now, subtract $0.70 from the running total of $7.65. You should now be at $6.95. This is the amount that eBay will credit your account for the sale of your ACEO not including any shipping, handling or tax charged to the buyer. Another way you could have done this is to add the $0.35 Insertion Fee to the $0.70 FVF to arrive at $1.05 in eBay fees and then subtract the $1.05 from your $8.00 Closing Price to get the same $6.95.
6. Use the eBay fees chart with different list and final value fees to assess what sort of returns you can expect on selling your ACEO. Using the steps above, you can calculate eBay selling fees for any auction you list by estimating final value fee and deciding on a set starting price for your ACEO. To completely know your potential profit you will need to figure the cost of creating the ACEO, as well as shipping and handling as well as any payment processing fees you may incur depending on the methods of payment you choose to accept. The next step is simple – list your ACEO for sale on eBay and reap the rewards of your creativity.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have a set value for your ACEO in mind, make sure your auction list price minus insertion fee and FVF will give you the profit you desire. If not, use these steps to adjust your pricing.
• Starting ACEO auctions at $0.99 will get your listing notice, but may not get your the profits you desire.
• Consider opening an eBay store if you intend to sell a lot of ACEO to minimize your operational costs and maximize marketing potential.
• Make sure you check the eBay Fees chart regularly. If increases occur, you may need to adjust your pricing.
• The ACEO market is a collector's market, and if you create what everyone else does your ACEO may not sell. Fluctuations in the market occur, and what is popular one day, may not be the next, but don't give up.