-
The seller's operating cost directly determines his profit level or his market competitiveness.
With the increasingly fierce competition and saturated sellers, there is less and less space left for cross-border eBayer in China. Different from domestic users of Tom eBay, the operating costs of cross-border sellers cannot be compressed indefinitely. We should distinguish between priorities and priorities, and don't act blindly, otherwise we will use our cleverness in the wrong place, and stealing chickens will not make us lose rice.
from the utilitarian point of view, I personally divide the expenses of cross-border eBay sellers into three categories: "incompressible", "compressible according to circumstances" and "usually compressible". Let's talk about it one by one.
category I: incompressible costs (basic expenses). Including:
(1) the lowest Insertion Fee in the eBay product registration fee. For example, the login fee for a $.99 item on eBay in the United States is $.2. Unless the goods are deleted due to the platform, even if the transaction is cancelled after the transaction, this part of the fee will not be returned.
(2) Final Value Fee (FVF) of eBay platform. According to the final Closing Price, eBay platform will charge different closing fees. Among them, the transaction cost of bidding goods/price goods is different from that of shop goods; The transaction fee of eBay platform varies from country to country. For example, the transaction fee charged by eBay in the United States is: 5.25% for the part of $25; 3.25% for the part from $25 to $1,; 1.5% for the part above $1,.
(3)PayPal transaction costs. The charge for each transaction in PayPa premium account or commercial account L is determined according to the nationality of the user, the transaction area (both parties come from the same country or different regions across the border) and the monthly transaction volume of the seller (for the previous 3 days). Remind you that PayPal charges for the total amount of receipts, which includes not only the transaction payment of goods, but also other terms and charges (such as freight and insurance). China sellers use PayPal to collect payments from overseas buyers, and the charging standard is:
If the monthly transaction volume is less than 3, dollars-.3 dollars each+3.9% of the transaction amount;
if the monthly transaction volume is between $3, and $1,-$.3 each+3.4% of the transaction amount;
if the monthly transaction volume is between $1, and $1,-$.3 each+3.2% of the transaction amount;
if the monthly transaction volume is more than $1,-$.3 per transaction+2.9% of the transaction volume.
according to the above situation, I think those who control these basic expenses below 9% are successful sellers. PowerSeller must be under 8%. If it is controlled below 7%, it must be a Supper PowerSeller with considerable energy.
these costs are basic and incompressible, because they reflect the operating level of a seller. If your sales can't reach that level, try your best to reduce this part of the expenses, or directly affect your sales; Either risk violating the rules and lead to unsafe factors in the account. For example, evading the "transaction fee" by canceling the transaction is usually warned by the platform.
here is the question of PayPal Personal Account. At the beginning, some people, including myself, tried to use personal accounts to collect money, which seemed to escape the transaction fee of PayPal, but the accounts were unstable. Once the evidence of violation was caught, the personal accounts were limited, and the probability of unlocking them was very small. Because: (1)PayPal's user agreement stipulates that personal accounts cannot be used for commercial transactions; It is a matter of time before you are convicted of using your personal account to collect money for business transactions. One day, your account will be restricted, so you can submit the details of the collection over and over again, and there will be no "service" when accepting it. It is normal that there will be no service without charge. (2) According to the restrictions published by PayPal, personal accounts can receive up to four payments (non-commercial payments) from credit cards and debit cards every year, and the standard for these four payments to credit cards is) $.3+5.4%, which is terrible. (3) Can business grow without accepting credit cards? The reason why PayPal has a market is that this platform makes up for the blind spot of traditional financial services: ordinary individuals cannot enjoy the credit card collection service used by merchants in the traditional sense. It is not cost-effective to use PP, but lose its fundamental characteristics. Besides, the consequence of refusing the buyer's credit card payment is a lot of trouble, which increases the workload of explaining to customers, destroys the buyer's experience, and makes it even more difficult to say a few bad reviews or complaints.
the second category is the cost (variable expense) that is compressed according to the situation.
in the platform sales expenses, some people have to decide whether to bear some variable expenses according to their own situation. For example:
(A) Reserve Fee for bidding goods. The rule of this fee is that once the goods are sold, they can be returned. After setting the reserve price, the seller will take the initiative and at the same time will discourage the buyer from bidding. In order to stimulate buyers to bid, but also to save money, it is often used at the same time to set "reserve price" and "minimum starting price". This kind of fee is more suitable for popular and scarce goods, that is, the possibility of the final transaction of the goods is great, and it is only used to prevent the buyers from using the time difference or bidding tools to pick "cheap". If it is mass consumer goods, or the reserve price is set too high, it is equal to paying for nothing.
(B) Gallery Fee when goods are logged in. There are several kinds of goods that are best displayed in the window, such as clothing, jewelry, collectibles and other personalized goods; Or goods that can show the impact of appearance, or goods that the seller wants to achieve the promotion intention through the window pictures.
(C) Scheduled Listings Fee. Sellers with many kinds of goods, high transaction density, wide area (platform) and shortage of human resources, it is best not to omit this part of the expenses and not to tire themselves out.
(D) expenses of platform tools. On average, the number of goods registered every day is more than 2 ~ 3, so "Turbo Lister" is inseparable; If more than 1 items are traded every day on average, it is recommended to use "Selling Manager". Otherwise, after-sales management is very difficult, service tracking cannot be guaranteed, and mistakes are easy to make.
In the circulation of funds such as collection, some expenses should be determined according to your own situation, so don't blindly follow suit.
at present, China users of international PayPal can withdraw money by wire transfer in US dollars from domestic banks, wire transfer in Hong Kong dollars from Hong Kong banks, deposit in US dollars from American banks and delivery of bank checks in US dollars. Among them, the most economical (lowest cost) is to withdraw money by check-as long as the cycle of withdrawing funds is not very urgent, it is no harm to withdraw and exchange checks. However, in today's weakening of the US dollar, who can guarantee that the buying price of the US dollar after 6 days will not be lost? Among the ways of bank wire transfer, domestic bank wire transfer in US dollars is the most affordable. However, if the withdrawal amount is less than $8, it may not be more affordable than telegraphic transfer in Hong Kong-PP will also charge $2 if $8 is converted into Hong Kong dollars, which is similar to the cost of direct telegraphic transfer in China; Moreover, if you still have euros, Australian dollars, British pounds and other currencies in your PP account, you will lose 2.5% if you convert them into US dollars or Hong Kong dollars, but after all, domestic wire transfers will cost 2 dollars more. It seems free to withdraw money from PP to American bank account, but when you get it to American account, China users still have the problem of remitting domestic expenses-unless you also run import procurement business and digest some foreign exchange in offshore account locally.
many cross-border sellers are worried after the state introduced the annual foreign exchange settlement quota policy for individuals. Some even act blindly, open offshore accounts, and some even inquire about running offshore companies. You know, overseas bank accounts all need to pay for services. If your total foreign exchange collection and settlement will not exceed $5, a year, there is no need to participate in these things. In addition, if your business behavior is originally a company's behavior, you have rich experience in sorting out foreign trade settlement documents, and you can handle the bank's statements more than enough, you might as well go to the bank to open an enterprise foreign exchange account and go according to the institutional settlement account-there will of course be a problem of enterprise business tax, but if your tax payment is inclusive tax system or value-added tax, the scale of business income is not directly related to your tax payment. If you are a small business tax system, business tax will be levied on all business income, then the collection from the settlement account registered at this time must belong to business income, so you have to pay taxes according to the regulations.
as an individual resident in China, is it possible to split foreign exchange into accounts (which is of course not advocated by the state)? Of course, but the possibility of operation depends on the specific situation.
(A) domestic bank wire transfer-during wire transfer, the name of the bank account is locked as the registered name of the PP account, and it is unlikely to be split into accounts, unless you change the registered name, credit card and bank account of the PayPal account, which is too complicated. Change it again next year? You're tired of messing with PP, so be careful that he will also mess with you, haha.
(B) Bank wire transfer in Hong Kong-when wire transfer is made, the Last Name of the bank account is locked, so theoretically, wire transfer can be made to relatives and friends with the same surname. However, it's just as troublesome, and it's cumbersome enough for you to apply for passes and open Hong Kong accounts for all these people.
(C) U.S. bank account-wire transfer to any domestic bank account through online banking can be split into accounts. For example, quasi-bank accounts such as ETRADE. VM accounts are even more unique. Originally, VM accounts can only be wired to banks in the United States, but they have specially developed a VM teller website (VMCashier.com) to serve users in China, which is directly recorded in RMB, so it is not necessary to dismantle it. At present, the RMB entry fee of VMCashier is 1.9%~2.9%. Next, I heard that VMCashier will also launch a USD-to-USD transfer service, with a charge of only 1.5%. In this way, the dollars in your VM can be wired to any domestic bank account.
when it comes to foreign exchange settlement, it only applies to individual sellers whose foreign exchange settlement exceeds $5, but does not exceed $1, to $2,. Just imagine, if you take out $5, to $1,,, hold your friends' and relatives' passbooks and ID cards in your hands, and run around the bank every day, even the scalpers don't want to live that life.
in cross-border logistics, some expenses can also be reduced according to their own situation.
for express parcels, logistics providers usually offer negotiated discounts. Similarly, the postal "air parcel" can also be affixed with a 3% discount stamp instead of the full postage. This is what everyone is using. However, if a courier company says: take the goods from me, I will give you a 6% discount on the air parcel here, which will save you from playing with paste every day. At this time, you should carefully evaluate the service of this company before making a decision, instead of looking at its insured price alone. Because if you go to the post office yourself, it means that you have established a service contract with the post office; After you are transferred by a third party, you become the entrusting party and have no control over the contract between the post office and the courier company. People put your "sender's address" on theirs to ship, and all the consequences will be in their hands. Once the package is lost, it is difficult to find out the real reason. According to industry insiders, some express delivery companies privately handle the packages returned by the customs on behalf of customers, but not all of them are returned to customers. I hope this is just a rumor.
whether to declare the insurance premium in full is also a technical problem. My practice is that I will definitely charge the buyer 1% ~ 2% of the cross-border logistics insurance premium (or collect it together with the freight); But I never declare insurance for general items. My idea is that I will take the insurance premium myself, and I will accompany myself when things are lost. The insurance company is me and I am the insurance company. If the insurance company is a profitable industry, why can't I make a profit? The general principle is correct, and the specific operation depends on the situation. I generally don't guarantee express mail such as EMS; Generally, I insure economic parcels such as land or air land (SAL) (long time, many links, high probability of package loss). I don't guarantee air parcels that are lower than those in 3 yuan, because even if the empty parcels are lost, the post office will at least accompany 26 yuan and add freight. Besides, I don't take care of packages to America, Canada and UK, but I always take care of packages to Italy and France. Such practices, everyone will understand the truth after a few years of doing it.
the third category, which can usually be compressed.
I don't know how to pay the following fees:
(A)eBay's picture recommendation fee. It is best for big sellers to rent a stable, professional and high-speed picture space, such as Yahoo's Flickr.com. Put your business pictures in the catalogue. In the description of goods, you can write pages in HTML language and put as many pictures as you want. Compared with the picture display recommendation provided by eBay, the one-day savings can offset the one-month space rental fee.
speaking of picture space, I think the picture space service on eBay is not good. It's not just the price, but its picture space is tied too deeply with ID and shops. If your ID is restricted or the eBay store is closed, where can you find it?
(B) 2.5% currency exchange fee caused by withdrawal of Hong Kong dollars. China Merchants Bank's two-way card has been added to my PP account, but I generally don't use it because it can only be credited in Hong Kong dollars. To withdraw money in US dollars, I only need to pay a 2.5% exchange fee for currencies other than US dollars, regardless of whether I go to the domestic or Bank of America account; However, if you withdraw money from Hong Kong dollars, almost all the currency balances will be charged 2.5.