All guidesUpdated 6 minute read
Your real profit on an eBay sale is what the buyer paid, minus eBay's fees, any advertising fee, the postage you paid, refunds, and what the item really cost you. Work it out for each order first, then add the orders up for the month.
Sales are not profit
The number eBay shows first is what buyers paid. It is the biggest number on the screen and the least useful one, because none of it is yours yet. Before a pound of it is profit, six things come off.
The six things to take off
- eBay's selling fees. They are charged on the total the buyer pays, which includes the postage you charged, not only the item price. The rate depends on the category and on your account.
- Advertising fees, if the item sold through a promoted listing.
- The postage you paid: the label, not the amount you charged the buyer. The two are rarely the same.
- Refunds and returns: the money you gave back, and the label if you paid for the return.
- What the item cost you, including what it cost to get it to your door.
- The costs around the sale: packaging, your store subscription, software, storage. These are usually counted for the month, not for each order.
One order, worked through
Take a single order and write every line down. The fee and cost figures below only show the shape of the sum. Use your own.
| Buyer paid for the item | £40.00 |
|---|---|
| Buyer paid for postage | £3.49 |
| eBay fees on the order | -£5.92 |
| Postage label you bought | -£3.35 |
| What the item cost you | -£9.80 |
| Profit on this order | £24.42 |
Then the month
Add up the profit of every order in the month. Take off refunds that belong to that month, then the costs that are not tied to one order. What is left is the profit of the month.
Decide once which date an order belongs to, and keep to it. Most sellers use the date of the sale. A refund belongs to the month it was given, even when the sale was in an earlier month.
Where the sum usually goes wrong
- Using an average cost for a product you bought several times at different prices. See the guide on FIFO stock cost.
- Counting the bank deposit as sales. A payout is already net of fees, labels and refunds, and it rarely matches a calendar month.
- Forgetting that fees are charged on postage too.
- Leaving out refunds that arrive after you closed the month.
- Counting stock you bought as a cost of the month you bought it in. Stock is a cost when it is sold, not when it is paid for.
How Sellcount does this for you
Sellcount reads each order, its fees, its postage label and its refunds from eBay with read-only access, takes the cost from the batch the item really came from, and shows the profit of every order. Click the figure and it shows each line of the sum.