Fees and Refunds
I observe the fee structure is 8% on transaction total (including shipping charges) up to $100 (reduced beyond that). I don't see any mechanism for handling refunds (full or partial) and crediting fees accordingly. I expect this may be a common occurrence, because people often refund parts of the S/H charges. But it seems excessive to pay additional fees on the amount of any overage. Is this on the to-do list?
So I sold a 16 cent stamp, yielding 11 cents in fees (after including S/H in the total). I went to click to pay to clear the account balance to see what it would do. There were no warnings about not paying via PayPal for such a low dollar amount. I didn't proceed to pay because I didn't want to submit a paypal payment for just 11 little cents, but if it's your intention to not get paid when the dollar value is so low, you might want to add a statement like "If balance is below $5.00, you can wait to pay" or something like that to the screen. Just a recommendation.
So I sold a 16 cent stamp, yielding 11 cents in fees (after including S/H in the total). I went to click to pay to clear the account balance to see what it would do. There were no warnings about not paying via PayPal for such a low dollar amount. I didn't proceed to pay because I didn't want to submit a paypal payment for just 11 little cents, but if it's your intention to not get paid when the dollar value is so low, you might want to add a statement like "If balance is below $5.00, you can wait to pay" or something like that to the screen. Just a recommendation.
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Comments
On the second item, this is already on our to-do list for both PayPal and Credit Cards, as 11c payments don't make sense! Good catch and thanks for not sending us -$0.19!
Actually, your Final Value Fee per order should be about the same as it is on bidStart (I'll get to that in a moment).
With regards to why we charge a Final Value Fee on the price of the order, it's exactly as you pointed out, as it's important to ensure that sellers are not either shifting the price of their items to the shipping price, or artificially increasing shipping prices to divert fees. It's also important to protect and reward sellers with accurate and competitive shipping rates. Both of these items are very important to the business, and overall website / experience for all buyers and sellers. I believe, and as is now common practice, that charging a Final Value fee on the total price of the order is the best solution.
That being said, bidStart did try to address this - and has a policy for this. This was the policy that on bidStart, the Final Value fee is not 8% of the order, but 1c + 8% of each item - rounded up at each item.
So, for example, on bidStart if you have an order for 10 items, at $0.30 each, with $1.00 shipping, your total Final Value fees would be $0.40 ($0.01 * 10 + $0.03 [.30 * .08 //rounded up] * 10). While on HipStamp the Final Value Fees would be $0.32 ($0.30 * .08 + $1.00 * .08)
So there are actually many cases where you would be paying less on HipStamp, particularly if you have lower shipping costs. So on average, I believe you should see about the same Final Value Fees (or perhaps even lower).
Focusing back on bidStart's policy - this actually isn't effective at all with it's original purpose, because if you shift the price from your items to the shipping price, you'll still be able to circumvent fees, and sellers who do offer accurate, competitive shipping are not rewarded. So it actually has the opposite affect of what was intended! Contrast to HipStamp where you are rewarded for lower, competitive shipping prices.
All of that being said, we certainly want to be competitive overall price wise with both bidStart and Ebay (keeping in mind there are substantially higher store and listing fees there). So once we start generating sales, we'll be looking for ways we can improve this as well (perhaps lower Final Value fees with certain store levels, etc.)
Unless of course you choose to charge actual postage. In which case your 'reward' is that you get to cover 8% of the buyer's postage. With actual postage charges, it should be a pass-through cost. But if the online venues charge a FVF on the postage, the pass through comes up short and the seller has to make up the difference.
Some very good points, and I've made a note that we need to clarify a few items around both shipping and FVFs. I'll address this in two parts...
1) Shipping and Handling is actually very flexible on HipStamp. In that you can create as many shipping options as you want for the buyer. Instead of presenting the buyer one option, you can present them with as many as you choose. For example, you can create an option for "First Class Mail", "Priority Mail", "Express Mail", "Registered Mail", etc. And, to your point, regardless of what the buyer selects, the Final Value Fees will in fact be calculated based upon the lowest shipping cost that you offered - so you won't pay extra for additional shipping options the buyer selects. This should certainly be clarified!
2) That being said, the same would apply to if you had a shipping option with insurance (optional to one without). However, I would note that with PayPal, a seller could not state that insurance is optional and if not selected the buyer is at risk. This is a misconception, as PayPal's terms prohibit this, in that if you can not prove the buyer received the item, via tracking numbers, etc. PayPal will always refund the buyer - so the buyer is not in fact at risk. That entirely has to do with PayPal - and is irregardless of the marketplace.