|
COST INCREASING EXTRAS
 In
addition to the cost of the bicycle itself, other, hidden costs almost
always spring up. When buying on-line, be prepared to pay a
considerable amount for
shipping, on-line selling fees, payment vehicle costs, packing
costs, transportation costs, import costs and possible even broker's
fees, from time to time. These things add up!
As a seller, you must decide who will pay your handling
costs. Take a moment to consider how quickly these can add up...
Let's say a bicycle sells for $500.00 on
Ebay.
Ebay, even before the bicycle sells, will charge the seller an insertion
fee, just for listing the bicycle. This listing fee can be
anything from a dollar
 and
a half and up. To that add a healthy percentage of the bike's final selling price
(more than five percent).
The costs look like this: $1.50 (listing fee) + $25.00 (Ebay final
value fee) for a total of $26.50.
To your selling fees, you must add money vehicle fees.
PayPal is a money vehicle, in place to make it easy to move money,
through cyberspace, at the click of a button. However, it costs
money to move money. PayPal appears to charge about 5% per
transaction. And, that five percent will be applied to the cost of
the bicycle plus the cost to ship the bicycle. Let's look at how
that adds up...
 PayPal
will charge the seller roughly five percent on the price of the bike
($500.00) + the cost to ship ($150.00 average) which will equal
$650.00. Five percent of that will be roughly $32.50. And
that number must be added to the cost to sell the bike for a grand
handling total of $26.50 + $32.50 = $59.00.
 Don't
go away, the handling costs are not complete, yet. In addition to
the costs of selling on-line and moving money through cyber space, the
seller must also acquire a bicycle box, packing tape, tie wraps, and
other smaller, but cost involving, items that will, once again, run the
cost to sell up.
 So,
to the person selling a bicycle, be it in person or on-line, be prepared
for some addition costs, that drive the price of the bicycle up.
To the buyer, be aware that these costs exist and they are, often times,
built into the price of the item being purchased.
And, for what it is worth, there is little opportunity to
avoid many of the costs to sell and buy a vintage road bicycle, these
days.
NEXT - WHAT IT'S WORTH
CONCLUSIONS |
|
