You don't get charged if you don't sell it, and i'm pretty sure you don't get charged extra for the amount of time it's up. I sell on ebay fairly frequently and I've never noticed anything of the sort... but he is a *******.
If the item on Ebay does not sell you still have to pay the listing fee, picture fee and any other fees except for the final value fee.
Ebay is also charging a final value fee on shipping. So lets say you charge 10.95 flat rate shipping which is the USPS price for priority mail flat rate medium box. You pay 10.95 to the post office and pay a fee to Ebay for the final shipping value. So the 10.95 fee you charged for shipping cost more than the shipping rate.
Now the shipping rate in question is a rip off and yes the guy can lower the shipping fee if someone were to ask him to but if he does not change it in the auction itself Ebay will still charge him the percentage on the 30.00 shipping fee.
I just recently sold a pair of bullet mirrors on Ebay. The final bid was 11.00 and the shipping I charged flat rate was 11.00. I paid the following fees to Ebay.
Insertion fee Free (allows up to 50 listings per month)
Picture fee .30
Final Value fee .99
Final Value Fee on Shipping .99
So I netted 8.72 on an 11.00 sale
Now if I had done the listing in bold then that would have cost more. If I had done a designer graphic using Turbo Lister then it would have cost me more.
That does not include my time or fuel usage. That does not include the cost of the item (in this case a friend gave them to me) That does not include the box (luckily boxes are free from dumpsters) and it does not include the packing material for the box. So if someone is selling regularly on Ebay all those costs need to be factored in. Also lets not forget that PayPal charges a percentage to receive the payment from the buyer.
Ebay is not what it used to be. Their are less buyers, less bidders, lower final bid amounts and higher fees to Ebay. I have an item on there right now and if that item sells with one bid all that money will be going to Ebay to pay for the fees on the past items I sold this month. So it will be basically a wash.
I priced one out yesterday at $55 at my local parts bin. An extra $5 and its in my hand at that moment.
I rather support my local economy than be scammed into outrageous shipping fees.
I wound up using one out of another engine that had a much better O-ring.
