Should buyers be expected to pay paypal fees?

[rosierjay]

i usually never buy from someone again if they ask me to pay for the fees or send as a gift. especially if at the last minute. if a buyer wants to pay the fees, fine, but i don't ask them to. that's why i have a minimum 5$ purchase thing. otherwise it's not worth it for the fees.

i will sometimes send a dollar or whatnot over the cost, if the seller has been really nice or its a great price etc.
if they ask me to send as a gift... i may just pay a little extra, but won't ever send as a gift unless i've had multiple transactions with them.

[Galactica]

Err-

I will usually send as a gift- unless it is someone I've never dealt with before or it is expensive and I just don't have the funds to cover it.  The few times that I sell things, it is up to the buyer of course but I will provide a shipping discount if someone covers the paypal fee or sends by personal.  I hope it's not offensive to provide that as a choice.

Of course with ebay there is no choice- even if you are buying from your best friend it is very regimented so like it or not, seller pays the paypal and ebay fees.

[Taffeta]

I would never ask a buyer to do either of these. I don't even increase my prices to include the costs, as they are just part of selling online. A couple of times, buyers have sent me a little extra to cover my fees and I consider that a lovely kindness from them.

This. Every word of this.

I've also sent extra sometimes to cover fees, especially if the seller is fronting the shipping or whether they've negotiated me a really good deal on an item, I feel mean not to...but that's my choice and it depends on how much cash I have.

As a seller on ebay and on the old TP and ponypeople lists since the days  before paypal existed and buying internationally consisted of sending-cash-in-an-envelope-in-a-creatively-hidden-way, I never even dreamed of asking buyers to pay the conversion fee at the post office to turn those $ into £. This is an extension of the same thing to me. Paypal is much safer than the cash method, and I consider the fee to be a small price to pay for the protection offered. (though I only ever ONCE had cash go missing in the mail).

If you sell on ebay, you pay the ebay fees. If you sell using paypal, you use the right option and pay paypal fees. If you buy an item, you pay the shipping fee (unless the seller lists free shipping) and you pay in the currency dictated by the seller. Those are the general common sense rules for me of how selling and buying works.

[bluerose9978]

I would never ask a buyer to do either of these. I don't even increase my prices to include the costs, as they are just part of selling online. A couple of times, buyers have sent me a little extra to cover my fees and I consider that a lovely kindness from them.

I agree with this completely, too!

[Oneleo1]

I usually ask a buyer to send as a gift, but never force them to or tack on fees. If they are not comfortable sending as a gift it's totally ok by me

On the flip, I will also send as a gift I'd the seller is well known with stellar feedback. If it's someone that I don't know I won't send as a gift.

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Well, I like this place much better than TFW2005. I don't know if this has been changed or not, but last I was there the staff were of the opinion that buyers should have to send the payment as a gift or else add extra to cover the fees. Absolutely charming </sarcasm> Unfortunately, because they're the biggest and busiest board, people looking for specific Transformers things but not wanting to deal with eBay prices often have to go there.

[Shadoweon]

I don't ever ask someone to send payment as a gift as it can cause my account to be banned but I do include paypal fees in with shipping costs when I give someone a total.

I wouldn't overuse the gift option as paypal has penalized users for it before.

Many of the items I sell are at low costs so I wouldn't even be covering the shipping costs if I didn't include paypal fees in the price. Its just part of doing business on the LJ community I mainly sell on.

[Stormy31685]

To discuss this topic and answer questions fairly - without making any particular sellers look good or bad, it is important (as always) to understand how paypal has greatly evolved since it's introduction a long time ago.

In the beginning, Paypal had options for different kinds of accounts - personal, business, etc.  Personal accounts did not incur fees when receiving money that was already existing in the senders account, without compromising the protection at the time.

This means, that if I had $100 in my account, I could send a payment for goods to a seller, and as long as the seller's account was a personal one, he or she would receive the full $100 fee free.  If I wanted to send a credit card payment though, the seller would have had the option to accept the payment and pay the fee, or reject the payment.  The catch was, the fee for accepting credit card payments made to a personal account was higher than accepting the same payment to a business account.

What happened then?

Okay, so Paypal, as most companies who grow, needed to start charging fees for EVERY transaction - regardless of whether or not the money was existing funds (or basically, money that has already been paid for!).  As a seller, and from a business standpoint, I personally feel this is wrong on paypal's part.  If I have existing $100 in my account, and I want to spend it, I believe paypal should not charge the person who I am sending the money to.  The gift/goods payment differences came about when paypal started reporting to the IRS, and also as more disputes and scamming occurred - requiring paypal to step in.

So, why did this start happening?

Easy.  Taxes and the IRS.  People were starting to profit from the internet - majorly!  And not claiming it.  That meant that prior to the tax changes, you could rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars and Paypal was not reporting it to the IRS.  Well, naturally, the IRS started to require Paypal to turn in 1099 forms for every member who received more than a certain amount of money through their individual paypal accounts.  Why?  Because otherwise, Paypal would be responsible for reporting that money as income or unable to prove it as an expense, and would have to pay millions in tax money to the IRS.

So, how did that affect us?

Paypal now treats every account holder as a potential business owner.  But, we are not all business owners.  Ponies are a hobby for most of us.  In our private dealings, we were usually on the honor system, and it was just fine.  Sure, we had scammers, but we still do even with all the supposed protection offered by paypal and ebay.

But in the end, my personal feeling is this:

Paypal is a tool that is convenient and safe for both buyers and sellers. 
Every transaction is different, and every element of it is open for negotiation.  It depends on how well you know your buyer or seller.

I don't think it is rude to ask for a gift payment, I don't think it is wrong or unwise to send one when it is someone you know or trust very well. 

The most important bottom line to all of this, is for buyers and sellers to educate themselves on policies and protection and prepare themselves accordingly. 

If you accept paypal as a payment method, be aware that there are fees.  If you will only pay using paypal, be aware of your protection rights in each transaction.

And most importantly, in every transaction, we should strive to be respectful of one another.