How do I avoid all the high fees on eBay?

Hello all, I looked through many pages of this forum and learned a LOT, but did not find an answer to my question.

First let me explain, I got approved to be a reseller with a drop ship company, (not Doba) and so I looked up thier products and checked to see if they were selling on ebay. Sure enough they were, so I posted one and saw there were two other sellers seling the exact same thing, (or at least they had the same stock photo) so I matched thier price. As it is after listing fees, final value fees, product cost and shipping I make a profit of $.15 (fifteen cents) for a $60 item. I listed the item as an auction with a buy it now price, and the start price high enough to cover everything and still make me a $5 profit, until the final value fee hit...
Anyway, learned a lot and it was good practice to do all that work and get the item shipped, get feed back, etc. But very low pay.

So the question(s) is: What is the method to sell stuff on ebay where you can avoid all those high fees?

Is an 30 day listing better than a 7 day auction? I looked and did not see if if you close the listing when they buy the item or does it keep going for 30 days? If you use the 30 day method do you pay a final value fee for each item if you sell more than one?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Welcome to the site, MisterRalston! :)

I think with the new fees structure at eBay it would be more ideal to open an eBay store as the fees will be much lower. Although, you'd have to ask yourself first if you are ready to open an eBay store...Anyway, I think you may find this thread helpful:

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May be you should also consider looking for another supplier if your drop shipper is also selling on eBay.

You can also try other auction sites that have lesser fees per listing. You'll find links to articles of suggested alternative auctions site in this thread:

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Cheers!