Most eBay sellers think they know their profit. They sold something for $150, bought it for $60, and call that $90 profit. But it is not. Not even close.
Once you subtract shipping costs, packaging materials, and whatever you spent on cleaning or repairing the item, that $90 shrinks fast. If you are on a Pro plan, eBay's transaction fee (13.4% on the Pro Starter plan) takes another bite. Sometimes your real profit shrinks to $30. Sometimes it goes negative and you did not even realise. Even with eBay Australia's move to free selling for casual sellers in May 2026, shipping and sourcing costs still eat your margin if you are not tracking them.
I tracked my flips in a Google Sheet for about three months before I accepted it was not working. The formula was wrong in one column and I had been overstating my profit by about 22% the entire time.
Why Most Flippers Get Their Numbers Wrong
The core problem is that flipping has a lot of small costs that add up. A $12 shipping label here, a $3 packaging cost there, and if you are on a Pro plan, eBay quietly taking 13% off the top. None of these feel significant on their own. But across 20 or 30 flips a month, they eat your margin.
The other issue is timing. You buy something in week one, list it in week two, and sell it in week five. By the time it sells, you have forgotten what you paid for it, or you have lost the receipt, or you never logged the shipping cost because you were busy packing three other items.
What You Actually Need to Track
For every flip, you need six numbers:
- Purchase price (what you paid for the item)
- Selling price (what it actually sold for, not what you listed it at)
- Platform fees (zero if you are under $25k/year on a non-Pro account, or 13.4% on the Pro Starter plan, lower on higher Pro tiers)
- Shipping cost (label, packaging, insurance if applicable)
- Other costs (cleaning supplies, replacement parts, fuel for pickups)
- Net profit (selling price minus everything above)
If you are not tracking all six, you do not know your real profit. You know your revenue, which is a completely different number.
The Spreadsheet Problem
Spreadsheets are fine when you are doing two or three flips a month. You can manually punch in the numbers and eyeball your results. But they fall apart in predictable ways:
You forget to update them. You sell something on a Wednesday night and tell yourself you will log it tomorrow. You do not log it tomorrow. By Friday you have forgotten the shipping cost.
Formulas break silently. One wrong cell reference and your entire profit column is off. You do not notice for weeks because the numbers still look plausible.
They do not calculate fees automatically. eBay's fee structure is not a flat percentage. It now depends on whether you are a casual seller (zero transaction fees under $25k/year), on the Pro Starter plan (13.4%), or on a higher Pro tier with lower rates. Then there is the Buyer Protection Fee that buyers pay on your listings, which affects how you price. A spreadsheet cannot model this unless you build something complex, and at that point you are building software, not using a spreadsheet.
A Better Approach
The simplest improvement is to log every flip the moment it happens. When you buy something, log it immediately. When you list it, update the entry. When it sells, record the sale price and shipping cost right away.
If you are using a spreadsheet, create one row per item with columns for each of the six numbers above. Add a formula for net profit in the last column. Review it weekly.
If you are doing more than 10 flips a month, consider using a dedicated tool. Something that automatically calculates platform fees, tracks your items through a pipeline (bought, listed, sold), and shows you your real profit without manual formula management.
The May 2026 Fee Shake-Up
In May 2026, eBay Australia made its biggest fee changes in 25 years. If you sell under $25,000 per year and do not subscribe to a Pro plan, you now pay zero transaction fees on most categories. That is right: eBay's cut on your sales is nothing. Vehicles and classified ads are the exceptions.
There is a catch, though. eBay introduced a Buyer Protection Fee for purchases from non-Pro sellers, up to 8% plus $0.30 per transaction. This fee is added on top of your listed price and paid by the buyer at checkout. It is included in the price shown in search results, but buyers still see it broken out at checkout. The seller does not pay this fee and it does not reduce your payout, but it does increase the total cost to the buyer, which can affect your sell-through rate and how you price items.
Pro plans (what eBay used to call Stores) are now required for advanced features: multi-quantity listings, variations, volume pricing, third-party integrations, bulk listing tools, and product research. Pro Starter has no monthly cost but charges the 13.4% transaction fee. Higher Pro tiers (Basic, Featured, Anchor) have lower transaction rates but come with monthly subscription costs.
The bottom line: even with zero seller fees, tracking your profit still matters. Shipping is now mandatory via eBay labels for non-Pro sellers. Packaging, sourcing costs, and the pricing pressure from the Buyer Protection Fee all affect your real bottom line. Free selling does not mean free profit.
Knowing Your Numbers Changes Everything
Once you start tracking properly, patterns emerge. You notice that electronics sell fast but the margins are thin after shipping. You notice that vintage clothing has great margins but takes weeks to move. You notice that your best ROI comes from items you sourced at op shops for under $10.
These insights do not appear in a messy spreadsheet. They come from consistent, accurate tracking over time.
The difference between a flipper who makes money and one who thinks they make money is usually just data. Know your numbers.