After releasing my eBay UK spreadsheet a few days ago I've been getting a lot of good feedback on it. So far it's been working great for UK sellers selling on eBay.co.uk, but for U.S. sellers who happen to be selling on the eBay UK site, calculating fees and profit in their native currency (US Dollars) starts to get a little confusing.

Let's take a look at the general overview here. First, if you are a U.S. seller selling on eBay.co.uk you are charged fees in Pound Sterling (GBP) according to the eBay.co.uk fee rates but you are not charged VAT, which makes your fees 15% less than what's stated on the eBay.co.uk fees page. Then, since eBay realizes you have a U.S. account they convert your fee balance into U.S. Dollars (USD) using their exchange rate (which I will call the eBay exchange rate) which is different than PayPal's exchange rate.

In addition to that, if you receive payment via PayPal from a UK buyer in pounds, you are charged the PayPal Cross-Border rate, but with a GBP Fixed Fee (usually 3.9% + 0.20 GBP). After payment is received PayPal converts the remaining balance into USD using their rate of currency exchange (which I will call the PayPal exchange rate).

Taking all of that into consideration plus accounting for the actual amount you spent to buy the item in USD plus the actual amount you spent to pack and ship the item in USD, calculating your net profit after everything is said and done can be quite confusing.

To make things easier I've added a new tab to my eBay UK spreadsheet entitled "US Sellers". This tab is made specifically for U.S. sellers selling on eBay.co.uk in pounds to a UK audience.

It allows you to enter all of your item's amounts in a mixture of both GBP and USD to find your accurate net profit. You can enter your item's Opening Price, Closing Price, Buy It Now Price, Reserve Price, Postage Charged, and Insurance Charged in pounds (because that's what you listed them in). At the same time it allows you to enter your actual Cost of Postage, your actual Cost of Packing, your actual Cost of Insurance, and your actual Item Cost in USD because that's what you paid them in.

It will calculate your eBay Insertion Fee, Reserve Fee, Buy It Now Fee, Listing Upgrade Fees, and Final Value Fee in GBP because that's what eBay initially calculates them in, then it will convert them into USD using an exchange rate of your choosing (which you will see in your eBay Seller Acocunt page).

It will also calculate your PayPal fees in GBP using a rate of your choosing, and will convert the remaining balance to USD using an exchange rate of your choosing (which you can find on the PayPal Currency Converter page or your PayPal Account History page).

After everything has been calculated and subtracted it will find your remaining Net Profit in U.S. Dollars that you have made from the sale. I think it's an essential tool for any U.S. seller selling on eBay.co.uk who's trying to get a handle on their fees.

You can see a screenshot below of what the new spreadsheet looks like. This new feature brings my eBay UK spreadsheet up to verison 1.2 and uses the latest eBay fee rates as of June 30, 2010.

Existing customers can download the updated version from my Download Area. New customers can purchase the spreadsheet for the first time here...

http://www.rolbe.com/2010/03/07/ebay-spreadsheet/