Do You Actually Know Your eBay Profit?
Here is a question every eBay seller should ask themselves: do you actually know how much profit you are making? Not your gross sales — those numbers are easy to find on your eBay dashboard. But your true, net profit after every single cost has been accounted for? The reality is that most eBay sellers do not know this number with any precision. They have a general sense that they are "making money," but when pressed for specifics, they cannot tell you their average profit margin, their most profitable category, or their true return on investment from last month's sourcing trips.
This knowledge gap is not just an academic concern — it has real financial consequences. Sellers who do not track their true profit often continue investing time and money in unprofitable categories, overpay on taxes by failing to document deductible expenses, and make sourcing decisions based on gut feeling rather than data. With average eBay seller margins running between 10% and 20%, there is very little room for error. A few percentage points of untracked expenses can turn a profitable business into a break-even hobby.
The True Cost of an eBay Sale
Calculating true profit on an eBay sale requires accounting for every cost associated with that transaction. The formula is straightforward in concept but complex in execution: sale price minus cost of goods sold (COGS) minus eBay fees minus shipping costs minus supplies equals true profit. Each of these components has nuances that make accurate manual tracking extremely difficult.
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): This is what you paid for the item. For resellers, COGS varies for every single item. A jacket sourced from a thrift store for $4 has a very different cost basis than one purchased from a liquidation pallet at $12. Accurately tracking COGS requires recording the purchase price of every item at the time of acquisition and matching it to the correct sale later — potentially weeks or months later.
eBay Fees: The typical eBay seller pays 13.25% of the total sale price in final value fees, plus a $0.30 per-order fee. Promoted listing fees add another 2–15% if you use eBay's advertising tools. International fees and currency conversion charges apply to cross-border transactions. In total, fees can consume 15–20% of your gross revenue.
Shipping Costs: Whether you offer free shipping or charge the buyer, the actual postage and carrier fees are a real cost of doing business. USPS Priority Mail for a two-pound package might cost $9–$12 depending on distance. First Class packages are cheaper but limited to 13 ounces. Heavy or oversized items can cost $15–$30 or more to ship.
Supplies: Boxes, poly mailers, bubble wrap, packing peanuts, tape, labels, and printer ink all cost money. While the per-item cost of supplies might be small — $0.50 to $2.00 per shipment — across hundreds of transactions, supply costs add up to a meaningful expense that many sellers neglect to track.
Why Most Sellers Overestimate Their Profit
When a seller looks at their eBay account and sees that they sold an item for $75, their brain immediately starts doing a rough calculation. "I paid $15 for it, so I made $60." But that $60 figure ignores approximately $10 in eBay fees, $11 in shipping, $1 in supplies, and potentially $4–$7 in promoted listing fees. The actual profit might be closer to $32–$35. That is still a good profit, but it is less than half of what the seller initially estimated.
This overestimation effect is compounded across an entire store. When every transaction's profit is overestimated by 30–50%, the seller's perception of their business's financial health can be dramatically different from reality. They might believe they are making $3,000 per month when the actual figure is $1,800. They might continue investing in inventory categories that are barely breaking even. And at tax time, they might be shocked to discover their actual profit is significantly lower than they assumed, while still owing taxes on the income they did earn.
Auto-Keep eliminates this overestimation problem by calculating true profit automatically for every transaction. There is no guessing, no rough mental math, and no optimistic assumptions. The platform uses actual fee data from eBay, actual shipping costs, and the COGS you record to produce an accurate profit figure for every sale.
Know Your Real Profit on Every Item
Auto-Keep calculates true per-item profit by pulling eBay fees and shipping costs automatically. Just enter what you paid — Auto-Keep handles the rest.
Calculating ROI on Sourcing Trips
For resellers who source inventory from thrift stores, estate sales, and liquidation events, understanding the return on investment (ROI) of each sourcing trip is critical for making smart decisions about where and how to spend their sourcing time. ROI is calculated by dividing the total profit from items sourced on a trip by the total investment (purchase costs plus mileage, time, and any other trip expenses).
A typical thrift store sourcing trip might look like this: you spend two hours visiting three thrift stores, drive 25 miles round trip, and spend $85 on 20 items. Over the next one to three months, those 20 items sell for a combined $620 on eBay. After eBay fees of approximately $82, shipping costs of $95, and supplies of $15, your net revenue is $428. Subtract your $85 in COGS, and your profit is $343 — a 404% ROI on your inventory investment. Add in mileage deduction value and the time spent, and you can evaluate whether that particular sourcing strategy is worth continuing.
Without per-item profit tracking connected to sourcing data, this kind of analysis is impossible. Most sellers have no idea which sourcing trips produce the best returns. Auto-Keep makes it possible by tracking each item from purchase through sale, enabling you to evaluate the profitability of your sourcing strategies over time.
Understanding Category Profitability
Not all eBay categories are equally profitable for resellers. Clothing and apparel often have high percentage margins (50–70% on COGS) but lower average sale prices. Electronics have higher average sale prices but tighter margins and greater risk of returns. Collectibles and antiques can have exceptional margins on individual items but slower sell-through rates. Home goods are easy to source but heavy to ship, eating into margins.
Understanding which categories generate the most profit for your specific business — not just the highest gross sales, but the highest net profit after all costs — allows you to focus your sourcing efforts where they matter most. A category that generates $2,000 in gross sales but only $200 in net profit is far less valuable than a category generating $1,000 in gross sales and $400 in net profit.
Auto-Keep provides category-level profit analysis by tracking per-item profitability across all your sales. You can see which categories deliver the best margins, which have the fastest turnover, and which are not worth your time and capital. This data-driven approach to sourcing decisions is what separates successful reselling businesses from those that stagnate or fail.
The Auto-Keep Dashboard: Your Profit at a Glance
Auto-Keep's dashboard gives you an immediate, real-time view of your eBay business's financial health. Key metrics displayed include total revenue, total profit, average profit margin, active listings, items sold, and conversion rates. You can view data for any time period — today, this week, this month, this quarter, or custom date ranges.
The dashboard does not just show you top-line numbers — it provides the granular detail you need to make informed decisions. Drill down into individual transactions to see the complete profit breakdown. Sort your sales by profitability to identify your best and worst performers. View your fee totals by type to understand where your money is going. Track your inventory value and aging to make decisions about repricing and liquidation.
This level of financial visibility transforms how you run your eBay business. Instead of operating on instinct and rough estimates, you have precise data guiding every decision — from what to source, to how to price, to when to liquidate underperforming inventory.
Move Beyond Guessing — Know Your Numbers
The difference between eBay sellers who build sustainable, growing businesses and those who burn out or quietly stop selling often comes down to one thing: knowing their numbers. Profit tracking is not glamorous, and it is not the reason anyone gets into reselling. But it is the foundation that everything else is built on. Without accurate profit data, every other business decision — pricing, sourcing, inventory management, tax planning — is based on guesswork.
Auto-Keep gives you the numbers you need without the work you dread. By automatically syncing your eBay sales data, tracking every fee, and calculating per-item profit, Auto-Keep turns the most tedious part of running an eBay business into a fully automated process. At $19.99/month with your first month free during the beta, it is the most affordable way to finally know exactly how much profit your eBay business is generating. Sign up for the free beta today and stop guessing about your profit — start knowing.
