Paypal beginner questions

[Guzrik]

Suppose I (living in the Netherlands) sell something to someone in the UK, for 23.98 euro.
Do I need to pay paypal for this service (and how much), or does paypal charge their fee and exchange rate to the buyer directly?
I don't think it would be polite to charge the buyer for costs I don't have, but also don't want to be charged by pp later.

 

[Turbo]

Normally just the sender of the money pays the fees if its a private account, there may be a difference for a business account.

The way around this is for the sender to use the 'friends & family' option, no fees that way but you have no buyer protection either if things go wrong!

 

[Pete.]

Suppose I (living in the Netherlands) sell something to someone in the UK, for 23.98 euro.
Do I need to pay paypal for this service (and how much), or does paypal charge their fee and exchange rate to the buyer directly?
I don't think it would be polite to charge the buyer for costs I don't have, but also don't want to be charged by pp later.

If the buyer selects paying for goods, they will pay the 23.98 and the Paypal fee will be deducted from what you receive. You must either factor-in the fee beforehand or agree with the seller to pay friends and family. Then you will receive the full amount but the buyer has no paypal protection if the item is lost or damaged.

 

[Guzrik]

...Then you will receive the full amount but the buyer has no paypal protection if the item is lost or damaged.

So also the exchange rate is on the buyer then?

 

[julianf]

In the UK, the fee is 3.4% plus 1% for cross border, plus £0.25 per transaction. All deducted from the recipients side.

PayPal generally stiff the buyer on exchange rate also.

As a seller you must then send with a tracked service otherwise the buyer can just bounce the payment.


Ive been shifting to wise for high value items but for a small item just work out the fee (and the fee on the postage) and add it to the bill.

 

[julianf]

Ps

If you fill out the customs forms accurately, the buyer will also pay around GBP 15 clearance fee, plus vat on the goods (about £4.50) plus vat on the clearance fee (£3) plus vat on whatever the post cost.

...so approximately the same again on top of the purchase price.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

So also the exchange rate is on the buyer then?

There's "probably" a way to receive and hold the local currency in Paypal?..and then transfer it to a bank account in the same currency as the payment outside of PayPal....that way you control the exchange.

....not worth it for a small amount but worth thinking about if you have a lot of transactions and you want to delay the exchange until the GBP rate looks better for example!

 

[hotponyshoes]

You can hold more than one currency in PayPal, ie. If you have us$ then you don't get the below par exchange rate. They still charge a % for a cross border transaction though.
But it's not much use unless you are also buying stuff directly with PayPal in us$ as (afaik) you can't withdraw it to a bank account in anything other than gb£ so you will be at the mercy of the paypal exchange rate when you take it out.

To answer the op's question:
The buyer will have to select the option to pay you in euros.
This can be tricky for them to find so easiest way is for you to send them a money request in the default currency on your account (euros)
When the buyer goes to pay, PayPal will show them the amount in euro, the exchange rate, and the amount in gb£.
So, PayPal would take (made up) gb£22.10 from them and forward on 23.98 euro to you but then take a fixed fee and a % from that so you will receive something like 20.02euro.

With the current status of the uk£ I expect the best way is for you to just ask them to send you uk£23.98 and by the time you have paid the fees you'll probably receive pretty close to 23.98euros in your account!

To work out the actual amount you will receive (or the amount you need to charge the buyer) try this:

PayPal Fee Calculator

The PayPal fee calculator will help you estimate the PayPal fees for a transaction. You can determine how much you will receive when someone sends an amount to you or how much they need to send to receive an exact amount.

www.omnicalculator.com

 

[hotponyshoes]

Normally just the sender of the money pays the fees if its a private account, there may be a difference for a business account.

The way around this is for the sender to use the 'friends & family' option, no fees that way but you have no buyer protection either if things go wrong!

I think paypal charge fees on international friends & family payment?

I think the sender gets to choose which end pays them.

 

[julianf]

I think paypal charge fees on international friends & family payment?

Yes, they charge the sender. Different regions have different rules. I can't quite remember the details but a while ago I was making semi regular payments to Sweden and the states and, for both, it was cheaper to aggregate the payments into a block, as the percentage fee had an upper limit.

Ie small payments across border are quite inefficient, financially.

 

[daedalusminos]

We're talking such a small sum it's all really quite irrelevant, I usually reclaim any additional fees in the postage price.