the fees ebay/paypal charge is painful no doubt, but you're paying for world wide exposure with hundreds of millions of users, and eye balls. no where else can you even come close to that level of exposure. if you're looking for top dollar on something of value, ebay is the way to go. if you're looking for make a reasonable profit or break even, craigslist or some other route might be the way to go.
i recently sold some drillium levers i did (ebay listing:
http://tinyurl.com/6x5t3pn)
sold for $305.09+$5.20 shipping
total received: $310.29
listing fees (includes extra pics and subtitle): $2.05
final value fee: $27.46
final value fees on shipping: $0.47
paypal fee: $9.30
total fees: $39.28
total after all related fees: 271.01
shipping: $12.85
total after fees and shipping: $258.16
anyone think i could have asked and received $258.16 on craigslist, or on BF for that matter? i don't think so.
$39.28/$297.44=13.20%, 297.44 being the total received
after deducting shipping. so i paid 13.20% of my total income to ebay/paypal for their service, not bad IMO, especially considering some auction houses take 30%.
and in regards to the earlier argument about shipping being included in the calculation to reach the percentage that it costs to sell on ebay... the shipping is paid by the buyer, not you, how does that number get added to your expenses in the end (or in calculating the total cost of selling on ebay). it doesn't. only the final value fee on shipping does, and that can be included in the total cost.