How to reconcile eBay shipping with label costs
You can see, per order, what the buyer paid you and what the label took back out, instead of guessing at a monthly average.
Before you start
- Seller Hub on a computer.
- A list of your label costs for the same dates, with the order reference on each row.
- A spreadsheet tool that can do a lookup.
Steps
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Open Reports under Payments in Seller Hub
In Seller Hub, open Payments, then Reports.
You should see the report types eBay offers on the payments side.
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Choose the transaction report
Pick the transaction report. It is the only eBay order file whose columns eBay publishes.
You should see the date range and download options.
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Set the date range and download the CSV
Pick the period you are reconciling and download it.
You should see a CSV with Order ID, Item ID, Payout ID, Reference ID, Transaction ID, Gross transaction amount, Net amount, Payout method, Final value fee, Seller collected tax, Transaction currency and Exchange rate.
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Put your label costs beside it, keyed on Order ID
Match your own label rows to the report on Order ID rather than on an item title or a buyer name.
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Subtract the label cost from the net amount
Net amount is after eBay's fees. The label is the number eBay never sees.
You should see a per-order margin, and a short list of orders where the label ate the shipping the buyer paid.
If it goes wrong
- Buyer-paid shipping and your label cost live in different files
eBay reports what the buyer paid and what eBay charged. What the parcel cost is in your carrier or label records, so a reconciliation always joins two sources. There is no single eBay file that closes this.
- Order ID is the join key
Item titles repeat, buyers buy twice, and a multi-item order produces several rows. Order ID and Transaction ID are the stable columns.
- Only this report has a published schema
eBay does not publish the columns of the orders report, so do not build a recurring model on headers that can move. The transaction report's columns are documented.
What happens next
Fees are the part that moves after the sale. On a connected eBay account, each order's fee settles to the total eBay booked within about 6 hours of booking, reading as estimated until then, for orders up to 90 days old. Refund fee credits are not subtracted and account-level Promoted Listings spend never appears on an order, so treat the result as order-level margin rather than a full account P&L.
The label cost is already on the order
With eBay connected, the order arrives with buyer paid, shipping paid, tax and the marketplace fee to the cent, and the label you buy sits on the same row. Once eBay books the actual fee, it replaces the estimate on its own the same day, so analytics, the P&L view and the bookkeeper CSV show what you really kept. No lookup formula to maintain.
Related questions
The transaction report under Payments. Its published columns include Gross transaction amount, Net amount and Final value fee.
No. eBay reports its own money. The label cost comes from wherever you bought the label.
Fees book later than the sale. Any figure you pull on day one is preliminary, which is why we keep an order marked estimated until the booked fee arrives.