Saturday, July 6, 2019

South Dakota v Wayfair Just Killed Online Retailers

The SCOTUS made a recent decision that vendors on Ebay must now collect and pay sales tax on the items that they sell through Ebay and other online retailers, thus ensuring a downturn.  There are many people who purchase things on Ebay and then turn around and resell them.  I used to be one of those people.
That all stopped on July 1, 2019, when the powers that be decided that a store doesn't need a physical presence in a state to be responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax.  What. a. nightmare.  Imagine a piece of cloth that costs $1.00.  To sell it on Ebay (if you can find someone to buy it, that is) you used to be able to sell to people in true free capitalism without the states sticking their greedy, fat fingers in the mix. No more.
Now, your $1 fabric gets broken down like this: Ebay takes 10%. You now have 90 cents.  Paypal takes 2.9% plus 30 cents.  You've just lost another 33 cents. Presuming that you've paid 20 cents for the fabric, you have only profited 3 cents.
Now, because the greedy pig states are getting their fat fingers involved, you must keep track of every customer and either manually add their sales tax, or you must notify them what they owe.  If you sell more than a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise, you must now mail them a notice and or notify the state that they live in about the owed taxes.
Back to the example: 1$- 10 cents plus 2.9% and another 30 cents gives you a net of 57 cents minus the cost of the fabric or 37 whopping cents. You still haven't shipped it, and when the US Post Office steps in, it's always a debacle. So your 37 cents is now 19 cents. With a 7 cent sales tax, you did all of that work for 12 cents.
The customer used to have a trade-off, lower price for waiting.  Now there is no lower price, you're going to be forced to factor in the higher costs or go under.  Why in the world would a customer pay the same price and still have to wait on their order?  In a word: they won't.
Greedy pigs came up with this idea, and idiots legislating it into being.  Stupidity kills, but it seems that greed will also.  Think about it, you'll thank me later.

No comments: