Conventional UK auction sites, charge both a seller's and buyer's premium. Unless otherwise stated by the auction house (used as a USP sometimes). Any seller will calculate this (and any other) fee into their opening offer (guide price) where one is stipulated. Likewise a buyer will cap their bid based on the buyers premium and any other fixed/variable non negotiable add ons. Shure some bidders get carried away but most items sold have a known "market price" that will dictate bidding levels. Somebody has got to pay the piper somewhere along the line.
It is never desirable, as a seller, when an auction platform adds inordinate costs onto the buyer for services and fees. These will depress the acheived price the buyer will recieve as most bidders will calculate this into what they are willing to bid up to. As someone who sold over 1000 items (over a 6 year period) one of the big benefits of Ebay was the no buyer fees. The only thing to impact aceived prices were the state of the market and the quality of the information (marketing) provided by the buyer. Dealers in the area I sold in (model racing cars, both static and slot type) referred to me as Maxi-Price because of the bidding valuesI achieved on my lots, even though I used 0.99p minimum bid auctions mostly. Realised funds mostly paid for my garden railway and it's stock. Max
Thanks for your comments Max,
I've been buying and selling on eBay since 2010 and have probably sold an equivalent number of items or more than what you have mentioned - generally with a fixed price/or best offer as a lot of what I want to sell is worth in excess of AUD$500 (I'm not going to list a Nagra IV sound recorder, a Bolex 16mm Reflex camera or a mudguard for a 1944 Indian Chief with starting prices of 0.99p when they are worth in excess of AUD$1,000).
I have a 100% sellers rating with no return requests and 100% positive feedback (
vfx_oz is my sellers name) and have found eBay in Australia to be just taking more and more from the seller!
Sold a 1923 Indian Chief frame last year through a local specialist for AUD$5,500 and the shop only took 10% as the commission (which was more than reasonable as it was on their website with full details and people could actually talk to them about it).
Had I sold it through eBay I would have paid 17% of the sale price plus 17% with their take of the shipping cost (and the buyer would have been charged 10"% Goods and Services Tax even though the frame was over 100 years old - go figure! )
And as a buyer I find their "Global Shipping Program" to have excessive charges - I am not one of the lazy ones who use this, as I measure weight and dimensions based on Australia Post costs and pack it and take it to the post office myself.
And unlike Royal Mail (outside of my grumbles about eBay here) Australia Post does not charge UK5 pound extra for tracking!!!
If I could find another way of selling Internationally (other than Facebook Marketplace which I will not go near) I would - often I get better results with our local "Gumtree" market place which is free to sellers!
I'll give it a few days, then we'll have to list it on a well-known online auction site 
) might I suggest a "commission sale" with one of any of the more reputable specialist traders. I used C2B and GRC in the past, both sadly no longer operating. Sure, if you put a decent reserve, and a BIN/best offer option and monitor the sales process you might get a good price on that auction site, however..... Do Ebay still allow you to "pull" an item, up to 12 hours before end time ? I have always prefered the former on big ticket items, less risk, even though I have traded about 1000 items on Ebay as well (mostly hand built/diecast static and slot car models). Both ways you get a chance of near market price, with both options offering similar "cost of sale". Max
