long long time ago,Paypal offers a personal account where seller can receive non credit card payments,as long as your buyer pays you with Paypal fund or bank t ransfer,Paypal does not charge a fee.
But that has changed,personal account can now accept credit card transactions.
With credit card transactions,the bank which provided Paypal with a merchant account to accept credit card charges a fee for each transcation-there is a transaction fee and a discount rate .
It depends on volume,stores like Walmart would get a better rate than say a small gift store,Paypal would get a favorable rate say it is 10 cents per transaction and 1% discount rate from its banks.
So the difference of what you pay and what bank charges PAYPAL is the profit for Paypal to meet its expenses,for keeping the website up 24 hours da y and 365 days a year accessible to members from 205 countries,customer service,accounting,marketing,management,salary,rent ,utilities,insurance etc etc.
no one works for free,we tend to forget that ,we are all in for a profit.
you can sell on Craigslist and ask for check or money order or cash,or find another payment processor and venue which charge less.
I would still say micro payments would be good for you,just make sure if you ever sell high ticket items,sell it under a different Ebay ID and accepting paypal under a different paypal account.
5 cents plus 5% for domestic is as cheap as you can get .
Oh,there is also a 15 cents credit transaction fee,if your buyer returns the item,and you refund him from the original transaction,there could be a credit transaction fee of 15 cents as it is considered a separate transaction,this is how credit card works,it goes thru an infrastructure which authorise buyer credit card,it sends payments thru the network to the bank which issues your buyer his credit card and then turn around and deposit what it collects into your paypal account,it is not as simple and straight forward,given the sheer number of cards issued by many banks
