Postage rip off

mike_paterson

masonic wrote:

I think you would be hard-pushed to find a courier that charges as little as £5 for such a delivery.

Agreed - but for larger items they work out much cheaper.

mike_paterson

masonic wrote:

That was my point entirely. It is impossible to tell what ebay consider to be excessive from the example they give, so it is not possible to say that ebay would regard postage of £10, £20 or even £50 to be excessive in the case of the OP's example. If you cannot say whether or not ebay would consider £20 to be excessive postage for an item that might only cost around £5 to send, then you cannot say that the content of that article is applicable. If you, personally, think that the postage is excessive, then you are entitled to that opinion, but you can't go quoting ebay policies unless you can show they apply.

Well quite obviously from their example charging £25 for standard postage a DVD is too high, and we all know that the phrase excessive is objective. I personally think that the £20 for the leather jacket is too high, but may not be excessive if it is delivered insured with before 09:00 delivery, but it would certainly be excessive if the item arrived in a box with £5 of stamps on it.

That is why I take a personal decision not to buy where I believe the seller is charging excessively. Others do the same too.

You say that I cannot quote the policies unless I can show they apply, is this some new MSE posting rule that you have made up ? All I did was point out to this thread that there is a policy regarding excessive postage. I posted this in response to Jaghirs ridiculous statement - "Nothing wrong with this, the seller can charge what they want as long as they declare it upfront" which is blatantly wrong.

I will probably start reporting some of these as I come across them and see what ebay does and update this thread.

soolin

mike_paterson wrote:

I will probably start reporting some of these as I come across them and see what ebay does and update this thread.

Ebay will thank you for your report and say they take the matter seriously, but then allow the auction to continue. Further questions will have ebay point you to their policy which urges buyers and sellers to communicate if they have a problem, (as you can tell the post and packing discussion gets aired every few days on the unmoderated boards).

The policy is here:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/listing-shipping.html

Which due to ebay's responses in the past have led to people suggesting that nothing is excessive unless it is shown as a percentage of the final bid price or unless it is completely OTT as per the example given of a CD where post and packing is £25.

If one uses the CD example then it appears there is a lot of leeway, a CD can be sent for less than £1 securely packed via 1st class mail, which means a mark up 25 times higher is excessive. Therefore a coat costing £8 to send would be excessive at 25 times that cost, ie £200, it would seem unlikley to be excessive at three or four times actual cost.

It isn't only ebay that have high post and packing charges either, I recently paid just short of £5 post and packing on a small memory card from an internet retailer.

Soo

masonic

mike_paterson wrote:

You say that I cannot quote the policies unless I can show they apply, is this some new MSE posting rule that you have made up ? All I did was point out to this thread that there is a policy regarding excessive postage. I posted this in response to Jaghirs ridiculous statement - "Nothing wrong with this, the seller can charge what they want as long as they declare it upfront" which is blatantly wrong.

Perhaps I should have qualified that statement with "in a rational discussion". My point is that ebays whole policy statement hinges on their definition of what constitutes excessive postage. If you start applying your own notions of what might be considered excessive to those statements, then you are taking them out of context. I read your post as implying that £20 postage in this case would be considered by ebay to be excessive, which from the example that they give seems highly unlikely - if I have misinterpreted your post, then I apologise. I agree that you cannot just charge whatever you like.

mike_paterson wrote:

I will probably start reporting some of these as I come across them and see what ebay does and update this thread.

From personal experience, ebay will not act unless the postage charge is insanely expensive (in the same vein as charging £25 for a 30p service), but of course that's a good way to clarify the situation for yourself.

parkside_stroller

As a buyer (and seller) on ebay, I always take into account postage charges when deciding how much to bid, if I don't like it I won't bid. Personally I don't have a problem with people charging more than it cost to actually post the item as it also cost money to pack it, take it for delivery and to collect payment. Additionally it is unfortunate that ebay also owns paypal and loves to guide people in that direction when making payment.
Although it doesn't cost you anything to accept paypal if all you ever want to accept are debit cards, people do want to use credit cards on occasions - particularly if you are selling high value items and here is the catch - you have to upgrade your account to accept these and in doing so you will attract fees for every payment you accept from that point.
Ebay won't allow you to directly charge buyers for using paypal so you now have a situation where you are charged 3.4% + 20p for accepting payment via paypal (2.9% + 20p and gradually reducing in increments if receiving more than £1500 a year).

If I accept a cheque I have to drive to my nearest bank (round trip 4 miles) to cash it - some people will have to pay parking charges on top of petrol for doing a similar trip.

Paypal also charge you 25p for taking money out if it's less than £50 you are withdrawing.

I realise the original post was about a leather jacket but perhaps you will bear with me in highlighting a couple of examples to add to the debate here.
I sell video games I have played and no longer want (often buy them on ebay as well) - e.g. Game sells at £5 plus £2.25 post, pack and handling. From this my actual income would be £4.97 as I have deducted 50p for a jiffy bag, 78p post, 20p ebay listing fee, 59p for accepting paypal and 25p for withdrawing it to my bank account - TOTAL £2.32 and I haven't taken into account transport to the post office yet.
Take into account what I paid for the game myself and I don't think I would ever make a profit, however I have enjoyed playing it and paid less for the experience than I would have whether new or even second hand in GAME.

I don't know the actual cost of selling a leather jacket (or the actual cost of post, pack and handling) but of the few higher value items I sold I had reserve price (didn't want to lose money) in addition to the above and it cost about £2+ for a box (also bought packing tape). Charged £17.50 for post, pack and handling - actual cost about £25 (went Royal Mail next day delivery) - then add the fees charged by ebay and paypal. That item was a PS2 (don't own a leather jacket but would that be around the same weight) - even sending it by a cheaper service it would still cost cost me about £23 to sell it if I had sent it by Royal Mail parcels, adding in the packing, travel, ebay and paypal fees.

I don't often sell high value items so in my case I used the most easily available at the time - local post office, but if anyone would like to share any info on other cheaper carriers, I would be more than happy to use them next time to reduce my selling costs, while passing on saving to buyers.

Before reporting anyone for "excessive P+P costs" I would hope that people remember that Ebay sellers are clearly not selling to make a loss - if you think the post, packing and handling is excessive don't buy it - perhaps it's best just to add the figures and work out if, at the end of the day you are getting good value in the total price you pay. I don't suppose people are likely to find that sellers in online shops will force themselves into a loss making position by not factoring in the actual cost of post, packing and handling somewhere in the sale - even when post is advertised as free, it isn't really - it's somewhere in the price.

motorguy

At the end of the day, the seller decides how much he puts his item on for, knowing how much he will have to pay for postage and knowing how much profit he needs to make to stay in business.

As a buyer you can see the total cost BEFORE you buy. What odds IF the seller has shuffled the figures a little to reduce fees and / or to keep in step with what other sellers are doing? Its the TOTAL COST TO YOU thats important.

Look at the phone charger market on ebay - chargers tend to be 99p then there is highish postage charges which is most likely where the seller ends up getting his profit from. Its maybe not the ideal way ebay or we would want but if the item is 99p and £4.00 for postage because the guy needs £4.99 inc postage for the item, really what odds? Try emailing one of those guys and offering him 50p to cover postage...

Probably overall, maybe the leather jacket guy is making £30, maybe thats his markup below which it isn't worth his while. What odds if £20 of that comes from the item and £10 from the postage? If he was charging £10 less for the postage he'd have to charge £10 more for the item, so why the big fuss?

mike_paterson

parkside_stroller wrote:

if you think the post, packing and handling is excessive don't buy it - perhaps it's best just to add the figures and work out if, at the end of the day you are getting good value in the total price you pay. .

If only you could change the order items are listed to reflect total price inc P&P - Unfortunately you cannot so an item at £10 plus £3 P&P appears lower down the list that the same item that costs 99p plus £25 P&P even though its costs half the amount to buy. It is infuriating to say the least!

mah_jong

mike_paterson wrote:

Worth pointing out again that the Post Office is not the only way of sending items. Nor is it the cheapest. For heavy of bulky goods you are likely to get a much better deal from a courier and they even come and pick the goods up from you too !

But they dont deliver to the whole of the UK at the same price! I recently had to pay extra quids for courier delivery, I live in the wilds ...only to find out Royal Mail delivered it! Grrrrr

parkside_stroller

mah_jong you just gave me some food for thought with that one - may'be cheapest isn't the most practical option for every buyer - it is possible to offer more than one service though for delivery though.

I completely emphasise with what you are saying about courier delivery. Despite the fact that I am hardly in the middle of nowhere - only 15 miles from a major city centre, I normally have to drive a 50 mile round trip to collect parcels if I miss a courier (the 2 who normally seem to deliver to me are on the opposite side of the city) as usually I don't want to or are not able to wait in all day for a delivery. With Royal Mail it's a round trip of 4 miles to the local delivery office. Big difference in the petrol cost.

Mike_P - yeah if it was possible to have a way of filtering lists to take account of the real starting price that would be great, certainly not beyond the realms of modern technology.

I'm starting to get on the soap box here people......

I've always felt that the way that ebay don't encourage sellers to be more transparant in the true cost to them in selling by not allowing paypal surcharges to be shown, for those who want to use this, is not really helpful. This makes it look as if almost 5% of the cost actual cost of buying an item is down to, in some people's minds, "excessive postage" when in fact it is a result of seller's reaction to ebay/paypal charges and policies - the hidden cost of using ebay in the way they would like people to perhaps.

If it was possible to openly add surcharges dictated by the buyers chosen method of payment and to offer a variety of payment services, with the actual cost of using the service shown, then it would give buyers more choice and might actually allow P&P charges to come down a little in many cases.
The net result might actually encourage a level playing field for everyone who offers an instant payment service - if online auctions were originally owned by one of the former state companies such as Royal Mail or British Telecom, I'm sure the government would be making sure that there was more of a competitive edge to things.
Personally, I find it unfortunate that I've never had any interest in any the auctions I've placed on QXL for some time - I don't bother now and I'm not aware of any other genuine alternative to ebay. It is clear though that as long as people click the paypal button rather than the cheaper (to seller) nochex button, that people like myself offer then, sellers adding the cost to their P+P will continue and buyers will pay more.

parkside_stroller

mah_jong wrote:

But they dont deliver to the whole of the UK at the same price! I recently had to pay extra quids for courier delivery, I live in the wilds ...only to find out Royal Mail delivered it! Grrrrr

mah_jong - when you say you are in the wilds, does that palm tree mean you are in the far north west of Scotland in Ullapool?