Customer complaining about combining postage costs

G_Model101

Hi, I have just sold a few things on ebay. One customer bought multiple items and asked for me to combine the shipping charges. The total for the items came to £9 and postage for the lot came to £10. I will admit that these were small items that would be sent in the same package and that my postage costs were inflated. However as I started the auctions at 1p I hardly wanted them to go for nothing. I voluntarily gave him money off his postage cost and now he is asking to be refunded to the exact ammount it cost me to send them. Where do I stand here? Am I being blackmailed for positive feedback or is his request fair enough? What would anyone else do?

cyril82

If your buyer has paid and received the goods and is now demanding money back you are being blackmailed.

it's one of the most common scams on ebay since the geniuses who run it took away a sellers right to leave negative and neutral feedback.

At the end of the day if the buyer was not happy with the cost of postage why did he pay it? He clearly had the intention of pulling this scam from the start, i therefore would not refund him under any circumstances, i have taken a neg in the past because of this scam but i would rather that then give in to blackmail from scum like this.

soolin

It's up to you, however a neg for each and every item is going to make your future sales almost impossible.You need to balance all that out, a large volume seller can takes negs and poor stars, a smaller seller cannot. Also if each of his stars left are low you might also start to run into problems with best match and your items not actually appearing anywhere useful. If your current feedback turnover as a seller is high, over 20 positives a month then don't give in to blackmail, if it is smaller or if your stars are already less than say 4.8 ish, then maybe consider a small gesture of goodwill. I would not however refund the entire difference as the buyer doesn't know how much extra you had to pay out for good quality new packaging.

Yes the buyer can see what you were charging, but realistically anyone who inflates post and packing in this way is not going to last long on ebay.

cyril82

soolin wrote: »

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Yes the buyer can see what you were charging, but realistically anyone who inflates post and packing in this way is not going to last long on ebay.

people inflate postage because fees are so high, i was once selling an item that that had a gross mark up of £28, The breakdown went like this, Postage £8, Ebay fees £12, me £8.

And that was with me charging "inflated" postage of £20, (ebay fees + Postage) if i had not been charging my fees in the postage i would have been making even less.

inflated postage is a by-product of ebay's greed, people are sick of paying out thousands for stock only for ebay to make more of it than them.

cyberbob

cyril82 wrote: »

people inflate postage because fees are so high,

If the fees are so high why are you selling there? If you went to an auction house the fees would be much higher

soolin

cyril82 wrote: »

people inflate postage because fees are so high, i was once selling an item that that had a gross mark up of £28, The breakdown went like this, Postage £8, Ebay fees £12, me £8.

And that was with me charging "inflated" postage of £20, (ebay fees + Postage) if i had not been charging my fees in the postage i would have been making even less.

inflated postage is a by-product of ebay's greed, people are sick of paying out thousands for stock only for ebay to make more of it than them.

I'm not saying that people can't try and excuse why they do it but I stand by my statement:

but realistically anyone who inflates post and packing in this way is not going to last long on ebay.

I also think it will just make ebay bring in 'free postage' on more categories sooner than otherwise planned.

Smart_But_Casual

cyril82 wrote: »

people inflate postage because fees are so high, i was once selling an item that that had a gross mark up of £28, The breakdown went like this, Postage £8, Ebay fees £12, me £8.

And that was with me charging "inflated" postage of £20, (ebay fees + Postage) if i had not been charging my fees in the postage i would have been making even less.

inflated postage is a by-product of ebay's greed, people are sick of paying out thousands for stock only for ebay to make more of it than them.

The thing that small sellers seem to be oblivious to is the fact that those of us that who offer cheaper postage but increase the price of the item to compensate are creaming in the sales.

Poppy9

I rarely sell on ebay but sold a few of DD toys etc. One person bought 3 of my lots and asked for combined postage before paying. I agreed as I would obviously send them in one package. I think I had about £3 or £4 postage for each item as this is what I expected it to cost me and I combined postage by giving one item as free postage. Buyer happy with this as he could see cost of postage paid when item arrived and that I hadn't ripped him off.

cyril82

cyberbob wrote: »

If the fees are so high why are you selling there? If you went to an auction house the fees would be much higher

i'm not profesionally selling there now, i got sick of them. i still sell the occasional thing on there but i'm not interested in importing £10,000 upwards of stock at a time for ebay to make over 30% more from it than me.

cyril82

Smart_But_Casual wrote: »

The thing that small sellers seem to be oblivious to is the fact that those of us that who offer cheaper postage but increase the price of the item to compensate are creaming in the sales.

I wasn't exactly a small seller when i was operating on there, i was selling several hundred items a week with profits around £1,000 per week.

cyril82

cyberbob wrote: »

If the fees are so high why are you selling there? If you went to an auction house the fees would be much higher

And if you went to ebid they would be much lower.