Overcharged by £2 for P&P what can I do?

lrr_2

I look at the overall price and if happy with that I bid

e.g book 1p, p&p £4.99 = total £5
book £4.99, p&p 1p = total £5

Still paying the same so dont care what p&p is

I blame ebay for their high fees and not the sellers

wam73

Thanks for all your useful posts. The problem I have is my items are low value and I need to be selling more quantity. I have looked into the cost I pay and how much I can sell for and have worried that people will mark me down for this but seems to be ok at the moment. I am now looking into getting a website so as I can have one postage cost and hopefully people will buy more items at once. Ebay has helped get me here so I must be doing something right. Will take on all your comments and try to find a better way to sell so as I dont mess up my star ratings.
Thanks all it's been most enlightening.

luvvlyjubbly

I too do take the postage price into account of the total sale price....i don't mind if i'm over-charged...however, if I'm overcharged for an item sent first class and they dont post within 2 days, then boy am i mad!!

soolin

luvvlyjubbly wrote: »

I too do take the postage price into account of the total sale price....i don't mind if i'm over-charged...however, if I'm overcharged for an item sent first class and they dont post within 2 days, then boy am i mad!!

That strangely enough doesn't bother me at all.

To me despatch and postage are two completely different episodes. I look at how long the seller states they take to despatch and if I am happy with that then that's fine, 2 working days is the usual default.

cba321

kelloggs36 wrote: »

I don't look at the postage as being separate - I cost up the full cost of the item plus postage before deciding what my max bid should be - I would never pay over the odds in total for anything so my max bid is lower.

I do exactly this when buying, I add the total up with the postage when buying, then I bid as to how high I want to go which includes the postage cost. When you buy, you do agree to pay the postage costs. I keep my postage costs to a minimum, say I set a price for an item at £2.25 and use that standard rate choice, then when I get to the post office, am told that it costs £2.20 to post it first class and £1.80 to post second class, (prices just used randomly), I always use the choice that is closest to what the buyer has paid for postage, so would have sent it first class, regardless of how much it has cost me to parcel the item up. I just try to keep my postage costs to a minimum, and charge very little for packaging, but I don't need to drive to a post office, I can walk it, some people have to drive, use petrol, take buses etc.

Zoology_Dragon

What I don't understand is the amount of people who seem to automatically assume that a seller is purposefully setting out to overcharge in cases like this.

I sell on eBay but I'm only a private seller, I just happen to have a lot of junk :rotfl: I weigh all my items then use the Royal Mail website to estimate postage. I then round this up slightly to account for packaging (both the cost of packaging and the extra weight the packaging adds to the parcel). More often than not I am accurate to within less than 50p, often even less. I do re-use a lot of packaging but it's always in good condition and of course parcel tape and paper, for writing on the address, aren't free anyway. Occasionally I "overcharge" by a pound or so by accident. If I spot this and I think it's an unreasonable amount I give the buyer a partial refund rightaway. It probably happens at other times and I don't spot it in which case they don't get a refund unless they ask (no-one ever has). Quite honestly, I'm busy and don't have time to double check postage paid against actual cost for every single item. It really irritates me to think that a buyer might sit whinging about an "overcharge" of less than 2 pounds. Do they think I have nothing better to do? If you think you've been overcharged - email me and I will probably refund you, along with a massive apology - otherwise, stop whining.

Anyway, this thread is old now but while I don't exactly disagree with the OP (though I wouldn't care personally, I buy a lot too and it'd be good enough for me, they'd just get 4/5 stars instead of 5/5) but I do think a) it's an insanely small amount of money to get so annoyed about and b) it's a bit unreasonable (in general not the OP so much) for people to decide that sellers doing this are intentionally "scamming" people.

NB. I'm starting to see now why my DSRs still aren't perfect despite bending over backwards for most buyers :rolleyes: Makes me think that I just won't bother going the extra mile seeing as it still won't be good enough for many people.

Strapped

wam73 wrote: »

Thanks for your comment, So how do other sellers get around all the fee's and get 100% on their stars? They cant possibly be making a profit on their selling price. I always check the price of my items by other sellars and it is just impossible to run a business on what they are selling their items for. I must admit I am finding sorting the costings for my items very hard and time consuming but have only been up and running a month. So hope it is going to get easier.

What you're saying is that your buying prices are too high. You make money going into a deal, not coming out of it.

TurkishDelight

wam73 wrote: »

I'm an E-bay business sellar and to get people to even look at your items they have to be the cheapest.

No they don't.
Customer care, clarity, psychology, and a sense of value all contribute.
Unique products will get you far, but it is how they are presented that really matters.

We are full time ebayers, and we sell at way above the market value, just because we use all these factors to our maximum advantage.

chja

TurkishDelight wrote: »

No they don't.
Customer care, clarity, psychology, and a sense of value all contribute.
Unique products will get you far, but it is how they are presented that really matters.

We are full time ebayers, and we sell at way above the market value, just because we use all these factors to our maximum advantage.

Agreed - if I buy something from a business, I want to feel that they are a professional seller, so I'm looking for a good quality listing / photo and high feedback with fast dispatch - I will pay extra for that.

NeilJung

I buy from new sellers, bad spellers and sellers with stock or no pictures depending on what the item is as I know I will likely have little competition and I've snapped up no end of bargains using this strategy. The odd sale falls through or has an issue, but I'm definitely well ahead of the game with this tactic.

As a new ebayer I would and did however pay extra for the "peace of mind" of buying from a reputable UK seller, but having chanced my arm many times now and considering Paypal buyer protection I have no issues with buying from the cheapest vendor as long as I can work out from the listing that they are selling exactly what I'm expecting (sometimes that's an art in itself considering how bad some listings are) and depending how urgently I need the item China and Hong Kong see a fair bit of business from me these days. 99% of the time the "reputable UK seller" is selling the same item for double, triple or more the price, so I can wait ten or more days for delivery and the only problem I ever had with a Chinese seller was resolved with one ebay message and a full refund the same day.