Wanting to Buy a Large Item on Ebay-Can Collect but Seller wants p&p Costs?!

MacsReturns

I work for quite a large eBay seller (seven-figure turnover), and we much prefer to deliver, although due to much pestering we do allow collections, and we apply a small admin charge (and tell people to call us before bidding if they want to collect...) which means we refund most of the P&P

There are many reasons for this: we set a time window for collections - but the collector usually turns up at some other time, like when the warehouse staff are out to lunch, or five minutes before we lock up for the night, or at exactly the same time as both of our courier collections are happening, or when we are loading up our own vans .... etc etc It's a sad fact of life, but dealing with customers one by one is a lot less time (and therefore cost) efficient for us. In that time we can usually dispatch goods to TEN other customers who have paid their p&p. So I think a small admin charge is fair - to do it for free is just putting the collector's savings on to other buyers. We even had one collector turn up who cleaned out all the rubbish from his van in our goods yard!

BUT we'd NEVER charge the full amount to someone collecting! Sounds like the OP is right to shop elsewhere, IMHO (and no we don't sell furniture )

chickywiggle

the seller claims "FREE local pickup" therefore i would not be expecting to pay anything!! I do not charge anything for people to pick up from me HOWEVER if they arrange a time and fail to turn up I will start an e-bay dispute and insist they pay me full price + p&P and i will post it OR cost of listing the item (depending what mood I am in, how much comms they have had with me, how large the item is).