Ebay packaging and postal costs - am I being naive?

rainbowsox

Evening all...I haven't started a new thread before, so apologies if this has been discussed before - please just point me to the link...
When I sell on ebay, I only charge the actual cost of the postage for the item I'm selling - I don't charge for packaging, as I have a large hoard of old jiffy bags, bubble wrap, brown paper etc. Obviously I allow for the weight of the packaging in the postal costs, but otherwise don't add anything. I had a look at some postage and packing costs for other sellers recently (I sell, but very rarely buy, so don't really look very often), and was amazed at the really high costs for p & p for relatively inexpensive items - single garments were priced £5.00 for p & p, for example.
Am I just being really naive in not charging more, or are some of the p & p costs around at the moment really way over the top?
I know sellers need to cover costs, including listing and paypal, but surely some of these p & p costs are enormous, especially for low value items...
Do you find buyers don't notice p and p costs, or don't care that some of them are really high?
All thoughts welcome and thanks for reading

slowen

I think at the end of the day it's the buyers responsibility to check postage costs and that they are happy with them before bidding on an item and don't bid on an item that has no postage cost as a seller could try and rip you off and turn around and say "well you didnt ask".

When I sell items on ebay I add a bit extra on top to cover my fees for example if I sell a DVD I will charge around £1.70 for postage even though the actual postage cost is about 60p the rest goes towards my fees as I am not putting myself out of pocket especially as some items go for cheaper than expected.

I think you have to add a bit ectra on but not loads as you see some sellers do and also people use very high postage costs to avoid ebay fees which is against ebay rules

bleugh

always add an amount on the top for packaging..........

Contains_Mild_Peril

£5 p&p for an item of clothing is a bit excessive if it's not particularly heavy. A lot of sellers list items fairly cheaply and charge a lot for p&p to save on eBay fees, which aren't charged on p&p (though Paypal fees are, and some sellers will be looking to cover Paypal fees in their p&p price). Personally, I normally charge fairly realistically - I will often weigh the item on my kitchen scales, add about 20g margin for error and a bit for packaging, add the cost of packaging (usually about 10p) and round up to the nearest 10p. Sometimes I can't be bothered weighing everything, so I just guess, in which case I tend to overestimate slightly, but occasionally I've erred on the other side and undercharged some lucky customer.

rainbowsox

thanks for all this..it's really helpful - i'm still relatively new to ebay, being more of a car bootie / jumble sale / auction type of person, and find it hard to gauge buyer opinion / seller etiquette, as ebay is so anonymous - i find it much easier to sell to buyers face to face...then it's easy to judge what to charge, what add ons to give etc...
I'm really grateful for the advice.