High P&P -- Yet again.

apprentice_tycoon

When I started selling on ebay in 1999 (I have 100% and 4334 postives) there wasn't a section to fill in with postage quotes, you didn't find out what you were going to have to pay till you got your invoice.
I though that it was unfair on the buyer for them not to know what they were going to be asked for and also as a seller with 30+ items for sale each week I would have been forever answering emails asking what the postage cost were so I have always put my postage costs for all destinations in the auction listing.

When things altered and there was an expectation for postage costs to be shown I thought that this would mean that there would be no fudging over the postage and everyone would be seen to be asking for a reasonable amount to cover the actual postage charge and a little extra for the added expenses of the packing and transportation, maybe £1 or £2 at the most.

It's all well and good saying that you need to look at the package as a whole before you bid or buy and if you don't like the total amount asked for then don't bid but what if the item you want to buy is unique or hard to find and there aren't dozens up for sale at any one time? how is a buyer to go on there?

I sell extremely delicate, breakable items, they all need yards of bubblewrap and certain items I sell even have to have custom made boxes - my postage quotes have no more than £1 or £2 added to each one, and for that £2 the customer gets all of the bubblewrap to recycle for their own use. I have absolutely no worries about ever getting a neutral or negative from a buyer who is unhappy with the amount I have asked for for postage, I think that the seller in the original post must be constantly wondering when the £15 charge on her items is going to get mentioned in the feedback, not worth the worry in my opinion.

SmileBeHappy

why is this even worth discussing...sorry to be blunt but the items been bought and the OP obviously likes the item. However wrong this principle may be, people use it. NEVER does the seller state it costs £15 for postage, they just tell you thats what their charging just in the same way a clothes shop dnt tell you it costs £3 to make a hoodie their selling for £50. They charge what they want and if they stopped making profit they'd lower it... but they don't, coz people are happy.

The sellers on ebay are not trying to annoy you by upping postage price, they are trying to maximise their profit by not letting ebay scrounge off what they earn. (Yes maybe you disagree with this, thats irrelevant, we're discussing sumin else.) The sellers assume that most normal people add postage and sale together for a total price, AND furthermore they reckon the person bidding is probably happy to pay the price they just bid.
Oh yes that reminds me, you were happy with what you paid, with what you recieved, etc, what irritated you was the way numbers were split to give sum1 else a good profit.

I could go forever, im just wasting my time....and yes, before you ask, i do overcharge for postage

Laura

rushnowt

I'm beginning to think i haven't charged enough for P&P, i haven't made a dime out of it infact it's cost me more to post than i've charged, i'm outta pocket

time to buy some scales and hike those P&P charges up i think :D

PINGA14

Same here. Posted item today that cost me 50p more than i charged!

mike230652

rose sparky.......you say...

"If I was to buy something for one pound, list it on ebay and achieve £100.00 then only I would know it cost me one pound and I'd be making an unknown profit to anyone else. Blatently overcharging on p&p would be no secret and I think, would cause friction. << if you undertand me >>"

yes..we understand you ( sarcasm is always easy to understand since it comes from a base level ).

The point is..that Tribal AGREED to the p&p costs and fully understood them before bidding. ... he / she said that in their OP..and DID NOT OBJECT to the costs at all. What Tribal asked was if it should be better packed than it was for the money charged..the actual p&p cost itself was NOT CRITICISED by the OP.... The seller replied in a seemingly courteous way and explained they lived in the middle of nowhere, had to make a special trip to the PO at the weekend. ..

..........and where in the post does it say the winning bid was £5???????

frivolous_fay

By asking for comments, OP has opened the debate up to be very wide

P&P prices are always contentious
No-one likes scuzzy packaging
OP implies that they aren't sure what feedback to leave.. funny that no-one has gone for that one.

A debate can go off the rails rather if you skip a few posts, or don't read the OP carefully. (I'm as guilty of this as anyone )

Contains_Mild_Peril

Packing described sounds OK for an item of clothing. The seller is probably telling the truth about having to go out of their way to get to the PO, and it's quite possible they just guessed at actual postage costs, then added cost of packing (brown paper can be overpriced in a lot of places, including many POs) and transport to their overestimate then rounded it up a bit. They would probably get more repeat customers if they charged more realistically for p&p, so the seller may well lose out.
I certainly wouldn't consider negative feedback appropriate if the item was satisfactory and posted reasonably promptly, but you could still mention the p&p in your feedback if you want, e.g. "Item arrived quickly as described, though p&p charge a bit OTT".

bleugh

positive feedback with a simple comment like 'quick to arrive, rubbishy packaging and excessive post charge'

DO NOT NEG OR NEUT, why should you?, i assume the goods arrived in great condition and a timley manner, despite the bad packaging!

rose_sparky

mike230652 wrote:

rose sparky.......you say.............and where in the post does it say the winning bid was £5???????

My apologies Mike, I didn't make it clear that I meant £5 plus for the p&p not the item purchased.

smartie1976

As a reminder, to those who may have missed this is several previous threads, Ebay don't charge fees on p&p so the seller pays less fees for listing at a lower price, which is essentially fee avoidance.

So if you ask for a refund, and the seller won't refund the postage, you only get the small amount you paid for the item.