Am I charging too much?

baffcat

I received this in my messages today.

Q: Hi there, goods received today for which I thank you. The postage was only 37p! Even allowing for packaging costs, recent changes in the postage costs & your time thats rather a substantial difference in the actual cost & what you have charged. I also sell things on Ebay from time to time so I do know how much packaging can cost, & personally feel that you are overcharging. Yours Sally.

I replied:

Hi Sally. Yup, since PIP, sometimes the pipettes go through at 37p, but others they charge me 84p. Depends on how well I flatten them and who's serving at the hatch in the PO. I used to charge £1.50 for the pipettes, & £1 for the packing (£2.50 in total), when I knew they'd go for a 2nd class stamp, pre-PIP. Now I can't be sure of that, so I charge £0.99 for the pipettes, and £1.10 P&P (£2.09 total), enough to cover potential costs, including that possible 84p, the cost of the padded envelope, my time, petrol and wear & tear on the car, etc, etc. The new price is actually cheaper than my previous listings, but keeps my total price similar to that of my competitors (many of whom are from China). Incidently, this helps keeps my direct ebay costs down, offsetting some of the potential new postal costs. Additionally, everyone who buys knows the cost of my P&P before they bid/order, and surely factor that cost in before bidding/buying. Plus there seem to be more & more suppliers of pipettes now, and my price is similar to theirs in total, becoming cheaper if more than one pack is bought. I hope that explains why I'm happy to charge what I do, and why, in over a year of selling the pipettes on ebay, yours is the first complaint I've had over costs for them. Regards. Baff

Do you think she had a valid point? Or that my reply showed my position?

Baff

frivolous_fay

'Hi Sally. Yup, since PIP, sometimes the pipettes go through at 37p, but others they charge me 84p. Depends on how well I flatten them and who's serving at the hatch in the PO. I used to charge £1.50 for the pipettes, & £1 for the packing (£2.50 in total), when I knew they'd go for a 2nd class stamp, pre-PIP. Now I can't be sure of that, so I charge £0.99 for the pipettes, and £1.10 P&P (£2.09 total)'

I'd have left it at that. The stuff about wear and tear and petrol costs gets a bit petty-looking in my opinion.

For less than a pound over face value, she was pretty pedantic to even bring it up with you.

Seems to me your postage is fair and you have very little that you need to justify.

smartie1976

I think that if your P&P is only £1.10 then the difference is 73p, and that's hardly anything for her to complain about!

highguyuk

Basically - no your not.

Just a fussy eBayer ...

me4bargains

I wouldn't of answered such a petty email. She knew the costs when she was bidding.
I once had a demonic German lady demanding a refund of 15p because I had 'overcharged' her.

sprintstar

I had a similar experience with a German buyer funnily enough, after questioning the £2.50 postage charge once he had won the auction, he then sent me a scanned .jpg (?!) of a similar sized item he had also had sent from the UK, with a stamp for about £1.30, which is what he was expecting me to charge. After explaining that packaging/card stiffeners/fragile stickers/my time aren't free, in the end I refunded about 50p so that he'd stop e-mailing me, but you have to wonder if some people have better things they could be doing with their lives.

Liney_2

blimey i think your postage is fine, have paid lots more but never complained because postage is stated when people make bids.

robnye

just tell them if they are not happy to retunr the item and you will refund the item cost onyl.....:rotfl:

mi-key

The funniest one I ever had was a stupid yank insisting I had overcharged him as the parcel only had $4.50 worth of stamps on it and I had made him pay nearly $9 P&P ( It was actually £4.50 stamps )

No matter how much I tried to explain ( and point out who that miserable looking woman with a crown on was on the stamps ) he wouldnt have it that a £1 stamp doesnt cost us $1 to buy over here.

heathen

simple,they new the postage price when they bid and were happy to pay it.

they must have thought the price inc p&p was good at the time

just ignore them and let them go and get a life:rolleyes:


ian

arnie&caseysma!

i include a bit in my listing so that they know P&P includes postage, packing and petrol to and from the post office. I also only accept paypal (dont charge any extra for this) so that their P&P costs are not increased with trips to the bank etc. I also include that if they are not happy with the P&P price they say then please don't bid.
I have only ever had one complaint about P&P costs when I was a new seller and that was because the brown paper had been ripped by Royal Mail. I had charged a total of £6 p&p, it had cost £2.73 at the post office and they were still moaning until I pointed out that due to the items being breakable the complete roll of bubblewrap I used had cost me £3 and I apologised on behalf of Royal Mail for their service not being up to the standard that they were obviously accustomed since the paper had a wee rip in it. Some folk are never happy!!!!