Seller charging a collection fee

thomasanchovie

An ebay shop is selling an item with a postage charge of £9.99. The shop in question is a real shop which is only a few miles from my house. When I emailed them to enquire about collecting the item rather than having it delivered they say they charge a £5 collection fee. Is this normal?

vianna

not from my experience what on earth could be the expense in collecting something?

soolin

Probably not normal, but it is allowed by ebay.

Incidentally it isn't just ebay that allow a seller to charge for collected items, I bought something from 7dayshop last week and had the option of collecting it myself for £3.95.

Soo

soolin

EDit to above..I just double checked and with apologies the 'collect option from 7day shop was £1.95 not the £3.95 that I remembered. The link is here:

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/info.php?PHPSESSID=49d3a96d49175a3d8ebc07a436f3a9c7

rose_sparky

I'd be bursting to email them and ask for a breakdown of the £5.00 collection fee.

Hintza

I would probably charge double to stop folk arriving at my door...lol.

Seriously though they will be offering the price very cheaply on EBay and covering some of their costs via P+P. If you are not happy don't buy it. If you want it buy it but don't complain.

Moglex

soolin wrote:

Probably not normal, but it is allowed by ebay.

??? Am I going mad?

A few days ago someone posted about a seller who was charging a £1.49 collection fee and he was being called a 'scumbag', 'fee-avoider' and all sorts.

No one said what he was doing was allowed.

So were they all wrong or am I forgetting some minor but important difference?

It looks from the OP as if the shop in question here is using an inflated p&p for straightforward fee avoidance and showing themselves to be guilty by needing to charge an absurd collection fee when no postahe is required.

hjb123

Have you already bought the item or have you enquired to see how much it would be to collect the item?

I agree with Hintza in that they will probably have a higher P&P price to cover more costs.

If they have a shop near you could you not just go in and get the item there? Or is it alot more expensive.

Another way to look at it is is by comparing the price you would pay for it with collection and then the price you would pay for it in a shop and/or the price you would pay with another ebayer

thomasanchovie

Its a shop that also trades on ebay, and the delivery is only 9.99, (This is for a car stereo), so I dont think they could make that much extra on the p+p. I've not bought the item, I just emailed them to find out if they were only available on ebay or if I could call in the shop and buy them.

soolin

Moglex wrote:

??? Am I going mad?

A few days ago someone posted about a seller who was charging a £1.49 collection fee and he was being called a 'scumbag', 'fee-avoider' and all sorts.

No one said what he was doing was allowed.

So were they all wrong or am I forgetting some minor but important difference?

.

I don't read every thread so don't recall that one off hand, however, being allowed to do something is not the same as making it right. I probably would not collect something if I was being charged for the privelege, I would prefer to have it delivered.

Ebay do allow post/packing/handling etc as long as it is reasonable, and the definition of reasonable is a matter of discussion. My son recently paid to collect something from a warehouse locally as they said they needed to ensure someone was available to take the money and hand over the item, and normally that needed to be arranged in advance and therefore had some cost attached. In his case the collection cost was a fraction of the cost that he would have otherwise paid to have the item delivered as it was huge and very awkward.

Soo

frivolous_fay

I think Moglex is talking about this thread: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=283095&highlight=scumbag

That guy had a lot of reasons for being called a scumbag, and I'd say the least of them was the £1.49 collection fee.