Do you think this is unreasonable P&P?

soolin

RHemmings wrote: »

Except that we hear complaints on here about people being marked down, even though their p&p charges were no more than the postage charges.

I receive quite a few items with no postage charge listed on the package, and it's quite hard to know what the real postage would be. Makes it difficult to give stars. Personally I would appreciate a breakdown and a statement of how much the actual postage charge would be. But, given that the response to this has been negative, I think sellers are going to have quite a problem.

I don't think that "p&p being 'reasonable'" by itself is going to be enough, unless buyers are somehow reassured that the charges are reasonable. If the postage is clear on the package, that will help. When it isn't, buyers may be unsure.



Was the postage charge actually charged by your courier clear on the package?

I think there will always be the odd buyer that leaves poor stars regardless of what we as sellers charge- however that is not every buyer otherwise none of us would still be trading. Nothing we can do, except go free p and p (which I don't do) can protect us against someone being malicious.

However what we do need to be wary of is the charging that bit extra 'because we can get away with it' or because we feel we can justify it. We might not get 1 or 2 * from buyers, but we will get enough buyers leave us 3 * or even 4* in a quantity that can still ruin us. If I ever felt the need to justify my post and packing then I would know I was feeling guilty about what I was charging.

I also think there are some items that will always attract issues, the low cost or light items that have a disproportionate postage cost. Before PIP came in I sold a lot of dance wear and things like belly dance scarves weigh virtually nothing yet I couldn't flatten them enough to go as a large letter- so a very light and delicate item suddenly cost me twice as much (if not more) in postage overnight. I actually gave up on that market at that time as even charging stamp cost only looked like I was being really stupid with the costs, and also my profit margins became too tight (we didn't even have low stars then to worry about).

I'm also careful about some books as they can attract low stars due to costs. Selling a heavy volume for instance (before capped postage ) could easily cost £8 or so to post- and if the book itself sold for say £1.50 it looked stupid.

Indispensable_Hobbes

I buy a mixed bag of 100 mailers (4 sizes, 25 each) for 6.95 from Ebay.

Heisenberg_2

Indispensable_Hobbes wrote: »

Seller has charged £1.30 on top of the price to post on an item wrapped in a bin liner and sealed with parcel tape. I'm tempted to mark down the P&P to 2 stars but I feel a bit bad

Were you not aware of the P&P charges?

I make sure I know exactly how much P&P I will pay.

As long as the item gets to me in good condition and as described I couldn't care less even if it was protected by frogs spawn.

Bin liner and parcel tape though! - So incredibly offensive!

I wonder why people don't like the new ratings system when people "fairly" complain about such heinous crimes....

:eek:

Indispensable_Hobbes

Yes I knew the P&P charge it was stated on the listing, I did not know what the weight would be therefore couldn't really calculate it myself to see if it was fair. It is a large, bulky item that was a !!!!!! to get home from the PO on the bus but wasn't incredibly heavy.

If it's any consolation I am happy with the TOTAL price of the purchase however the question eBay asks is how reasonable was the P&P. The P&P cost was £1.30 over the cost of postage; some people think this is ok and others think not. Perhaps the seller charges this way to avoid fees?

Strapped

soolin wrote: »

I can confirm that I do use these mailers and can recommend them. They have no smokey smell and they are really tough- on the rare occasions I have had to re open a sealed bag (usually because I forgot to put the note in or something else) I've had to destroy the bag to get into it and use a new one.

They are not cheap but they are worth the extra penny or so each. However, I rue the day obviouslythebest told me about them- I am now quite addicted and every time i see a new colour I just have to buy them- despite having a stock of several thousand grey ones already.

I have every colour every size.

Just be careful of stocking up on too many mailing bags - even the good ones have a shelf life and will eventually degrade and go brittle.

RHemmings

soolin wrote: »

I think there will always be the odd buyer that leaves poor stars regardless of what we as sellers charge- however that is not every buyer otherwise none of us would still be trading. Nothing we can do, except go free p and p (which I don't do) can protect us against someone being malicious.

Nothing will protect against someone who is truly malicious, so it's more worthwhile (IMHO) to address the "floating voter". I.e. those who are not out to get you, and not those who will 5* every time due to sympathy with sellers. I think there is a fair proportion of ebay buyers who are "floating voters".

However what we do need to be wary of is the charging that bit extra 'because we can get away with it' or because we feel we can justify it. We might not get 1 or 2 * from buyers, but we will get enough buyers leave us 3 * or even 4* in a quantity that can still ruin us. If I ever felt the need to justify my post and packing then I would know I was feeling guilty about what I was charging.

I'm interested to know if anyone has ideas about how these expectations can be managed. Not for the extreme cases, but for those who will honestly try and rate the reasonableness of P&P. I've made my suggestion, which people don't like. It would take a massive properly designed experiment to see whether or not my suggestion would help with stars, and this isn't going to happen. So we can go no further with that.

I also think there are some items that will always attract issues, the low cost or light items that have a disproportionate postage cost. Before PIP came in I sold a lot of dance wear and things like belly dance scarves weigh virtually nothing yet I couldn't flatten them enough to go as a large letter- so a very light and delicate item suddenly cost me twice as much (if not more) in postage overnight. I actually gave up on that market at that time as even charging stamp cost only looked like I was being really stupid with the costs, and also my profit margins became too tight (we didn't even have low stars then to worry about).

I'm also careful about some books as they can attract low stars due to costs. Selling a heavy volume for instance (before capped postage ) could easily cost £8 or so to post- and if the book itself sold for say £1.50 it looked stupid.

I received a book, and was thinking that the P&P was quite high. It was an uncommon (but not super expensive collectors' item) book that meant I grudgingly bought it at a price which was very low purchase price, quite high postage. Upon scanning the packaging however, I found the postage cost in very small letters. It was more than the charged P&P!

I think that there is a problem in buyers not knowing how much things cost. E.g. earlier in this thread I was criticised for not knowing how much bubble envelopes cost when bought in reasonable numbers. But, this just makes my point. There are going to be people who try to give an honest answer to the P&P star rating. And if they don't know what things cost, that could introduce "noise" into the star ratings.

I've given my idea, so I'll pass things over to other people. How can buyer's expectations be managed. And/or are there ways of influencing buyer behaviour when giving star ratings? In particular are there ways of doing this which don't cut into sellers profit margins by using P&P charges lest than cost?

soolin

You cannot manage buyers expectations- but I'm not sure there is any real need. If low stars was a massive problem then none of us would be trading. Most sellers I buy from still manage to maintain an average of 4.9 stars for p and p - which supposes that most buyers do leave 5*.

We must also remember that p and p can also be used to rate the quality of packing- so maybe in some cases a low star is given not for the cost but for the packing. I tend to leave a standard 5* across the board, yet a few months ago I bought some books and many of them turned up in brown paper. The ones that arrived on a wet day were soggy, half the paper was falling off and in one case my book was damaged. I did contact the sellers, I left poor stars for the damaged book as seller just said I was the first person to complain and she wasn't responsible for the weather. I left 5 * for any seller that got back to me saying they might have to reconsider their packaging or even just saying 'sorry'. The rest I just left 4* for as I thought the packaging was not suitable for a book. I also had one book sold as like new that arrived opened flat with the spine bent back . The seller explained that if she sent the book closed it had to go as a packet but by sending it opened and flattened it could go as a large letter- so what was my problem? So although she charged me roughly stamp price plus 25p (which would normally get 5*) she got 3* for packing and 4* for item condition as book was not ;like new' as it had a stonking great crease down the spine.

I think we both agree that there are some very odd people out there, and nothing we do can protect us from them.

RHemmings

soolin wrote: »

You cannot manage buyers expectations- but I'm not sure there is any real need. If low stars was a massive problem then none of us would be trading. Most sellers I buy from still manage to maintain an average of 4.9 stars for p and p - which supposes that most buyers do leave 5*.

Maybe my impressions of the level of problems with star ratings is biased by the number of people I've seen in forums (not just this one) complaining that their account being restricted, downgraded, or worse due to low stars.

soolin

RHemmings wrote: »

Maybe my impressions of the level of problems with star ratings is biased by the number of people I've seen in forums (not just this one) complaining that their account being restricted, downgraded, or worse due to low stars.

The percentages though are low, there are millions of active user on ebay- and in reality only a few threads where people have been retricted or suspended.

Some of the ones on the community board do make very good reading . Often you see someone complaining about restrictions but with fairly good overall stars- but a bit of digging (and those community boards are ferocious) and there is often an underlying issue.

There was one before Christmas, claimed to have been susended from selling with no warning at all- about two pages in it transpired that his expanded dashboard had been showing issues for months but he thought ebay was unrealistic expecting him to despatch any quicker (his was a despatch problem not a P and P) . So he basically told ebay that he had to show a 3 day despatch as otherwise nothing sold- and it was nothing at all to do with him that his drop shipper often took 6-7 days to get the stuff shipped from a warehouse. I think it got nasty after that and the thread, like many , disappeared.