Another postage query

plumface

Let me start by saying that if i paid for 1st class postage and received a 2nd class service,i too would complain.
As a seller on ebay i,as a matter of course,refund any excess in postage paid by the buyer.(not that you get any thanks,you only get complaints if you don't!)
Ignoring the class of postage and the seller stating the p&p costs are accurate, a buyer buys 2 items at,lets say £5 each with p&p of £3.50 each.
A total of £17,a total the buyer is totally happy with and then pays.
One could then safely say that the buyer would have purchased the 2 items had they been advertised at £8.50 each with free p&p.
On receipt of the items you notice the postal cost was £4,would you:-

a)Complain that the postal cost was too high when you 'paid' postage.If you would complain what would your complaint be?
b)Complain at all in the freepost situation.If you would complain what would your complaint be?
c)Would you offer to give the seller £3 if the actual postal cost was £10?
The 'a' and 'b' above situations are exactly the same.You have willingly paid a price for goods except one shows postal costs and the other does not.You still get the same goods at the same price.What is the problem?
If you discovered the true cost of the above product was 25p would you complain that they are making too much profit?
Would you offer to give the seller £3 if the actual postal cost was £10?
If the seller had posted the goods via courier,ppi labels or had printed the labels via paypal the buyer would not have known the true cost of posting in the 1st place.
Two of my suppliers run different postal charge systems.One charges a flat fee,no matter what the size.Sometimes i win,sometimes i lose but,i get the products i want at a price i am willing to pay.I do not complain when i lose out and expect a refund and i do not expect the supplier to do the same.
The other supplier posts at 'cost',even though i know it is not the true cost and they are 'overcharging'.I am still getting the products at a price i am willing to pay.
How many times have you bought something online or in a shop and found an identical item cheaper somewhere else.What do you then do about it, contact the supplier and complain or just say 'Doh!' i wish i had seen that price first?
Why have some people a problem with the postal costs then?You know the price before you pay and are more than happy to pay it.
It does not matter whether an item costs 1p with £9.99 p&p
or £10 freepost, you still get the item for the same price.

plumface

QuackQuackOops wrote: »

How does a buyer know what they are paying for until an item arrives?

I might bid on an item that costs £5 with £6 postage and think that the price seems fair enough because I wouldnt really know how big the item was or how it was packaged.

If the item then arrived badly packaged and with postage that was only £1.78 I would be upset. The postage asked for was much higher but I could see when it arrived that it wasnt packed adequately and that the postage cost was small.

Last week I bought something that postage was quoted as £27 for 48 hour parcelforce.
It didnt arrive in 48 hours, it took 5 days. The seller said that she was going to ask for a refund but said that it was her refund not mine. She could not understand that it was something that I had paid for, not her, and that if she were to get reimbursed she should pass it on to me.

A buyer cannot tell when P&P is accurate a lot of the time until an item arrives.

What does it matter what the p&p cost is?
Add the item price to the p&p cost and if it is a total you are willing to pay then pay.
If the total is more than you are willing to pay then don't pay.

ohblimey

soolin wrote: »

Percentage wise my INR claims were higher on Amazon than on eBay, but I lose so few that it is probably difficult for those statistics to 'prove' anything

However ohblimey, I accept anyone can make a mistake but to not wish to correct it is the problem here. most of us sellers here would have almost certainly refunded a bit once we realised we had over charged, we certainly would have been apologetic at having used the wrong service.

To be fair to ebay I will point out we have only been selling on amazon for about six months, however none have gone missing. We sell mainly from our own site. And I am a big fan of ebay despite my rant! but I feel they will lose reputable sellers, we work hard to stay in business and offer excellent products and service so it is very disturbing to have someone threaten our good reputation via a faceless feedback system, some people are impossibly awkward and revel in their power given to them by the system.

Perhaps the lady seller became a tad hassled by the buyer and maybe would have gladly refunded sooner had the buyer been easier on her. Ebay is too personal but it works both ways, if someone is crabby with me I am more inclined to be crabby back and do them no favours even though it is not my nature

ohblimey

Plumface has hit the nail on the head, the problem is caused by the price of the stamp being displayed, as plumface says, a courier service does not do this, even though the buyer may still have paid more than the actual cost.

hermum

In this case, the OP says the seller offered a combined p&p discount, so bought expecting the item to be sent 1st class & was happy to pay the same postage as if she'd bought singly.
From the way the OP says she responded it doesn't sound as though she was crabby with the seller & gave her the opportunity to rectify it.
From the sound of the reply she received the seller paid £12 ish p&p for the 2 parcels & thinks that it's fair to split the cost over both parcels, fine if both are going to the same person or you get the dearer one, not so fine or fair if you're the one who's paying the extra.

mummysaver38

plumface wrote: »

You see the price and agree to it..

STOP MOANING :rotfl:

I agree to it because that's what I think it is going to cost plus a little extra for packaging. I don't try and work out the weight beforehand, I expect the seller to weigh in advance, like I do when I sell things, and put the postage charge in as a result of that. The other day I was charged £8 postage for something. It arrived packaged in a recycled bag and cost abou £4.40 carriage charge, which I found unacceptable. I also don't expect to pay for a private seller's time, parking cost, petrol etc.

plumface

mummysaver38 wrote: »

I agree to it because that's what I think it is going to cost plus a little extra for packaging. I don't try and work out the weight beforehand, I expect the seller to weigh in advance, like I do when I sell things, and put the postage charge in as a result of that. The other day I was charged £8 postage for something. It arrived packaged in a recycled bag and cost abou £4.40 carriage charge, which I found unacceptable. I also don't expect to pay for a private seller's time, parking cost, petrol etc.

I also don't expect to pay for a private seller's time, parking cost, petrol etc.
Why?
Would you expect to pay for a business sellers time?

Buyers do not mind people making a profit on goods but utterly despise sellers making any profit on posting.
Why
If the item got to you in expected time and in the condition you expected it to,what exactly is your problem?

hermum

plumface wrote: »

I also don't expect to pay for a private seller's time, parking cost, petrol etc.
Why?
Would you expect to pay for a business sellers time?

Buyers do not mind people making a profit on goods but utterly despise sellers making any profit on posting.
Why
If the item got to you in expected time and in the condition you expected it to,what exactly is your problem?

It's probably sellers who overcharge on p&p that mean postage caps have been set on some categories.
I wonder how long it will be before ebay start charging fees on the overall price, inc p&p. They must know that sellers up the postage to lower the fvf payable.
I'm sure then that the sellers who complain the loudest will be the ones who are overcharging at the moment.

malkyh

hermum wrote: »

It's probably sellers who overcharge on p&p that mean postage caps have been set on some categories.
I wonder how long it will be before ebay start charging fees on the overall price, inc p&p. They must know that sellers up the postage to lower the fvf payable.
I'm sure then that the sellers who complain the loudest will be the ones who are overcharging at the moment.

Maybe I'm in the minority again, but personally I'd rather the seller gained a few extra pennies in postage than eBay benefiting from them being charged a higher FVF. If they lowered postage but increased the bid price I'd still end up paying the same anyway so would make no odds to me.

soolin

hermum wrote: »

It's probably sellers who overcharge on p&p that mean postage caps have been set on some categories.
I wonder how long it will be before ebay start charging fees on the overall price, inc p&p. They must know that sellers up the postage to lower the fvf payable.
I'm sure then that the sellers who complain the loudest will be the ones who are overcharging at the moment.

EBay.com do charge FVFs on the postage charged in some (not sure it is all) categories already.