postage UPDATED

A.Jones

I have negged a seller over a £1.50 excess charge before. I asked before bidding on any of his items (P&P was £1.25 per item) if he would combine the postage costs on a number of items and he said yes. So I bid and won five of them. Then the combined charged came in at £3, and I questioned it, and was told that was what it costs him to post the items. So I paid it. It turned out that the stamps were about a quid, and even allowing 50p for the bubble envelope (he is a high volume seller, so this would cost less), he had added on £1.50. When I received it I questioned him again based on the actual costs now I could see them, and he told me that he has to pay for jiffy bags and petrol to drive to the post office. I pointed out that if I bought one item or 10 then he would still need to use one jiffy bag, and drive to the post office anyway no matter how many items I had bought (along with the multiple other items he had sold that day). I got a reply telling me I was happy to pay the postage price for each item as I had bid on them and agreed to his postage (even though I questioned him about buying multiple items and combined postage before bidding). He then said I had saved £3.25 as each one should cost £1.25 to send, and that was what I agreed to.

So I just negged him five times, and left him one star for postage costs.

The amount of the overcharge doesn't bother me so much, it is the principle of telling someone you would combine postage, then add on extras to make money afterwards.

As for single items, I add up the stamps and the approx cost of the packaging. If the costs charged are less than 50p over, I leave 5 stars. Less than £1 over, I leave 4 stars. More than £1 over, 1 star.

vicx

ludovico wrote: »

I see the point, what I'd like to know is why you want to pay extra for eBay fees?

I also go back to my point about Argos 4.95 to post a spoon (and they do sell single spoons) it's excesive but they have a flat rate of P&P and of all the complaints I've read about the company their shipping charges aren't mentioned.

So everywhere else you pay what it advertised and on eBay you nit-pick over a quid? The P&P star should be there to stop truly excessive P&P (£10 plus £90 P&P) not to punish small sellers for an extra £1 which you would pay either way.

Yes it may only be £1 but incase you missed my post above.. you are only allowed to charge the actual postage and packaging cost, nothing more. Those are eBay rules not mine. If I charge fair postage cost and pay the correct FVF then I can't see why other seller's can't also offer reasonable P&P charges.

I would not pay £4.95 postage to order a SINGLE spoon. If I was going to order one spoon, I'd reserve and collect or buy one from a local store. When I buy items online, I shop around and take P&P into consideration. Many companies offer 'flat rate' postage of around £3 - £5 so you can order as many items as you like and only pay one postage cost. How can you compare companies to eBay sellers?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

How can you compare companies to eBay sellers?

Well Argos sell on eBay for starters.

As for eBay's rules:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/basics/pandp.html

"You can then add a reasonable amount as compensation for packaging materials, plus a modest handling cost. "

vicx

ludovico wrote: »

How can you compare companies to eBay sellers?

Well Argos sell on eBay for starters.

As for eBay's rules:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/basics/pandp.html

"You can then add a reasonable amount as compensation for packaging materials, plus a modest handling cost. "

You can then add a reasonable amount as compensation for packaging materials, plus a modest handling cost. Please bear in mind, though, that it is not permitted to charge excessive postage and packaging, and sellers who are found to be doing this may find that their listings are ended or they are suspended from the site.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Yes I read the whole page, so the advice for new sellers from eBay's own mouth is you can add a modest handling fee. £1 is modest.

vicx

Lets say you are selling a book for £12 and offering FREE P&P. You are then paying £1.20 FVF for each book that sells.


Seller 2, offering the same book at £10.50 Plus the actual postage cost of £1.50 (Paying £1.05 FVF)


Seller 3, offering the same book at £8.70 Plus £3.00 postage cost (Paying 87p FVF).


Since seller 3 is offering a higher postage cost he is then able to undercut you and seller 2 by 30p as the money he would be paying to eBay, he can use as a discount on the item price. Now would you be disappointed that this seller is charging excessive p&p and discounting his price with the money he has saved from FVF's? I think you would if it is effecting your sales.


All sellers should charge a reasonable postage and packaging cost instead of adding extra on to P&P to undercut other sellers total price and avoid exra eBay fees.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I understand that completely and agree, DVD sellers used to charge 4.99 for box set when 2.99 was fairer. My point is these small sellers don't deserve to be booted off eBay for charging an extra pound and low stars (1 or 2) will lead to this.

vicx

ludovico wrote: »

I understand that completely and agree, DVD sellers used to charge 4.99 for box set when 2.99 was fairer. My point is these small sellers don't deserve to be booted off eBay for charging an extra pound and low stars (1 or 2) will lead to this.

They won't get booted off eBay. eBay will limit their account so they can only sell so many items per month, usually a limit of 10 listings per month. This gives the seller the chance to rectify the problem and improve their DSR's so the listing restrictions will be lifted or removed.

Buyers use detailed seller ratings (DSRs) to rate sellers in specific areas of a transaction, including accuracy of item description, communication, dispatch time, and postage and packaging charges. The seller's average rating for each area is shown on their Feedback Profile.

To make sure buyers are getting great customer service, we require all sellers to meet our requirements for detailed seller ratings and global seller performance standards. To sell on eBay, the number of 1 and 2 star detailed seller ratings a seller receives can't exceed a certain percentage of their total transactions, or a maximum number of occurrences.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

If you are rated over 12 months and have too many low scores (by count rather than %) your account is at great risk. You have to wait 12 months for the lows to drop off (from the date they were left) and it doesn't matter how many things you can sell or how much time you have, unless they drop off or you can persuade the buyers to remove, you will be classed as below standard and face a permanent restriction, all over a pound the seller had innocently added and the advice pages on eBay say is allowed.

ohblimey

I really cannot understand the logic of some buyers, £10 + £3 pp is the same as £13 + free pp. Same product, same total price, whats the problem?

So what if the seller gains a few pence more from ebay fees, it makes no difference to the buyer, yet you would rather ebay get the extra money, they don't even pay tax in this country.

And so what if the seller undercuts another seller through doing it this way, that's just business. We cannot list some of our products on ebay because we just cannot compete on price, we know the cost price of the product so we know they make next to nothing profit, there's no point being a busy fool.

Perhaps though it would be better if ebay charged a lower FVF on the total price, it would make it a lot simpler for everyone