Ebay postage

soolin

plumface wrote: »

If it costs £xx to sell it costs £xx to sell,it is not nonsense.(unless you load the costs onto freepost).But then you are getting the same item at exactly the same price.
Item:- £2 plus £2 p&p
Item:- £4 free p&p
What is the difference and what is the problem?

The problem is buyers will not stand for high post and packing, that's why so many big sellers have now gone free post. As sellers we can charge what we want and justify it however we want- but it is our buyers who leave our stars and keeping ahead on Best match becomes difficult if buyers stop leaving 5* as default

chemical.galaxy wrote: »

Just checked my dashboard after reading this discussion - all my items were freepost up to now but recently I have started experimenting with making the items cheaper to foreign buyers and adding on postage (at cost price nothing added for packaging etc) to uk buyers instead.
I have dropped from 5 to 4.99 - so I guess there is no pleasing some people!!

I experimented with Freepost but my items don't really lend themselves to it and I found I can maintain a good 4.9 by charging postage plus 15-25p However I monitor it constantly and sometimes actually charge postage at less than cost if my stars start slipping below 4.9

plumface

soolin wrote: »

The problem is buyers will not stand for high post and packing, (they do on Amazon and literally every other online markertplace) that's why so many big sellers have now gone free post. As sellers we can charge what we want and justify it however we want- but it is our buyers who leave our stars and keeping ahead on Best match becomes difficult if buyers stop leaving 5* as default

The problem is ebay ALLOW buyers to penalise sellers for whatever reason they feel like.
As said before, i can sell an item for the same profit freepost and not risk any DSR's for p&p or sell the same item for the same profit including p&p and risk my DSR's.
Why should i advertise my items at an artificially inflated price to appease buyers who are stupid in not knowing the difference?

plumface

soolin wrote: »

You might be ok with £3 if it takes a bit of packing and you use nice bubble wrap or a box. I would probably still leave 5* if the packing was good.

How kind you are!

soolin

plumface wrote: »

The problem is ebay ALLOW buyers to penalise sellers for whatever reason they feel like.
As said before, i can sell an item for the same profit freepost and not risk any DSR's for p&p or sell the same item for the same profit including p&p and risk my DSR's.
Why should i advertise my items at an artificially inflated price to appease buyers who are stupid in not knowing the difference?

If you are selling on eBay though you need to be aware of that and as for 'stupid' wouldn't that be a seller who deliberately set out to lose their account ?

eBay isn't for everyone and many sellers have found their own web sites or stores suit them much better and they can charge what they like where they like. However if using eBay it is a poor seller that ignores what buyers want. As sellers we cannot ignore the power that buyers have and whilst we may feel we can justify our charges on a forum like this to anonymous other users, it isn't the people here on MSE that are the ones being asked to leave stars for p and p.

I make a nice amount of money on eBay and don't want to lose that ability, as such I do what I think will get me the best feedback from most buyers. It is hard enough sometimes to keep an account looking healthy and I wouldn't sabotage it by annoying the majority of buyers.

RHemmings

plumface wrote: »

If it costs £xx to sell it costs £xx to sell,it is not nonsense.(unless you load the costs onto freepost).But then you are getting the same item at exactly the same price.
Item:- £2 plus £2 p&p
Item:- £4 free p&p
What is the difference and what is the problem?

Overall there is no difference. But, when buyers are rating you, there isn't just a single "overall" rating, but a breakdown. When I'm rating how reasonable p&p charges are, there is a big difference between free p&p and £2 p&p. Hence my star ranking for p&p charges for the above will be different.