over charged on ebay postage. can I please have some good advice?

ballisticbrian

It makes me laugh seeing all the sellers getting indignant about buyers calling them out over loading of p+p rates. It makes me laugh because they are so short sighted.

POT - KETTLE?
You can't see that when you add the two prices together for the item and postage it makes no odds whether the postage is free or a million quid.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

If they aren’t happy with what you are doing or what you are charging, irrespective of whether ebay let you or not, you wont be selling for long

In return there's less sellers creating less choice and so buyers pay more. I'm very annoyed that idiots rating low for a few pence could cost me missing out on good prices, rare items and genuine bargains because the sellers are gone for daring to add a quid over stamp price whilst having half a treasure trove still in the loft that they wanted to clear.

Those grossly over-charging to avoid fees (i.e 99p BIN and £20 P&P) should be avoided if your principle disagrees (and ironically are less likely to get low stars as the buyer knows why the P&P is so much), those over charging by 3 or 4 pounds probably deserve lows stars but again why buy from them? But a low star, basically getting the seller one step (on a very short staircase) closer to being banned, over £1.40 excluding packaging is a very sad state of affairs.

Even the 2.50 mentioned by the other poster doesn't seem that bad depending upon how it's packaged.

And my biggest issue is I don't want sellers cutting corners on packaging to meet the expectations of nit pickers, I want my item packaged correctly and am more than willing to pay for it.

StumpyPumpy

nightsong wrote: »

For example, the price of jiffy bags seems to be an issue. Why? If you are going to sell more than a very few items, surely you will want to stock up at a good price? I'm not talking about hundreds here - but if you can buy say twenty on ebay for £4 ...

I'm a private seller, just sell the odd thing I pick up here and there. I've looked back in my records and over the past year I've sent 3 things out in jiffy bags. By your logic I should buy 20 and stock up. Why? I would run out of things to sell long before I ran out of jiffy bags. And what sizes do I stock up on? Bear in mind I don't know ahead of time the sizes of things I might sell in the future. Last year I sold one thing that went into a B5 envelope, the other 2 went in A4. So should I have bought a 20 pack of each? meaning an outlay of around £10 (as A4 are pricier) and 37 jiffy bags that I didn't need? Do I charge pro rata or do I factor in the fact that I have effectively spent £10 for 3 jiffy bags and charge £3.33 each? Or should I buy them at the PO for a total of around £1 each? Not to mention the nightmare for those sellers who bought boxes in bulk only for RM to change the size rules making their boxes redundant and the forward planning being a costly mistake.

Don't get me wrong, whilst it annoys me, it doesn't effect me. I am not selling into a competitive market most of the time. So I don't have to try and shave pennies to make a profit and I don't try to squeeze more profit out of p&p. But it does effect my buyers. Why? Because if I have something that I think is worth £10 but will probably cost £5.60 to post I am more likely to list it at £15 with £3 postage and try and sneak it through the PO at £3, with the money in reserve if I can't, but with extra profit if I can.

I have stopped selling low value (ie less than a couple of pounds) bulky items simply because I can do without the hassle of people challenging why an 99p item is going to cost £8 to post, instead I'll have a start price of £10 and £3 postage, or just give up with them completely and put the stuff in a skip.

nightsong wrote: »

...
Anyway my point really is - ebay frowns on excessive postage being charged, and rightly so I reckon since the buyer does not have to be an expert on current postal prices and shouldn't be ripped off.

Just to clear one little thing up about your point as there seems to be some confusion. The reason why eBay wants to minimize postal charges has nothing to do with being fair to the buyer and has everything to do with eBay only charging commission on the sale price and not postage. PayPal charges for both, but that is a different story.

It isn't the buyer that is being ripped off by excessive postal charges, arguably it is eBay. The buyer knows how much they are going to be charged before entering into the purchase, whereas eBay earns less commission on something sold for £5 + £5 p&p than on something sold for £7 + £3 p&p. In each case, the buyer pays the same amount, which is the £10 he agreed to.

I know this is a circular argument, Buyers will try and scalp sellers, and sellers will try and scalp buyers because eBay lets unscrupulous members of either group do it with ease and eBay has no interest in the "auction" side of their business any more.

I see eBay seeing off the private seller and small business in favour of the online shopping mall that it has largely become. I'd love to know what the success rate of challenging, say, the Argos Outlet's p&p's is and the position that eBay take in disputes like that with them (though I can guess).

It seems to me that more and more individuals are giving up selling simply because of the few buyers who seem to think it is good sport to contest a price they have previously agreed to. While eBay stay the best place to sell for me I will remain, nobody makes me sell there, after all, but the hobby seller (which is how I class myself) is becoming a rarer breed which takes part of the fun out of looking at eBay and ultimately that will be to the detriment of the buying public.

poet123

The hobby seller (which I am) has to recognise that they cannot charge more than postage actually costs. Any costs above that need to be factored into the start price if they do not want to pay the price via their stars. I learned this the hard way and I am still not able to access the free listings despite the issues being 12 months ago and my stars for P&P now being 4.8.

I used to leave 5 stars across the board if I was happy with the product. I don't do that automatically now. If I have been overcharged postage by a significant amount when I buy I contact the seller and ask for a refund of postage and if they do not respond I leave low stars. I recently paid £7 for something that cost £2.60 to post. I contacted them but received no response so I left low stars for comms and postage. I am not prepared to pay 3 times the actual cost of postage regardless of the value to me of the item. Nor do I expect my buyers to do it.

I always refund if I have overcharged now, lesson learned, but it has made me tougher with other sellers.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

poet123 wrote: »

I recently paid £7 for something that cost £2.60 to post.

Why did you buy from that seller, £4.40 on top must be fairly clear at the time of bidding/buying?

poet123

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

Why did you buy from that seller, £4.40 on top must be fairly clear at the time of bidding/buying?

Because I wanted the item, and actually hadn't looked at the postage costs till auction end.

vinylmusic

I am a seller on ebay and I can honestly say that I don't overcharge on postage
Postage costs to the seller works out to more than the cost of stamps
If I were to sell a DVD and send it in a padded envelope it would cost me £1.10 in stamps. I buy the padded envelopes in bulk so an envelope which normally costs 35p in shops will cost me 25p
Almost everyone pays through Paypal these days so I must pay 3.4%.
Those are rock bottom costs for a DVD.
If a DVD has a bonus disc and/or inserts or an outside card cover as many do I have to use a larger envelope and pay a little more postage + paypal so such packets cost me between £1.40 and £1.60 so I charge a flat £1.50 for all DVD's
If a buyer only looks at the cost of the stamps they aren't looking at the whole picture

nightsong

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

The point you miss is that eBay is a fantastic marketplace because it allows such a variety of people to offer such a varied selection of goods.

You have the choice as a buyer whether or not to pay x amount for your item. It may be your view that people in remote areas shouldn't sell on eBay but when one lists that ultra rare item that your collection has been craving for for the last 20 years who cares where they live and whether P&P is £2 more than the stamp.

What I don't understand is you seem to think OK I'll pay £10 plus postage when you should think OK I'll pay £12 all in, that way it doesn't matter how the charge is broken down you've paid what you wanted to pay for something you wanted to own.

The item that cost you £4.10 in stamps, how was it packed?

Thanks for your reply

You make a very good point about rare items. I'm sure there are a good number of collectables and similar items sold, that are not very price sensitive at all, because a keen collector will pay whatever it takes (within reason) to get their hands on them.

So in that case I agree that it doesn't much matter, again within reason, what you charge for P&P, ALTHOUGH, if you charge high P&P you are still running a risk as the buyer is always within his or her rights to leave you low stars or poor feedback because of it.

However, surely the vast bulk of what gets sold on ebay is not like this - even among private sellers, who are mostly getting rid of their unwanted household stuff, they are simply listing one used black cardigan among dozens of similar items, or one leather handbag among thousands (have you SEEN how many used handbags there are on ebay?).

In this case I believe the level of service you offer, and the cheapness of delivery, WILL have an impact on how you are perceived as a seller, and affect your feedback

As for the price all-in versus price plus postage argument, yes - there is certainly a point at which I simply won't contemplate bidding on an auction, however much I want the thing, becuaue the postage is ridiculous. And yes, of course I have a maximum overall figure that's the top amount I'll pay. But this still leaves a grey area where postage is high but not extortionate - and those are the ones where I particularly won't be happy if I get poor service, or it turns out only to cost £2.60 in stamps instead of the £4.80 I was expecting, or whatever. And I don't think this is an unusual buyer perspective.

And in answer to your last question, it arrived in a jiffy bag. I'd have been happier to pay up if it was a super-deluxe box, but no - just your bog-standard bag.

nightsong

ballisticbrian wrote: »

Sorry but the item was a small parcel as it cost £2.60 to send. You are quoting for the cheapest possible jiffy bag. You'd be hard pressed to find a small parcel jiffy bag for 20p.

You need to look at the prices of A4 sized jiffy bags, minimum say EM0 at the absolute smallest.

Also - you draw the conclusion that the seller wants a "stock" of jiffy bags. So you are going to judge the amount charged for packaging not only on the assumption the seller buys in "stock" of packaging supplies and also choose the bulk prices when assesing their postal charges.

Thanks for your response.

It really isn't anything to do with what the seller "wants" in this sense. I don't actually "want" a stock of jiffy bags - they cost money and take up valuable cupboard space! The precise number of pence a particular bag costs is beside the point. It's about shopping around rather than just automatically buying one bag at a time in the most expensive way possible.

What I do want, though, is to give the customer a good buying experience, because a) it makes me feel good and b) they then give me good feedback, buy from me again occasionally, generally make my selling on ebay fun and maximise my returns. A virtuous circle in fact.

Treating customers well is very basic sales psychology, that happens to be heavily reinforced by the ebay system. It surprises me that some people are so resistant to the concept.

nightsong

poet123 wrote: »

The hobby seller (which I am) has to recognise that they cannot charge more than postage actually costs. Any costs above that need to be factored into the start price if they do not want to pay the price via their stars. I learned this the hard way and I am still not able to access the free listings despite the issues being 12 months ago and my stars for P&P now being 4.8.

I used to leave 5 stars across the board if I was happy with the product. I don't do that automatically now. If I have been overcharged postage by a significant amount when I buy I contact the seller and ask for a refund of postage and if they do not respond I leave low stars. I recently paid £7 for something that cost £2.60 to post. I contacted them but received no response so I left low stars for comms and postage. I am not prepared to pay 3 times the actual cost of postage regardless of the value to me of the item. Nor do I expect my buyers to do it.

I always refund if I have overcharged now, lesson learned, but it has made me tougher with other sellers.

Well said.