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

RFW

vinylmusic wrote: »

If a buyer only looks at the cost of the stamps they aren't looking at the whole picture

It's about what the buyer thinks rather than what they should think. If they think you've overcharged them I doubt much would change their mind.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

RFW wrote: »

It's about what the buyer thinks rather than what they should think.

The last purchase I made was 2 mugs from the same seller, each listing said 2.99 P&P plus free P&P per additional item but this isn't set up as a combined offer across all listings and Checkout showed 5.98 P&P so I requested a total and got £4 P&P.

I emailed the seller to politely asked about the P&P and what was on show and they said they didn't know about this and I could just pay the £2.99. I couldn't edit the total on Checkout and simply couldn't be bothered to mess around over quid so paid.

The mugs can in two separate parcels with a 1st Class PPI impression on, costing the seller £2.36 (I think) in stamps plus the jiffy and VAT so it seems I effectively underpaid and got a good price.

However posting the two together would cost the seller the same and I could take the view that they should make their processes more efficient to meet my expectations and be able to dispatch 2 mugs in the same parcel (they came in a jiffy bag easily big enough for 2) and rate the seller as a low score for this.

Is that fair? Is that the point of the DSR scores? Will the seller know that's my view? Could they ever meet that expectation? Who knows but two low scores could see this seller (who only had around 80 feedback a month) very close to being booted off leaving only the other 3 sellers of the same mugs who were using free P&P but a few quid more expensive before any P&P discount. I'm happy that seller was there and gave them good feedback for a good service (and would have done the same if the P&P was billed at £5.98)

Manchee

Ralph-y wrote: »

So you support extortion by buyers then?

Ralph:cool:

Where did I say that? Come on now, lets not be children here. I was simply stating the situation, how ebay actually is. It makes me laugh because this argument is futile. It never leads anywhere, all the sellers say one thing and they buyers say something else. Its all just round in circles. But it still remains that this is how ebay is. Ultimately run by the buyers.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

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.

[snip]

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.

Yes but (from what I can tell, based on how many people complain about bad DSRs for p+p) many people don't agree with you. It would appear the opposite. And its not just a few pence. If people are being charged an additional quid or so by buyers everytime they buy something off ebay, it certainly adds up quickly. I think people have a right to complain, and it is just unfortunate for sellers that keeping buyers happy is what it takes for them to sell on ebay.

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?

Yes but it isn't always obvious. I would use the price of the postage as an additional way to gauge how heavy the fabric is, and how it would hang. And yes I have been caught in this way, expected heavy-ish material, and a good quality piece of clothing, received what was pretty much see-through thin material, very cheap. But because the seller had charged double on the postage I had no way of knowing this.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Manchee wrote: »

Yes but (from what I can tell, based on how many people complain about bad DSRs for p+p) many people don't agree with you. It would appear the opposite.

That's because people are very short-sighted, especially when it comes to money. I'm not saying this situation is unfair on sellers, I'm saying it's unfair on good buyers, on buyers who don't demand part refunds, on buyers who were outbid by £1 but the winner got the item cheaper than the under-bidder by demanding a part refund and most noticeably by the reduction in choice through restricted sellers of which not all deserve to be.

Manchee

ballisticbrian wrote: »

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.

Ok... pot-kettle..? How am I short sighted (assuming this is what I am meant to infer from this comment)? The cost of the p+p to me (and I am sure others) is indicative of the weight of the item, and if it is an item of clothing, for instance, the weight could suggest the quality of the material. Not only that but others dont have to look at it the way you do, you know, some people still see the item price as the actual price and the p+p as the additional extra to be paid to receive the item, especially when buying things that you aren't going to find the same thing sold by 100 different sellers (eg second hand clothing). And when it comes to the additional cost to receive your item, you don't expect to get ripped off as a standard.

StumpyPumpy

poet123 wrote: »

...
...
I learned this the hard way and I am still not able to access the free listings despite the issues being 12 months ago
...
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
...

So, are you saying that because you were punished by eBay for buyers rating your postal charges as excessive, you now try to extract revenge by penalising other sellers, whereas before you were happy to let it slide if you were happy with the product?

That's an interesting way to behave.

Manchee

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

That's because people are very short-sighted, especially when it comes to money. I'm not saying this situation is unfair on sellers, I'm saying it's unfair on good buyers, on buyers who don't demand part refunds, on buyers who were outbid by £1 but the winner got the item cheaper than the under-bidder by demanding a part refund and most noticeably by the reduction in choice through restricted sellers of which not all deserve to be.

Yes but my point is, this is the way the situation is and this is the way people are in general, or so it seems. But sellers can easily rectify this issue by loading their start price instead of their p+p price. Sure they would have to pay a couple more pence in fees, but it would be worth it to save their DSRs. Tbh I feel like this is such an obvious solution, the fact that people always dismiss it out of hand feels like people just wanna insist on being awkward. And if that extra 2p is gonna make it not worth ebaying any more, is there really any point ebaying any way?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Manchee wrote: »

Yes but my point is, this is the way the situation is and this is the way people are in general, or so it seems. But sellers can easily rectify this issue by loading their start price instead of their p+p price. Sure they would have to pay a couple more pence in fees, but it would be worth it to save their DSRs. Tbh I feel like this is such an obvious solution, the fact that people always dismiss it out of hand feels like people just wanna insist on being awkward. And if that extra 2p is gonna make it not worth ebaying any more, is there really any point ebaying any way?

But it isn't 2p, in my case free P&P costs several thousand pounds a year in additional fees (I'm happy with free P&P, it works for my business).

The even easier answer is to shop with sellers you see as acting fairly and that doesn't just go for P&P, that goes for dispatch time, description quality and terms you deem fair (i.e if you don't want pay restocking fees on a change of mind purchase with a business, read the terms and don't buy from one who says they'll do this).

Buyers have the great power of choice, sellers must meet buyer needs to gain sales, sadly the internet (and in part the security of buyer protection) has made people lazy and in some cases very careless (look at those buying dirt cheap items which are clearly scams) and then can go around blaming everyone else whilst eBay fees go up to cover the cost of buyer protection so I can pay for the carelessness of others and good sellers get booted off over a few pence leaving me less choice.

I'm a buyer and a seller, I sell well, I buy well and don't really ever have any complaints about my purchases but then again I take time to consider my opinions and pay more to buy from a better seller.

Take a poster above, bidding away and then complaining about P&P because they hadn't checked it out first, I mean really?

TrickyWicky

poet123 wrote: »

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

Well thats your stupid bl**dy fault then isn't it. I ain't surprised the seller ignored your messages.

The information was clearly given to you on the ebay page and you chose to ignore it and then punish the seller?

Goldiegirl

For the year, my postage star is about 4.92. I've maintained this figure by charging stamp price plus 10p towards packaging.

Obviously, it doesn't cost the full price of packaging, but it's a contribution.

The packaging I use is a combination of jiffy bags, mailing sacks, bubble wrap and brown paper, whatever is most appopriate. I will recycle where I can. I've never yet bought a box, but pick them up where I can at work etc. I'll also reuse bubble wrap from things sent to me. I try to keep costs down

I'm now selling off my postcard collection. I wanted some of those envelopes with a board backing. I thought 100 would do to start with, but when I realised that the cost of 200 was only slightly more expensive than 100, I bought 200. (I do have a lot of postcards!)

But, in spite of all my efforts to keep my postage costs low, my star had dipped to 4.85 for the three months ending March 2013.

In April I experimented with some free post and some postage charges slightly under the stamp cost and loading the purchase price, and for the three months to April I had gone up to 4.87.

I'm eagerly awaiting May's figures.

To my mind, 10p over the stamp cost is not much, but some customers were signalling that it was too much. I kind of resent having to play with the costs, but on the other hand I don't want my star to fall any further.

I'm a private seller, but that doesn't mean I don't care about my customer's experience and fellings.

I'm responding to customer feedback. Tomorrow I'll see if there's an improvement for May.