Is it legal for ebay to take commission from seller's postage?

I_have_spoken

Anecdotal evidence, but a lot of peeps in my office now look to Gumtree before Ebay.

Of course, Gumtree is owned by the same company, so they trouser the £ either way. :mad:

custardy

I_have_spoken wrote: »

Anecdotal evidence, but a lot of peeps in my office now look to Gumtree before Ebay.

Of course, Gumtree is owned by the same company, so they trouser the £ either way. :mad:

What £ are they forcing from you on Gumtree?

Rotti

hollydays wrote: »

I saw someone selling a cheap pound land santa hat the other day, they were charging 4.95 and said because of increased postage they were sending it by courier!!?

And what's wrong with that? If something is cheap it doesn't follow that it is cheap to post! If it is deeper than 8cm packed then it would cost £5.20 to send 2nd class, so the £4.95 courier option is what I would use too. How else do you suggest they get things around the country?

What I want to see stopped is people being allowed to sell ANYTHING for 99p with free postage....... they can't be making any money and all it does is devalue the marketplace for everyone else. And how much does eBay make in fees from those sellers???

Rotti

RFW wrote: »

FVFs on postage will be here to stay and it's largely the fault of the sellers who will be most affected by it.

That is a very unfair statement - I have NEVER overcharged for postage and am now being pushed into a situation where I will have to overcharge so that I don't lose money.

I don't consider the postage money "mine", simply money paid to me by the buyer for a service - to get the goods to them in good order. I may add 50p or so to cover the cost of packaging, sticky labels, printer ink and diesel (not unreasonable) but other than that charge the actual amount, especially for large overseas courier parcels. This will turn out to be a TAX ON BUYERS as I will have to charge an extra 12% to claw back eBay's 10% and still break even with nothing for my costs. Sellers complaining will achieve nothing but if BUYERS complained it just might work. As an example I have just sent an old shelf hi-fi to Canada (I know, why?) and the carriage cost with UPS (cheapest quote) was £70, which was what I charged the buyer. As of Sept 4th I would have to charge them £78 to clear the actual cost to me. But a UK buyer would only be taxed an extra 80p so this will seriously disadvantage overseas buyers.

I think in order to hit the overchargers they have taken the wrong route and are putting extra strain on the small private sellers - the ones who put them where they are now.

No point in looking at Gumtree btw - same CEO as eBay!

Rotti

soolin wrote: »

I think that is it in a nutsehell. Same as capped postage categories- some areas of postage were traditionally inflated to daft amounts and all that happened was that ebay introduced caps.

Which means that when I listed a boxed set of 14 CDs yesterday I was only allowed to charge £3 postage instead of the true cost to me of £4.50 by courier (£5.20 second class mail) as the box is more than 8 cm deep. Caps might work on shysters but they also hit honest sellers who are then forced to increase their start price to cover the loss which in turn might make them less competitive. Of course Greedbay want everyone to include postage because then they get their 10% anyway. Add that to the 3.4% + 20p per item we give Paypal. Then add a further 2% charged for paying with that already-taxed money if you pay Parcel2Go with Paypal (free with a card). Anyone charging the proper amount for postage is already losing out so a further 10% is not sustainable. I would rather have seen a 1% increase in the FVF on the item price and a clampdown on the real offenders, not a broad spectrum approach that is so unfair on everyone except eBay.

Rotti

soolin wrote: »

I think that is it in a nutsehell. Same as capped postage categories- some areas of postage were traditionally inflated to daft amounts and all that happened was that ebay introduced caps.

Same applies to boxed sets of DVDs and books - not worth selling books anyway as so many are on sale for 99p with free postage....... makes me wonder if they are real listings or "plants" like the Facebook and Twitter fake "likes" featured recently on TV.

RFW

Rotti wrote: »

That is a very unfair statement - I have NEVER overcharged for postage and am now being pushed into a situation where I will have to overcharge so that I don't lose money.

I know that some people will be adversely affected, that's unfortunately always the case. My point was that more sellers are likely to benefit (from a level playing field) than not. I agree that long term buyers will be worse off, they'll still think they're better off with 'free' post than paying for it, daft but true.

RFW

Rotti wrote: »

Same applies to boxed sets of DVDs and books - not worth selling books anyway as so many are on sale for 99p with free postage....... makes me wonder if they are real listings or "plants" like the Facebook and Twitter fake "likes" featured recently on TV.

There isn't a divine right to sell anything you like on Ebay, some things have never been viable, it's now true that more aren't. Sell elsewhere. Why people continue to complain about Ebay and continue to use them is beyond me. They hacked me off earlier this year and I've been shifting more product elsewhere ever since.

custardy

Rotti wrote: »

And what's wrong with that? If something is cheap it doesn't follow that it is cheap to post! If it is deeper than 8cm packed then it would cost £5.20 to send 2nd class, so the £4.95 courier option is what I would use too. How else do you suggest they get things around the country?

What I want to see stopped is people being allowed to sell ANYTHING for 99p with free postage....... they can't be making any money and all it does is devalue the marketplace for everyone else. And how much does eBay make in fees from those sellers???

what about people doing postal surveys and getting free stamps?

RFW

Rotti wrote: »

What I want to see stopped is people being allowed to sell ANYTHING for 99p with free postage....... they can't be making any money and all it does is devalue the marketplace for everyone else. And how much does eBay make in fees from those sellers???

I don't currently have anything but can and have sold several products at 99p and make a profit. Anything that can be posted as a letter can be sent for 33p, leaving about 45p after fees (using a Paypal micro account). I can be earning 20-25p each, that increases a fair bit when people buy more than one.
It's also a good way of getting customers in, so even as a loss leader it can work pretty well.
There are lots of other ways that 99p listings can be profitable. If you do lift that price, what would you lift it to? £1, £5, £10?