MSE News: eBay sellers beware - its fees now eat into postage costs

Percy1983

Leety64 wrote: »

Hi as a private seller on ebay that doesnt charge excessive postage on my items I have just been stung by this new final value fee on postage charge I charged 30p extra and was stung by a 45p fvf - what I would like to know is it legal? I can understand ebay charging commission for using there website but they should not be able to touch postage costs? People generally know how much things cost to post and dont buy the items if the postage is excessive anyway and as a private seller I only add between 20-50p extra to cover costs of packaging and tape, and will now seriously consider not using this website anymore!

Ebay are going by the terms and conditions you agreed to at time of listing so is perfectly legal.

If you don't like there terms and conditions use a different company.

lovinituk

J45 wrote: »

My names Jack, are you alright? Shall I pull up the ladder now.

That's the harsh reality of business for you! I'm no more of a charity than eBay is and I'll lose as much sleep over it as the execs at eBay will!!

ShazJaz

I am not surprised ebay are another huge business squeezing the bottom line out of small sales from private sellers.
I recently sold a Ted Baker Coat for £4.20 (Coat cost me £45)
Charged £4 Post&Pack(cost 3.60)! If extra charges were paid to ebay I just wouldn't bother as might aswell take items to charity shop...
In fact I might just take rest of my stuff to charity out of principal as after listing fees, paypal fees and PARKING outside my POST OFFICE its just not worth the hassle...
I hope ebay looses lots of custom because of it and the example of someone paying 1p and £120 ebayer seller should be suspended!

ebay are also going to make huge profits ! I don't even earn the living wage for my city and even ebay taking away the few opportunities to turn over some of my daughters out grown clothes!
Grrrrrrrr!! Annoyed

justjohn

Its all swings and roundabouts...profit and loss. still suxs lol ..Our sales/profits have gone up slightly. As we now hide the postage costs behind the free postage this has provided better search standing also.

These fee's on postage are partly due to buyers moaning about being overcharged on postage. Ebay are trying to force sellers to offer free postage. Buyers will lose out in the end.

RFW

ShazJaz wrote: »

even ebay taking away the few opportunities to turn over some of my daughters out grown clothes!
Grrrrrrrr!! Annoyed

They've stopped you going to a carboot sale or using free ads to sell items? Powerful lot at Ebay.

borisbear_2

Ive been selling on ebay for 13 years +, and when the company first took off it was largely by word of mouth you used to get sellers who genuinely liked the company .
you used to get people wearing ebay teeshirts and with ebay cups and going to ebay meeting.
over the years Ive noticed less and less sellers do actually like ebay, they use it because there isnt really a major competitor .
they stopped sellers leaving negative feedback now their taking a percentage of postage costs .

I just think its really stupid business on their part and that the company could be so much larger yep likely the company has made money and is still growing, but they are driving away millions of private sellers who as you say can always sell at carboot sales etc .

And to the bigger sellers what attracted people to ebay was the little sellers, it was the odd items that you bigger sellers dont generally cover .

Anyway I think its just dumb as hell, ebay became big at the start through small sellers and now they are driving their core base away by stuff thats just annoying .

Percy1983

borisbear wrote: »

Ive been selling on ebay for 13 years +, and when the company first took off it was largely by word of mouth you used to get sellers who genuinely liked the company .
you used to get people wearing ebay teeshirts and with ebay cups and going to ebay meeting.
over the years Ive noticed less and less sellers do actually like ebay, they use it because there isnt really a major competitor .
they stopped sellers leaving negative feedback now their taking a percentage of postage costs .

I just think its really stupid business on their part and that the company could be so much larger yep likely the company has made money and is still growing, but they are driving away millions of private sellers who as you say can always sell at carboot sales etc .

And to the bigger sellers what attracted people to ebay was the little sellers, it was the odd items that you bigger sellers dont generally cover .

Anyway I think its just dumb as hell, ebay became big at the start through small sellers and now they are driving their core base away by stuff thats just annoying .

I think stopping sellers leaving negative feed back is the greatest thing they ever did.

I remember a case before they changed it where an item and seller where awful, but I couldn't leave negative feedback as they would just return the favour (despite me paying with minutes of the auction end).

Now buyers can leave honest feedback and a seller can't do anything about it.

As a seller there is 2 options, postive feedback as they have paid, or non paying bidder because they haven't paid which is all you need.

borisbear_2

I’ve had negative feedback because a women ordered a book on Swedish cookery, I posted the book same day, it was in better condition than described ,postage was fair but she felt she regretted buying a book on Swedish cookery
I’ve had negative feedback because a buyer asked to ship a book to Australia surface mail I told them it would take months and they left a neg because it hadn’t arrived about 2 weeks later
Neither of these people contacted me before leaving negative feedback
My feedback scores have been consistently high for 13 years,
And the thing is the people saying great if it drives away small sellers, don’t seem to get small sellers actually buy stuff as well or did before they were driven away

borisbear_2

She said to me I qoute theres nothing wrong with the book its a great book on swedish cookery, but after I bought it thinking about it I'm not that interested in swedish cookery .

campdave

I'm going to start a sweepstake on the next time this thread gets bumped. Anyone want to join in?