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

campdave

£2.60 for small parcel under 1kg

Road_Hog

campdave wrote: »

£2.60 for small parcel under 1kg

Not signed for, which is what I was talking about and also the other poster that I quoted. See the bit where I said that I won't even send a 99p item on a non signed for service.

http://www.royalmail.com/personal/uk-delivery/signed-2nd-class

There you go, £3.70 for a small parcel signed for 2nd class.

campdave

because of all the scammers, silly me.

sneaky

Wywth wrote: »

There's probably no point charging P&P anymore for most items.

The only reason previously was that the p&p was exempt from ebay fees.

So yes, probably most people will just lump the p&p into the selling price and offer 'free' p+p. I know I will.
(I usually list by total cost incl p+p anyway when looking for a specific item, so no advantage have p+p separate)

The only time when additional p+p would be considered appropriate is if something was sold with the option of free collection by buyer (I don't usually partly because of the paypal scams associated with collection)
Even if I did, and ebay fees cannot be added to p+p, then they would have to be added to base price, so person who collects will be paying me the fee ebay would have charged me on p+p even if they opt to collect.

Also, free p+p means automatic 5* for p+p

I am a top rated seller so last month I changed all my listings to free postage (not really free just added the cost to the price of the item) and my sales fell sharply. I sell mostly large furniture where postage can be between £10-£20. Adding the postage to the item makes it look more expensive. I do believe customers actually think free postage means the supplier does not pay for it! An item listed at 79.99 + 9.99 postage looks more appealing then 89.99 with free postage. I have changed my listings back to showing the postage.

ebay really need to change the 'free postage' wording it's misleading or now as they charge fees for p&p they should consider displaying just one cost across the board it will get rid of the postage issues.

Road_Hog

campdave wrote: »

because of all the scammers, silly me.

Let's face it, you tried to be smart and fell flat on your face. Spend more time trying to help forum posters and less time trying to pick me up on what you perceive as a mistake.

pepperoni_2

Including free postage is okay until a customer wants to return an item.
I'm talking about change of mind purchases here; you can ask the buyer to pay the cost to return the item for a change of mind but how can you charge them for the original postage which was free?
I sell some items with £11-20 courier fees which I sometimes incorporate into the selling price, but if the buyer wants to return I lose that portion of the sale price. I also have buyers come and collect items thus saving the courier fees and the buyer gets it for less as I drop the price a little. I have not had many returns in my 8 years of ebay dealing but it's getting more and more difficult to make a profit.

sequence

pepperoni wrote: »

Including free postage is okay until a customer wants to return an item.
I'm talking about change of mind purchases here; you can ask the buyer to pay the cost to return the item for a change of mind but how can you charge them for the original postage which was free?
I sell some items with £11-20 courier fees which I sometimes incorporate into the selling price, but if the buyer wants to return I lose that portion of the sale price. I also have buyers come and collect items thus saving the courier fees and the buyer gets it for less as I drop the price a little. I have not had many returns in my 8 years of ebay dealing but it's getting more and more difficult to make a profit.

Not refunding the original p+p is illegal anyway, so ebay are helping you here.

eggybread1

I use Facebook and Onlinecarbooty.com now. It's just not worth being ripped off by Ebay anymore.

pikachu_bumface

I sell in the Clothes, Shoes and Accessories category, where I believe fees are going down by 1%. I offer free postage, and can post a lot by large letter, so it's really not that expensive for me, but I don't do them signed for (I probably should but I very rarely get cases opened).

That said, I see so many people charging £5.95, £7 for something that is costing £3.70 max to send - it really bugs me and it's more and more common! I can't see that changing with the new fee structure, even though ebay seem to think it'll push people into offering free postage I think it just means higher costs as sellers try to recoup their fees.

Wywth

campdave wrote: »

I sell items for 99p with postage at cost on top. It's not worth my postage price into the item price as I offer free postage on subsequent items and do quite well out of it - adding "free" postage makes my unit price almost double and the likelihood of additional sales lower.

I do get occasional low DSR from people who don't appreciate how much a LL stamp costs, but on the whole my model works well, and I am of the opinion customers would prefer cheaper combined postage than more expensive "free" postage on additional items.

I'm a featured shop, so now get 1200 free listings per month, which will cover about 75% of the extra cost of the postage FVF that have been implemented. A small reduction in my FVF in my category means I save 1p on my FVF item fees, which over the 2500 or so items I sell per month will cover a good chunk of the rest of it. Back of fag packet calculations suggest I'll be about 10% up on FVF compared to before, which I'd rather not pay, but so be it.

As I said I list by cost plus postage so if your 99p item plus say £2 postage is the cheapest, then I'll buy from you, but if somone is selling for £2.50 with 'free' postage, then they will get my custom as they will be first in the list.

And they don't get any negative DSR for postage. Think on.