Advice please - combined postage

blue_monkey_2

slightly O/T, but I sell a number of products with Free Postage, and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of people that ask for combined postage.

Can I ask why you sell free postage just out of interest. If postage would usually cost you £2 then you are paying fees on this £2 so why not mark your prices down and save yourself some fees. Fair enough if there is some promo on but I can't understand why peole are happy to pay eBay a % of their 'selling fee' for the postage and packing as well as the product. why pay eBay more money than you have to - heck they get enough as it is.

Just a thought!!

Sssssss

maybe I'm missing the point here, but shouldn't postage be charged at what it costs you, plus maybe 10% for packaging. Seems a lot of ppl on ebay are using postage to boost their profits. Sorry but £16 postage on a total bid of £11 seems a bit OTT

soolin

Sssssss wrote: »

maybe I'm missing the point here, but shouldn't postage be charged at what it costs you, plus maybe 10% for packaging. Seems a lot of ppl on ebay are using postage to boost their profits. Sorry but £16 postage on a total bid of £11 seems a bit OTT

All ebay say about postage is that it must not be excessive but it can include all packing and posting expenses. So it could be argued that the costs of driving to a PO could be included as could all the packing time, or a fiver to your child to pack boxes for a couple of hours. However where it starts to look really excessive then ebay may consider it fee avoidance, but it needs to be quite a lot higher that actual costs for that to be the case. There is no 10% rule

Your example of £16 on £11 total bid is really neither here or there. For example I have sold huge great books for 99p where the postage has been in excess of £8 and where I have charged £9. The thing to look for is exactly how much extra has been charged over the actual cost of the stamp and packaging, if that looks high don't bid.

Any seller that does charge excessive postagewill eventually get hit badly with the new star system so it should become rarer over time.

As for the OP on the example given in the first post where, I seem to recall, the difference between charged and actual postage was less than £1 per item, I can't see ebay being unduly concerned about this being fee avodance. Without knowing the exact figures in this case and seeing exactly how much the overcharge is it is difficult to speculate how much overcharge there actually is. However, if the OP takes paypal then a small discount just on the paypal fees saving for accepting 1 payment instead of 7 might be in order otherwise the buyer will merely pay 7 different invoices and the seller will have to ship in 7 different packets anyway for postal insurance reasons.

StaffsSW

Answering two points here - I offer free postage as it is a crowd puller, but also the product tends to sell in multiples of 4 or 5 at a time. It costs the same to post 2 as it does 5, so that is 3 units offering a clear profit. When I sold them as BIN + P&P, I did not sell anywhere near as many.

Secondly - P&P is a handling charge. Stamp may cost 70p, but what about the bag? The address label? The time and money it takes to get to a Post Office and wait in the queue? A contribution to the insertion fee, the gallery fee, the final value fee and of course the paypal fee. People are not generally using P&P to boost profits, simply to cover costs. There is a huge difference. I have somebody get moody on me for charging 99p postage on a DVD. I advised them the next time I would stick a 70p stamp on it, with no address, packaging etc, and wait for it to transport itself to the buyer.

Would £16 P&P still seem excessive if it was a concrete garden statue that had been purchased for £11??

blue_monkey_2

Sssssss - don't forget that some of us pay VAT as well so if we charge £1.50 then we have to pay 17.5% of that back to the HMRC and it can't be offset as postage is bought without VAT.

I think it is fair enough to add 50p or so to cover the postage bags and labels and the like but you are right, charging more than £11 is well over the top and I do think this is out of order, whether the customer knows you combine or not then to charge money for postage you are not paying out IS surcharging which is against eBay rules. I would personally assume that if I bought 10 items form one seller they would send in one package and lower the rate - and yes, I would assume this whether it stated it or not.

I am guess the OP was making ££1-1.50 per item on postage and does not want to lose that money. If you want to earn more money per packet then you need to add this onto your start price, not your postage otherwise it is classed as fee avoidance.

blue_monkey_2

Answering two points here - I offer free postage as it is a crowd puller, but also the product tends to sell in multiples of 4 or 5 at a time. It costs the same to post 2 as it does 5, so that is 3 units offering a clear profit. When I sold them as BIN + P&P, I did not sell anywhere near as many.

Ah, fair enough. I have to be honest, I never look for free postage - just the cheapest prices. Just my point of veiw as a buyer. It might serve you better if you charged £2 or whatever and each one there after free. Just my point of view as a buyer.

Would £16 P&P still seem excessive if it was a concrete garden statue that had been purchased for £11??

No, but then it would need to be couriered. £16 for 7 DVD's is a bit of a p*** take by anyones standards. Let's be honest, if someone posted here that someone has postage offered at £16 for buying a handful of DVD's everyone would be saying 'no way, don't pay it, report them to eBay as it is clearly fee avoidance - they'll only cost £2.50 to post'.

Would you pay £16 to have 7 DVD's or CD's delivered from HMV or Woolworths?

Time2Go_25

stevew8975 wrote: »

slightly O/T, but I sell a number of products with Free Postage, and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of people that ask for combined postage.

I think free p&p should be baned, as it almost goes against Ebay policy (well if you change the word excessive to unresonable):D

This policy reduces the potential for confusion among bidders about the full cost of an item. Listings that include excessive P&P fees lead to a poor buying experience and unlevel the playing field by putting sellers who charge reasonable P&P charges at a disadvantage

StaffsSW

Au contraire - I am surprised it is not encouraged by ebay!

After all, it increases the FVF that they receive, and also provides full clarity of the total item cost to the buyer - surely that is "an improvement to the buying experience"

In fact, didn't we have a cheap listing day based around offering free postage earlier this year, or late last year? Besides, my listing traffic stats regularly show search keywords suggesting buyers are looking for "Free Postage".

jamtart6

Thanks for all the replies, they have been really interesting.

Just to clarify, I probably don't make £1-1.50 on postage, as I do understand the fee avoidance thing etc. All my items are well packed, and post office is not close so I do include those facts in my P+P.

blue_monkey - I agree £16 for 7 DVDs...I'd be screaming blue murder too - luckily for me, they arent dvd's they are heavy items (not garden statues but not dvds either!) and the p+p is reasonable per item.

Perhaps I should combine postage - but ultimatley, I don't ! I don't have to and the buyer should have read this or alternatively asked before she bidded...and she didnt.

Thanks for your replies, they are all food for thought!
Many thanks

glossy123

I read all the points with interest. I don't make any profit on my P&P by the time you take into account the cost of jiffys, labels, time to pack, delivery note, instructions for use, petrol to PO etc. but I am sure peeps still think the cost is high because they never look at the frank on the small packet and see Royal Snail charge 95% of what I charge them!:eek:

buyers don't look closely - let's face it they don't even read the listings all the way down even if they are short ones!

If I have well understook, I think OP believes the tricky customer has never sold so they for sure will not appreciate costs, and also it might be worth finding out how they will pay. If they have never sold, they will not appreciate the hefty chunk that PayPoops take which has to be factored in somewhere.

I am more prepared to give a discount to people who pay me by cheque or BACS.:beer: