Can anyone advise on an ebay fee issue?

epichouse

Hi everyone. Thanks for all your help and advice. In the end, I have had to cancel the order. I don't yet know the implications of this and some of the figures being shown didn't make sense, but it just became unviable.

Ebay has charged a significant amount, but what's really killed it off is that my estimated weight for the parcel quote (I calculated it from a pile of 75 records) has ended up going to over 33kg, when it was estimated to be 30kg.

30kg seems to be some kind of magic figure in the postage world, to Australia at least, because as soon as you go over 30kg, it jumps up a massive £100!  I had no idea it'd jump so much. I'd been prepared to throw in a couple more quid if it was 32/33kg, but £100? Simply not viable.

I have had to contact the seller, who is likely in bed at this time, to explain this and try a cancellation process. I had no option but to choose "out of stock" as the reason. It may impact negatively on me and my ratings, but it had to be done. I hope I am not going to be charged or be out of pocket if the cancellation goes through properly.

I feel a bit bad about doing this to the buyer, but I'm over a barrel really. It has certainly made me think twice about selling anything of value on ebay too and I'm never going to entertain shipping outside the UK again if I do. I have lived and learnt.

Cheers again for everyone's input, it has been helpful.

martindow

epichouse said:

30kg seems to be some kind of magic figure in the postage world, to Australia at least, because as soon as you go over 30kg, it jumps up a massive £100!  I had no idea it'd jump so much. I'd been prepared to throw in a couple more quid if it was 32/33kg, but £100? Simply not viable.

I can't comment on the Ebay side of this, but most cheap carriers have weight and size limits.  Once you go over the 'magic figures', the price jumps up considerably as you have found or the carrier will not take it at all.  This happens equally on UK deliveries and it is often best to split the shipment into two lighter and smaller parcels where this is possible.

soolin

An ‘out of stock’ option will give you a defect that may well push your account below standard ,just keep an eye on your seller stats as it will be updated to reflect the strike and any consequences. You need to water down that defect , so list some quick and easy sellers , get some good straightforward sales under your belt to lessen the impact of the cancellation. 

You will pay a minimum of 30p in fees, but possibly considerably more due to currency changes , again you can check this by going through to your payments summary where it will be shown. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

I think OP will be fine on the fees as they likely listed in pounds so will just be left with 30 pence owing on their payments account.

The buyer might end up with a different figure refunded to their payment method if the exchange rates have changed. I have read of people suffering this with PayPal but not sure how eBay do it.

It sounds like it was a good idea to cancel, hopefully the buyer will be understanding, Australian buyers tend to be on the laid back side.

When a parcel takes impact it tends to travel through if the packing is too tight with the force channelled to the weakest point which then breaks. A 33kg slab of records might suffer badly on such a long journey if the packing isn’t sufficient to both absorb impact and keep the contents away from the the outer packaging. 

Judging by the further replies it seems OP is a private seller so it’s interesting the figures suggest eBay took fees on the tax.

Not sure for Australia but when PayPal started taking fees on the tax element I did read on the US eBay boards that companies collecting sales tax can retain their admin costs. Either way any fees on tax element are very unfair. I know of lot of people moan about eBay’s fees, I don’t think they are that bad, however they do make enough not to burden sellers with fees on something that’s been deemed their obligation to carry out especially considering they have the extra % international fee and will profit from giving an exchange rate in their favour.

Just to add to this, it seems eBay will refund with the same exchange rate but doesn’t offer buyers anything if their payment method provider varies the rate leaving them with less once the funds hit the original source.

J_forest

Just finished chatting with eBay and had their fees credited back to my account, then found this forum. 

I think the best way is to ask the buyer whether they would help you by agreeing to cancel the order. Some buyers are quite understanding. 

eBay will still charge you FVF,  it might be between £15 to £16 if the invoice amount is without the courier fee.

soolin

J_forest said:

Just finished chatting with eBay and had their fees credited back to my account, then found this forum. 

I think the best way is to ask the buyer whether they would help you by agreeing to cancel the order. Some buyers are quite understanding. 

eBay will still charge you FVF,  it might be between £15 to £16 if the invoice amount is without the courier fee.

I understood from reading the post that OP had already cancelled the sale, so they would be unable to change the reason now.

if you cancel a sale then no FVfs are payable , just the 30p standing fee. 

epichouse

Cheers again for the insights. 

In hindsight I should probably have waited for a response to the message I sent the buyer about why I felt I had to cancel it, which could have then given me a chance to ask if he'd cancel it so I don't get any problems. I tend to get in a bit of a flap and was getting myself in a mess, so I thought time would be the essence and I'd best not wait for the time-zone differences and further back-and-forth as it would probably just confuse me again or bring up problems when I'd already had to make my mind up and take definitive action.

To be honest, I wouldn't care if I got a little bit of a further fee to pay in order to finish this episode, because it beats all the other options I'd have had to go through and any further risks I seemed to be opening myself up for once they'd been shipped, not that shipping was still feasible according to various comparison sites I visited.

In regards to the black-mark against my account, I do have a lot of smaller sale items on but they are slow-sellers. Does the black-mark eventually go away if all these sales complete without issue?  Do ebay really strike you down a mark for one fault, or do you need to have done it twice or three times to get some kind of knock?

Looks like I may have shot myself in the foot by being in a flap about it, but it's happened now, not much I can do other than try and sell those other items and hope it evens things out.

I might pack it in with ebay in the future when these listings are done, or just stick to small postable items. The time it has taken to compile a list of 140+ records, take photographs, create the listings, get an average cost, look into postage costs for the UK, postage costs for Australia, look for and buy suitable sized packaging, send messages and invoices and payment details, read delivery services small-print, get weighing scales, ask advice here, etc is looking to be just not worth the time and effort and stress.

I haven't heard from the buyer - I suppose I may not do now. I hope that the explanation message I sent on the "contact the buyer" form (before I started the cancellation process) reached him and was still visible. He may be a bit bemused if all he gets is an "order cancelled" message fro ebay saying "out of stock".

These are the kinds of grey areas that do my head in. I can't tell whether they get it or not. I can't seem to find any history of the message, unlike those that come in to the "messages" area, which tend to linger around for a while. Perhaps it is there, somewhere.

martindow

I think the Australian buyer could feel a bit disgruntled as Ebay's currency exchange rates are likely to mean that they will be a few dollars down after their refund arrives. Hopefully they won't feel too vindictive.

soolin

As for the defect , it will remain for a year and it is best to try and water it down so the percentage looks better. Do you have anything at all that you can sell that will counterbalance that defect? Value doesn’t matter you just need some successful sales so that the defect becomes a much smaller percentage of your overall sales.