Why does e-bay put a limit on how much postage should cost?

[Meglet]

I have just put a couple of vintage fashion magazines on e-bay. Weight was well over 1kg and the cheapest postage price was £4.45 post, Royal Mail won't allow second class mail for heavy post.

The most e-bay would allow me to put for postage for magazines was £2.75??? As a result I had to price the magazines up so I wouldn't end up out of pocket as I daresay they will only sell at the minimum price, if at all. There's not much point in selling them at a £2 loss.

Did I list them incorrectly or does e-bay now think it knows how much things should weigh and do we all have to put our selling prices up as a result?

[shhhh]

I had the same issues...

what I did was increase the auction to cover p&p and listed p&p as free....I guess makes it also attractive to buyers..?

[Meglet]

yes, I put the auction price up. But it did mean I didn't get the free 99p listing . I would have rather been able to be clear about the p+p price and started at 99p.

Its obviously e-bays way of minimising their free listings.

[shhhh]

ebay is not my friend anyway atm..

[crokky]

No, eBay does not know how much things should weigh. For example, you are not allowed to charge any postage on DVDs. Even boxsets!!!! It is really annoying.

I think it is probabaly for a couple of reasons

-people put high postage costs so that they sold the item for less but still made the profits on postage. this meant they didn't pay final value fees properly because you don't get charged fees on postage by eBay
-people put high postage costs because they are greedy and this discourages buyers in general so eBay don't like this - they need people to keep buying

Crap though for ordinary sellers just getting rid of their own stuff (like me)

[Meglet]

How can they say sellers can't charge post on dvd's?! . I never knew that. Unless the Royal Mail are letting people post them for free then its hardly fair. Last year it let me do £15 post on a huge box of magazines, the buyer was happy to pay as I was totally upfront how bloomin' heavy they were.

oooo, I'm annoyed now ...

[crokky]

I think eBay wishes to compete with websites such as play.com who deliver DVDs for free. There is some "logic" behind it, but it is no good to me! DH likes watching boxsets and I sell those so it is annoying having to spend part of the auction price on posting.

[Tortoise]

Would it be cheaper to send standard parcels?
I agree it is very annoying to be told what postage cost you can use or have to pay the postage because it has to be listed as Free P&p.