Anyone who sells on eBay – this one’s for you

[SuzieBishop]

So selling something on eBay and postage is set at £3.40 - buyer buys and messaged me asking if I will refund the difference of the postage as it is small and might go as a large letter so would only be £1.10.
I initially found this a bit cheeky as postage is normally set around £3.10 to £3.40-50 on most items on eBay. Yes I set it up £3.40 to make a bit of a profit.
I’ve sold a good few things and some have gone just £1.10 but no one has ever messaged me to ask for the money back. The postage is the postage and it says in your terms that there are no refunds. Is this person being cheeky? I can’t decide.
So my AIBU is should I refund it as they have the balls to ask (YABU) or say no and keep the profit (YANBU). Thanks!

Oh yes I’d definitely refund after sending it!

I send most things at a cost of £2.90 to me. I actually charge £3.50 postage to the buyer. This includes 10% Ebay fee, cost of Jiffy bag/box/mailing bag, paper & ink for label, mailing pocket and tape. If anything I probably loose a bit on postage but don’t feel comfortable charging any more.

If I manage to send as a large letter I will refund the difference (whilst still charging extra for fees and materials) If the postage fee was £1.10 I would charge £1.50 to the buyer

I think the buyer is being cheeky assuming that you have incorrectly priced postage. Things can only be max 2.5cm thick to go as large letter so unless they are very thin Pajamas I’m not sure if they will fit through the postage gauge.

But if you do manage to post for less I would issue a refund as a good will gesture. It won’t be much to loose out on and a negative or neutral feedback will affect future sales and make your items appear lower in the search listings.

I once had a buyer telling me exactly how much she thought the parcel should weigh and how much she thought it should cost! I made sure to inform her of the exact weight after sending!

Making a profit on postage is shady.

YANBU. I sell on eBay a lot. Do not refund the difference as your P&P charge was not excessive. You should also take into account the 10% ebay seller fee and the Paypal fee. Also I don't know where you get the figure of £1.10 from, large letter postage starts at £1.15 1st class.

As a seller, I always find this difficult - it isn't always obvious what will and won't post as large letter at the point of listing. To get around it, I generally post via the courier option and buy the postage directly through eBay, so it always costs exactly what I quoted. It's generally more than large letter, but less than small parcel.

The fact that the courier option is closer than the post office may also factor into this choice!

How much is your packaging? I take this into account - postage price plus the padded envelope...?

You posted the price of postage and the buyer decided to bid knowing what postage would cost. They are being a cf, end of.

In addition, eBay will take its percentage of what you listed as the postal fee - so you will still be paying eBay a percentage of £3.40. You'll actually be out of pocket.

Stop this madness!

You know, you could all avoid this problem entirely by offering free postage. Just increase the price of the item a bit to make up for it. People are more likely to buy it that way, even if it's clearly not really free. Once you've offered free postage, you will eliminate the vast majority of CF requests.

If people leave detailed seller ratings for you, people with free P&P get an automatic five stars, so you can never be marked down for it. It also reduces stress and worry for me, since I never again have to walk to the Post Office thinking "What if I've got it wrong?" It's just so much all round.

Regarding packaging, I recycle packaging for the vast majority of my items. If you're buying from a private seller, it should be assumed to be a given. It's utterly ridiculous to not recycle packaging when most of us have a load of it lying around in our homes. Why would you pay money for it when you already have some? Not to mentioned the environmental benefits of reusing plastic instead of throwing it away.

My partner sells a lot on eBay, it’s P&P.
It covers postage AND packaging, eg bubble wrap, Jiffy bag etc. How do they know what your packaging costs were?
Do not refund.

This is the very reason I sell things with free postage. Nobody can quibble at the price of postage then because it's included in the overall selling price.

And just to reiterate: offering free postage is there to protect the seller.

It protects you from: CF requests, stress and worry, wondering whether to refund small amounts or not, and protects your detailed seller ratings from being marked down. If you're a no-returns private seller then there is no good reason I can see to charge postage separately.

I agree- I sell 8,000 items a year on ebay- always free postage to UK.

Yes I take postage into account when pricing my item, but never any quibble- plus I always get 5 stars for postage costs.

@Aloethere

I don't sell on ebay but do elsewhere. I build the price of packaging and time into the cost of the product and then charge what postage actually costs.

Again, how do you cost your “time”? I asked upthread but no one answered. Is it an hourly rate at NMW? Or do you just bump the postage up by a couple of quid?

I just had a similar situation, the parcel I was posting was borderline and went for a lower price than I had charged and the buyer messaged me when it arrived to point this out. I offered a refund but they said no thanks. Not sure why they contacted me then.

Again, how do you cost your “time”? I asked upthread but no one answered. Is it an hourly rate at NMW? Or do you just bump the postage up by a couple of quid?

Bluntly, you don't! They aren't employing you, just buying an item from you, so your time isn't worth anything to the buyer. If you're a private seller, getting rid of old stuff, it's effectively a glorified car boot sale - nobody would dream of charging for their time to sell there; if you're a company, you probably sell in volume, thus making the total rewards more worth your time.

As a PP said, surely you would multi-task when going to the post office and take several items to post, do some shopping or whatever.

Effectively, your own time is worthless for these purposes. It's up to you whether the financial gain from selling something is worth your while doing it, also considering the freed-up space in your house and getting any money back from an unwanted item; but either way, your item is worth what it is worth to the buyer and that's it: not your time in listing, preparing or getting it to them.

Unless you're a big-volume business seller and/or it's your only income, it's more realistic to see selling on eBay as a hobby with the side benefits of clearing a bit of space and bringing in a bit of money.

Most sellers do this without being asked. I think yabu to try and profit from postage. If it cost 1.10 it fits in an envelope so packaging is negligible. 3.40 is pretty steep. Charge more of you want more. It would put me off bidding if the postage is ridiculously over priced, I don't think it's unreasonable that she asked.

[quote SebastianTheCrab]@toconclude since sellers are no longer allowed to leave truthful feedback about buyers that doesn't really count for much. [/quote]
My point was, it does not 'almost inevitably' mean any such thing. Sometimes the seller leaves out important information.

I'm torn on this one.

If you set the price, then the seller agrees when they buy it. It really is that simple - they could have bought from another seller.

eBay also charge you a percentage of the total cost - including postage - so you lose out if you only charge what it costs you.

For these reasons I wouldn't refund the full difference, but I'd give a couple of quid back if asked just because it seems like a reasonable request (and I always reuse packaging so I don't pay for that). But really, I'm my mind they should have asked before bidding/ buying.

If something costs £1.10 to post, I would think up to £2, maybe at a pinch £2.50 would be a reasonable charge.
£3.40 is not.
It's reasonable that you thought it might cost more, but if it doesn't, entirely reasonable that you should pay back the excess to the buyer, and perfectly reasonable that they should ask for it.

That's fine - I had a similar issue with a seller who was clear upfront that they wouldn't combine postage so I just mentally adjusted my top bid price.

Fwiw I'd have answered your question. And I have never had any complaints, issues or requests regarding my postage.

I post at a small loss after fees (not a real loss - the extra goes on the item price) because of buyers who think this way. If you're buying from a business, don't kid yourself that the (free or cheap) postage isn't fully covered somewhere in the total price.

And, of course, 'free' postage does away with requests to combine it. It's actually a good way to make more profit on postage as the buyer will be fully covering it for each individual item.

The buyer should query postage before bidding. Equally, postage profiteering is not good.

And I promise I’m not being a goody-goody but as a seller, I refund any big differences without being asked. It doesn’t happen often as I weigh everything and try to charge accurately for postage, but some Post Office staff are more relaxed than others on sizes etc, so It can mean a £1 refund.

Interestingly, pretty much none of the buyers whose extra postage I’ve refunded ever respond to say thanks or mention it in feedback or even make an effort to leave feedback. So although it’s the right thing to do it’s pretty thankless!

If it was a huge difference id refund, but if the cost of the postage and the packing - don't forget you get charged final value fee on the postage now too - once all of that has been taken into account I'd be looking at what the "profit" is, if it's a big difference id refund. If it's a quid or so I wouldn't bother

Have to admit while I dont think you’ve done anything really immoral or ‘wrong’ (because the postage price was made clear before she bid) it does annoy me seeing sellers charging so much over what I know postage will actually cost on the item.

However unlike your buyer, I just won’t bid or buy something when I can see postage is obviously set up for an extra bit of profit. Maybe I’m tight, but I would so rather they just made the price a few pounds more and put an honest post price on.
It’s definitely a mental thing for me. Somehow it feels like ‘wasted’ money because in black and white...it’s not for the actual item, it’s for something I know doesn’t cost as much as it says.

It may also all be down to one experience that really annoyed me, although I warn you, you might think it’s petty.

I bought two things from one seller, she charged £4.10 postage on each of them.

They arrived in one parcel, which had a big fat Royal Mail £1.90 stamped on it. That was when I started paying attention to post prices and just refusing to buy when someone was profiteering.
Only negative feedback I’ve ever left! And I was still soft about it because I didn’t want to be harsh.