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!

If something costs £1.10 to post, I would think up to £2, maybe at a pinch £2.50 would be a reasonable charge.

What’s your definition of “reasonable”? Is it whatever you can get away with?

I charge cost of postage plus the 10% that Ebay charge me plus 10 - 20p for the cost of packaging. I've never had low feedback for packaging, but I've left it for other people who have overcharged me.

I try and keep postage as near to my cost as possible
Charge up to 50p for packaging and trip to post office etc
I’ve been on eBay for over 15 years and have 100% positive feedback - mainly because I post ASAP and try to offer value for money

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.

Obviously, although it says 'free', the cost of postage is included in the price charged for the item; but loads of sellers do effectively the same thing as letting you combine postage by offering a discount if you buy two or more of the item. Pretty much the same principle - unless maybe you're buying two or more very different items from the same seller.

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.

Yes, exactly the same for me. Even when the postage is very reasonable, I still see it as the 'bad/negative' amount underneath the 'good/positive' amount which directly enables me to own the item I want.

If something costs £1.10 to post, I would think up to £2, maybe at a pinch £2.50 would be a reasonable charge.

What’s your definition of “reasonable”? Is it whatever you can get away with?

Yes, good point. It's still more than doubling it - I highly doubt you'd try (or succeed if you did) to charge £25 postage for a large item that only actually cost £11 to post.

It’s completely up to you. Sometimes things cost more than the set amount, sometimes less. Even if it’s less, I’ve still paid for the packaging and spent time packing the item and dropping it at the post office. So I never feel bad if the postage cost turns out to be slightly less than what I charged.

I think people try to make a bit of profit on the postage cost, as eBay doesn't take a cut from the postage cost. May have cost £1.12 to post, but for someone that isn't a regular seller, they would pay more in packaging, envelope bubble wrap etc, then the time to go post it out.

@Bimbleboo that’s a piss take...!

I haven't sold lots but I did get messaged by a buyer who won the auction and said the postage was too high. I had listed the item as registered post. It was a handbag in mint condition. I had stated that I only sent reg post. Buyer told me I was taking the piss - so I sent her a screen shot of postage costs (not in the U.K.) from the postal website and weight of the bag. Buyer was a bit aggressive in responses so I just cancelled the sale.I would say be wary of those buyers

I think people try to make a bit of profit on the postage cost, as eBay doesn't take a cut from the postage cost.

They always used to - have they changed their terms back again? The reason they started doing it was precisely because people inflated the postage so that they made a bit extra without any fees payable on that part.

It's postage AND packaging. Envelope and/or mailing, bag bubble wrap snd the trip to the PO should all be accounted for.

It would annoy me and I personally wouldn't refund and if they weren't happy I'd retract the sale.

@ruby4ever - eBay take a cut of the total cost the buyer pays - including postage. As do PayPal. This has been the case for years - do you remember the days of buyers listing items for 1p with high postage prices to try to pay lower eBay fees?

If someone charges £1.50 for postage they actually receive about £1.27. First class large letter post is £1.15 so that doesn’t leave much to cover packaging materials

@Katinthedoghouse

To avoid this happening I would select free postage option. Obviously there is no such thing as free postage so what you have to do is absorb the cost in your listing. So if your item is set up as £10 + £3.40, change it to £13.40 and free postage.

The benefit to you is that problems like this don’t happen again and you are automatically given a 5star rating for postage. Some buyers do mark down because for the most spurious reasons.

Yep This is the way to go.

If you only charge the cost of the stamps you are losing money. eBay and Paypal take their cut of the TOTAL sent to you. I sell a lot of comics. I wrap them well. Let's say I sell a comic for a penny.

It costs me 1.40 to send a comic 2nd class.
The seller sends me 1.41
I give the Post Office 1.40.
eBay takes 14p off me in fees
Paypal takes something Slightly larger - does ANYONE understand Paypal's fees?

I'm out of pocket. It has COST me 30p - 40p to sell the comic. Ok that's a silly example but bacon-slicing of fees adds up. At the moment if I sell a comic for 2.99 I'm only 'making' 90p on the sale. That 90p covers what I paid for the comic in the first place, wrapping materials time etc. Good job I'm not in it for the money.

eBay now take a percentage of your postage which is a rip off

I think eBay and PayPal together come out at about 15% - and if you sell as a business and they move you onto ‘managed payments’ then it’s worse

Funny that I should see this post tonight. I've just been grumbling about having to pay a postage fee four times on four kids joggers. No way is it going to cost almost £10 to post them second class. What a rip off.

@SebastianTheCrab

I've learned the hard way if a buyer ever contacts you with any kind of qs before bidding and they win they almost inevitably turn out to be a nightmare buyer. I'd ignore and block.

Seriously?! So if you're selling an item of clothing and someone messages to ask about the fit or something (a perfectly legitimate question) you'd ignore and block?

That's not normal behaviour

What actually are managed payments? I recently bought a dozen or so cheap DVDs from various buyers and put them in the basket before going to checkout, expecting to be able to pay for them in one go; but it split them into two transactions as some sellers used 'managed payments' and others didn't. Is it anything to do with how you now sometimes pay by Paypal and select your payment card/account before confirming/finalising the purchase with eBay (like before), whereas with others, you complete the eBay part by clicking on 'Pay with PayPal' and then finish it off with PayPal? (did that description make sense?!)

It's postage AND packaging. Envelope and/or mailing, bag bubble wrap snd the trip to the PO should all be accounted for.

Honestly, I don't think it's fair to include your trip to the PO in the P&P element, as the buyer has no way of knowing whether you'll be doing a 30-mile round trip purely to dispatch their parcel and then straight home again or if you will be taking 20 customers' items in one go to the PO that's two minutes from your house, on your way to do your weekly shop at Tesco.

I can see the reasoning, and your distance from the PO and volume of sales will obviously have a bearing on whether you deem it worth eBaying something cheap (or asking a higher price) - but, although it's nowhere near the same league of CFery, I don't think it's all that different in principle from when buyers collecting something from your house expect you to reimburse them their petrol costs, because they chose to respond to a FB advert in a town group 50 miles away from where they live.

I think the P&P charge should include the postal cost and a little extra for packaging (although how many private/low-volume sellers honestly don't just re-use a box or Jiffy bag that was sent to them?) and maybe some to balance out the eBay fees, but you shouldn't expect them to pay for your travel time, petrol/bus fare, car park fee etc., just because you happen not to live near a PO or to be in a position to multitask a trip. If you live in a small village away from a sizeable town or city, you will usually have a corner shop where you can drop off parcels to be taken by a non-RM courier, anyway.

Of course, this will all be moot once the new scheme comes in where RM collect parcels directly from your home, but I bet there will still be sellers who try to blag their non-existent travel costs to the PO when upping the P&P costs they ask.

Buyers can leave feedback on postage costs, some sellers clearly take the piss.

Managed payments - previously (and still, for private sellers), the buyer pays for the item and postage, the payment goes into the sellers PayPal account. The seller has access to those funds straight away, they can pay for postage or purchase things or withdraw the money to their bank account - minus the PayPal fee. Then once a month they get an eBay fees bill. With managed payments the payment is held by eBay and PayPal are not involved. It’s a few days until the seller can access the money (but they’re expected to pay out for postage and actually send the item straight away). A fee is taken off by eBay before the money is paid to the seller which is a bit higher than the PayPal+eBay fees were previously- and there’s still an eBay shop subscription to pay on top once a month.

So for the buyer little difference apart from more choice of cards. For the seller higher fees and slower access to the funds. And there’s no choice, you get to sign up to managed fees or no longer list your items.

To be fair OP my post was before you updated the actual cost of the postage when the discrepancy was a suggested £1.10 to the £3.40 you were charging not 30p

@gretagreengrapes

Everything I've listed automatically sets to £3.10 by ebay and the odd thing that's cost less to send I wouldn't dream of refunding the difference and noone has ever asked! You buy knowing the price of postage, on any website regardless if you buy one pair of socks or 10 winter jumpers!

And you sell on ebay knowing you can't profit from using a fake higher postage price. Regardless of its 10p or 100 quid.

I’m in the camp if it’s never just the postage cost itself. It covers maybe a plastic bag, bubble wrap over top if needed, the outer packaging, the actual postage and your car use/petrol costs to get to the post office. Adds up quickly!

OP, I find you are the cheeky one here. You keep contradicting yourself. You say you would never charge three times postage cost ....but on your original post you say you have charged £3.40 for other items but sent as large letter ar £1.10 and never refunded. You should be more honest if you want a good reputation and repeat sales.

@Staffy1

Funny that I should see this post tonight. I've just been grumbling about having to pay a postage fee four times on four kids joggers. No way is it going to cost almost £10 to post them second class. What a rip off.

That’s ridiculous. If they arrive packaged together, check the postage cost on the label and ask for a refund of the difference. Don’t leave feedback til they’ve responded. They probably won’t want to risk four negative feedbacks. Of course if they send them separately, not much you can do....