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!

I bought 50 grey packing bags from Amazon a few years ago for around £2-£3 inc postage!

Therefore I don’t see the point in drastically overcharging for postage, as it really doesn’t cost anything more than that to post an item. I go out every day anyway as I have a job, so no big deal to visit the post office en route. I wouldn’t charge extra based on my parking or travel costs!

@SuzieBishop

Thank you *@PurpleFrames and @CecilyP*. I just had a wee gander on eBay just to see so there is a lot at £3.10 fair enough but a lot of £3.30’s and even some £3.95’s and £4.99’s so I’m definitely not a piss taker!! And I searched for age 2-3 pyjamas before anyone points out it could be a larger item!

I charge £3.50. I wrap very carefully and use new bags.

I only reduce if it's very light. Or I send 1st class if it should have been 2nd.

100% approval

If I was to buy the item then I'd take the postage costs into consideration and if x item was only sold by one seller then yes it may seem expensive however if I got the item I needed then I'd just accept the postage, however if it's say some magazines that each are say £1 each with postage at £1 and I won 5 magazines then I'd hope the seller would combine the postage and hopefully it would be lower.

We sell a lot on ebay and gave luckily never had this.

However we have a lot of people wanting to combine postage. The postage cost is worked out at say a 2kg item. If they buy 2 they want it combined but then get arsey when it isn't half postage as a 4kg parcel costs more than a 2kg!!!

Also agree with previous posters who say people who buy and then start querying things usually end up being a pain in the arsd.

The real fun and games start when you buy from abroad and people start getting into a panic when they have to deal with international postage.

Each country seems to have its own set of rates and regimes. I've stopped buying books from Belgium because they don't appear to have any equivalent of the French Tarif “Livres et brochures” (books and paper rate). The French rate is so low it costs less for someone to post a book to me from France (to the Highlands of Scotland ) than it would for me to send the same book to... well... anywhere. It's truly bizarre. I bought four big books from a dealer in Paris the other day and he gave me two postal alternatives. “Livres et brochures at 3 Euro (£2.67) - or Mondal Relay at 7.5 Euros (£6.67). The Mondal Relay was tracked and signed for.

I couldn't post those books within the UK for less than £3.10 Second Class. God knows how much they would cost to send the same books on a return journey to France.

Wow Sandman wish I’d known that when I was doing my French lit degree

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

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.

True - I hadn't thought of that!

@Simplyunacceptable

eBay policy dictates that you shouldn’t seek to profiteer from postage costs, you should only charge what the postage will actually cost.

I don’t think it’s cheeky to expect not to be ripped off by postage costs.

I do think it's cheeky for ebay to take 10 percent off the postage fees though. Especially for those of us who don't use ebay postage.

By the time I've paid ebay fees on postage, PayPal fees off the postage and my courier sites fees (cos its never what they say it will be when they quote a price as you measure and weigh your parcel! They always seem to add something on!) I end up out of pocket 80 percent of the time. Luckily only pennies and we swallow it because if you increase the postage to cover it people either don't bid or mark you down on the stars for postage costs even though we write in the description that we don't profit as we use a fully trackable courier as disabled so can't get to the post office.

Had one recently who refused to pay combined postage (she had three new with tags clothing items for £14 Inc combined postage!) as she said it was too much. People always want something for nothing.

Had another who got stroppy that we used couriers and not royal mail (who were only 50p cheaper and not fully trackable) as she said it was too expensive. It was 50p and she'd be able to see where it was at all times along the way!

It's fascinating reading this. I regularly send items overseas and buyers happily pay up to £40 postage without a comment. Yet posts here are quibbling over 20 or 30p.

Tbh, I think a lot of people have no idea how much (tracked/insured) postage or packaging costs. No sensible ebay business will send anything but the lowest value items without tracking and secure packaging can be pricey too - especially for delicate/breakable items.

CottonHeadedNinyMuggins

Don't give up your day job.

I don’t bid if I’m not happy with the price, including postage. Your buyer is one cheeky dude. The postage price includes cost of envelope any packaging and also something for your time and hassle. It isn’t just supposed to be the cost of the stamp.

I don’t bother selling on ebay anymore as buyers are spoilt by Amazon now and expect instant 5* service for pennies.

I find most buyers are completely decent.

As pps have observed, a CF often identifies themself early on by asking numerous unreasonable questions, eg, not size etc but things like is it new? when it says used etc. And then if they win they start on asking where the item is. Had one recently who won an item on the Sunday evening and messaged to ask where it was on Monday! I had posted it straightaway but somehow they had expected me to open up the post office at 8pm on a Sunday so it could reach them the following morning...

I think you can head off a few CFs at the pass by stating that you will be sending signed for/tracked in your listing. For higher-value items that will stop anyone with the intention of pretending it doesn’t arrive.

I find most buyers are completely decent.

I buy a lot more than I sell, but I've never had any issues whatsoever with buyers; and I always try to be a good buyer myself. I hate the way eBay feedback asks you if the item arrived by a certain day, as estimated, because they often don't - but that's because of issues with the post right now, where I might have several items 'late' from different sellers that all come on the same day. I don't like to lie, but I don't want to get them into trouble for something that isn't their fault. Plus, I might be unusual, but most things I order aren't urgent at all. Of course I want them ASAP, but I'm an adult - if they take two days or two weeks, it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things; I haven't put the rest of my life on hold until I can read a certain book that I've ordered.

Twice, as a buyer, I've had items not arrive after over two weeks and I've raised a query (not a complaint). Both times, I just got a message that I'd had a refund, which I suppose solved the issue, but I was a bit miffed not to even receive a one-line message from the seller.

One time, I bought a collection-only item and the (very friendly) man met me on his doorstep with his phone, told me he was going to cancel the transaction "as eBay take a fortune in fees" and did so, before cheerily completing the transaction with me 'under the counter' as it were. I felt very uneasy and it was rather awkward, but I didn't really know what to say, so I just let him do it. It didn't really make any difference to me, but I'm guessing that if he does it regularly (the item was about £35, so nothing hugely expensive), he's going to be punished, put down the listings and/or banned by eBay. I suppose they could even report him for fraud, as that's what it is. If you don't want to pay eBay fees, you're perfectly at liberty to use another way to find your buyer and not use them. If nobody every paid their fees, eBay would cease to exist for parasites people like that. I wonder how he'd feel if he were a salesman on commission who had found a buyer and seller, put them in touch with each other and brokered a deal, and then they both said "Hey, I want to sell, you're here to buy it, so we don't need him - why should we pay him anything?!"

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I find most buyers are completely decent.

I buy a lot more than I sell, but I've never had any issues whatsoever with buyers; and I always try to be a good buyer myself. I hate the way eBay feedback asks you if the item arrived by a certain day, as estimated, because they often don't - but that's because of issues with the post right now, where I might have several items 'late' from different sellers that all come on the same day. I don't like to lie, but I don't want to get them into trouble for something that isn't their fault. Plus, I might be unusual, but most things I order aren't urgent at all. Of course I want them ASAP, but I'm an adult - if they take two days or two weeks, it doesn't really matter in the scheme of things; I haven't put the rest of my life on hold until I can read a certain book that I've ordered.

Twice, as a buyer, I've had items not arrive after over two weeks and I've raised a query (not a complaint). Both times, I just got a message that I'd had a refund, which I suppose solved the issue, but I was a bit miffed not to even receive a one-line message from the seller.

One time, I bought a collection-only item and the (very friendly) man met me on his doorstep with his phone, told me he was going to cancel the transaction "as eBay take a fortune in fees" and did so, before cheerily completing the transaction with me 'under the counter' as it were. I felt very uneasy and it was rather awkward, but I didn't really know what to say, so I just let him do it. It didn't really make any difference to me, but I'm guessing that if he does it regularly (the item was about £35, so nothing hugely expensive), he's going to be punished, put down the listings and/or banned by eBay. I suppose they could even report him for fraud, as that's what it is. If you don't want to pay eBay fees, you're perfectly at liberty to use another way to find your buyer and not use them. If nobody every paid their fees, eBay would cease to exist for parasites people like that. I wonder how he'd feel if he were a salesman on commission who had found a buyer and seller, put them in touch with each other and brokered a deal, and then they both said "Hey, I want to sell, you're here to buy it, so we don't need him - why should we pay him anything?!"

I'm with you on the postage times - I don't think I've ever clicked 'no' for that. Tbh I don't even check the dates. Once I have the item, I'm happy!

As for the other, eBay definitely notice this sort of thing - I had the same with a seller who was newish to eBay and cheerfully told me they did this, only to mention a few days later that eBay had already sent them a warning for it. Like you, I think it's a very unfair thing to do but I think eBay are pretty good at spotting it.

@speakout

CottonHeadedNinyMuggins

Don't give up your day job.

Haha! To be fair most of the time we don't do too badly price wise so I don't mind paying pennies over the odds.

I hate listing so I save things up until I have a load. For example we had huge clothes clear outs for lockdown and uploaded approx 100 items. We sold approx 67 and donated the rest so got a full clear out and made about 430 once we had paid fees etc.

Currently selling off our craft stuff which is also a good seller so again don't mind paying a little bit extra out of the profit too. Always like to make sure it's trackable as, touch wood, it stops the cfs claiming non delivery when they can see every single step along the way to get to them so makes it easier for me in the longrun.

Also means the man comes to my house as I don't drive and couldn't get that many to the post office or parcel shop even if they'd accept more than three (which our post offices aren't)

I bought something on ebay recently, postage set at £3.10 which i thought nothing of, however the item was sent as a large letter price so I messaged them asking if they would refund the extra I'd spent, I got no reply so messaged another twice, still nothing. So I left feedback explaining the excessively high postage costs. If I sell something and postage is cheaper than I listed I do refund the buyer, its the right thing to do in my eyes.

I always refund if it goes cheaper than I expected when I set the postage.
I don’t think you should deliberately try to profit from postage but by all means include the true cost eg packaging materials

I send everything tracked and have just started stating that as the first thing in my description.

Ebay charge a 10%? Postage fee so you to factor that in.

Also with large letter, if the post office then decide enroute it's too large you get charged a few quid. Selling used kids clothes on Ebay is a major pita, unless I'm going to make around £2 PROFIT it's not worth the hassle when I can give it away for nothing.

Why would anyone want to sell something for £2 + 2.90 postage when Ebay is going to charge 10% and PayPal 10%? Your pocketing just over £1 per sale. So a large carrier bag of kids clothes might make you £5 plus listing time, packing and postage plus some CF saying it never arrived even with tracking. It's not a public duty and no one has to buy it.

I tend to sell bundles just under 1kg and list them from 2.5 plus 3.50 postage. If someone can buy say seven pairs of great condition leggings for cheaper postage and price then they every choice to scroll on past. I try to think overall "is this competitive with H&M free postage?" Am I going to be net out of pocket? If it's not I dont list. You cant even buy cheaper from a charity shop.

@Legoandloldolls

It’s 3.4% for PayPal
So 13.4% overall (plus another 20p on top to eBay)
For £2 I’d call it 46.6p fees including the extra 20p
For £2.90 postage they will take 38.8p

If you’ve covered fees In your postage asking price then you get about £1.50 on the £2 sale
If you’re just selling your things then you’ve ‘made’ £1.50, if buying to sell then you need to account for costs and you might be making 50p

It’s hardly worth it when you look at it on a single basis.

Ive just sold an item this weekend for £3, it’s the last of a bundle of RN kit I bought about a year ago, when averaged out per item the cost was around 15p each, and wanted the bag it was all in. With this last one gone I’ve now made just under £60 in profit and the bag I wanted is free
Hardly my first million, but extra pocket money that sometimes is a lot and sometimes is a little

(Sold at £3 plus postage, so that £3 less 60p fees is £2.40 in my pocket)

@suziesue45

I bought something on ebay recently, postage set at £3.10 which i thought nothing of, however the item was sent as a large letter price so I messaged them asking if they would refund the extra I'd spent, I got no reply so messaged another twice, still nothing. So I left feedback explaining the excessively high postage costs. If I sell something and postage is cheaper than I listed I do refund the buyer, its the right thing to do in my eyes.

Then you are being an arse.

If you walk into a shop see something for sale and buy it would you go back into the shop and demand a partial refund because you suddenly decided you were unhappy at the shop's profit margins?

Item X is for sale on eBay at 90p + £3.10 p&p. = £4.

Do I want to pay £4for item?

If Yes then Buy Item.

If no. Don't but item.

End of story.