How much extra over the top of actual postage is it OK to charge?

[ASuitableGirl]

Don't do much ebay selling but did some over the weekend and posted out items today. I have overcharged postage as turned out they count as large letter rather than parcel rate. Each parcel was £1.09 and I've charged £2.00 for each one.

Is this too much? And if so I do I go about making a partial refund and how much do you think it should be? I don't have any packaging costs as they were old jiffy bags and post office is within walking distance.

Thank you :)

It is often difficult to judge what rate an item is until you get to the post office isn't it. Better to overcharge and refund the difference than undercharge and be out of pocket I reckon. I think you are being very fair giving a partial refund to your buyers.

Fine, technically within the rules of the policy, but why do you think they've had to set maximum P&P charges for several categories? It's because people charged as much as they could get away with and called it 'packaging/handling/going to the post office/ink for my printer' to make more money and avoid paying fees when they should have just set a higher starting price.

I think it's bad form, and I won't buy from anyone who does it. And I've never once had a complaint about my postage and packing, 5 stars all around.

fergoose, you get a kitchen scale and a ruler, and use the royal mail website, it's not difficult.

I'm frustrated today as i was only 'allowed' to charge up to £4 p&p for a package that cost over £6 to post.

I usually charge no more than 50p over the actual stamp price.

Tonks, ebay say in that situation you should list it as 'courier' so you can put in the correct cost.

right, "maximum p&p in some categories"?
like in books, you mean?
where often, the book is bigger than a large letter, and therefore costs a lot more.
I've lost count of the number oftimes I've only been allowd to charge £2.80 (because ebay has to match amazon) for a book, and it's cost me £3.07 to post.

(or more - the price doesn't go up no matter how heavy the book is!)

From ebay:

What can I do if the maximum P&P charge do not cover my expenses for packaging and postage?

The maximum P&P cost may not cover sellers' P&P costs in some cases. In the event that it does not, you can do one of the following:
When selling via auction, you can continue to list your item with the same start price and a P&P price at or below the maximum postage cost. Many of our sellers have success with auctions, even when offering free P&P, because their item looks more competitive to their buyers.
When selling a very heavy and bulky item, choose the option ?Courier: heavy and bulky items? instead of ?Flat cost for all buyers? in the Sell Your Item form. This will allow you to insert a cost higher than the limit. We will monitor items using this option to make sure that those that are over the limit differ from the assumptions that we used to establish the maximum postage costs. In this instance, the item must be genuinely bulky or heavy and that the delivery charge will vary according to where the item is located.

Ooh, thanks Yank ! For some reason that never occurred to me! Anybody would think i was a novice...

I spent an hour packaging up something large & slightly fragile yesterday. Luckily most the materials scavenged (big box, bubble wrap, paper), but the parcel tape obviously new. I need to use a quality parcel tape and on that point, if anyone can recommend where to buy a quality parcel tape inexpensively, pls let me know. I using PO own which I know is great quality, but not cheap.

For the box yesterday, On tape alone, I reckon I spent at least 20p.
Then there's 27p Paypal skimmed off the 8 quid postage charge.
Real postage with RM will be 7.61 I think... I can't believe people are so petty as to begrudge 39p over RM cost, especially given my real costs for postage and handling (assuming my time is worth nothing, of course) is -8p.

No other distance selling market (online or not) has such ridiculous expectations about postage must = real transit costs; everyone else charges 2.95 minimum, even if real delivery cost is more like a quid.

Will take another 20-30 minutes to get the item off to post office today, too. My net take-home profit on this sale will be ~3/4 quid/hour, btw. I think that most Ebay sellers are working on similar numbers.

But I've got just a shade short of 5 full stars too, YNC, on p+p charges. In spite of my less than perfect postage charging habit. So clearly most buyers don't really care that much.

I don't have interest or time to closely review seller stars anyway. The only time I might look closely is if the positive % is lowish, or if several sellers are flogging identical stuff at identical prices & I can't figure out which to buy from.

Don't the stars things only really matter to power sellers, the
Traders, people who get Ebay rebates or charging discounts, because you're trying to protect your privileges, status & margins? I can understand that business case.

Casual/sporadic sellers like me, I think we lose our star rating info after so many months without recent sales, so there's no long-term impact anyway (iirc).

Well I have refunded both buyers 70p so they have paid £1.30 for postage costing £1.09. I hope this is ok with them although I will probably get about 3 stars now .

I sell so rarely it is unusual for me to get up to having star ratings anyway.

dp uses massive bubble wrap envelopes for his sales and then we insist most buyer pay extra for signed for so it can add up to a bit more than just the cost of postage, people are happy with this arrangement generally. if not they don't bid!

depends what you are selling for clothes books small items 30p extra for a plastic mailing bag

50p for small breakables that need bublewrap and a small box
£1 for large breakables that need extra strong boxes
£2 for multiple items like a tea set/china or very fragile valuable items

personally am a bit fed up of sellers of childrens clothes charging £2.50 -£3 postage and it arrives in large letter bag and cost 92p, I am not willing to pay excess postage becaue you listed at 99p and I was only bidder and you are hoping to make up for it with postage profit if you want £3 for your item start at £3

I find it helps to say in listing what packaging charges are , if I have over estimated I do partial refund with note " small refund as postage cost less than I thought" as soon as back from P/O

you are not supposed to add a charge for your time taking to PO etc.

You can charge for buying a new Jiffy bag or whatever, and the postage fee, but if the item only costs say £1 to send, and you are charging £2.50 or more, that's steep.

You are also not supposed to add on extra to cover ebay fees- though I know people do all the time.

Personally, I never buy if the P&P is too high as I feel ripped off. It's one way a buyer can sell something cheaply, avoid the ebay % but then make it up on postage. Not really right.

I just send 'free of charge' now and it stops the hassle. People see the postage charged and don't think of the cost of envelopes etc. Now I work out the postage that I want, and charge on top. It costs a bit more to list but I find it worth it. I started when Ebay wouldn't let me charge the actual cost with books.

I've read such contradictory things about charging for "seller's time"; Ebay guidance (on DSRs) says very clearly

Remember that sellers may charge for the cost of the actual packaging materials, along with a reasonable dispatch fee to cover the seller's time and direct costs associated with postage

Some other Ebay guidance is less explicit about whether sellers may charge for their time, by failing to mention seller's time factor at all, only direct costs (p+p). Hence the confusion, I guess.

a business seller can charge for their time a private seller should not but most business sellers factor time into their item price to keep P&P lower

That is a commonly held opinion Sarahtigh, but I can't find anything on Ebay to say it's their official policy, too.
Recent detailed discussion about this on the Ebay seller boards.
I think you'd find most of that online community (Ebay forums) saying it's mean and petty for buyers to get annoyed about 50p over Royal Mail cost. 2, 3, 5 quid over actual postage is more like the threshold they'd cite as excessive.

All my stuff is offered local pickup too.

I think many buyers look at just the stamp price - without thinking of the cost of packaging, tape, printer ink, petrol etc - and I doubt any think of the sellers time involved too. I must admit if I have overcharged postage I have refunded a £1 or so back - is a nice gesture and I don't like to feel i rip buyers off. I don't think many buyers realise all the costs involved and don't also think of the affect trashing your stars can do.

To be honest if I am not happy with the postage cost I won't bid - I am more worried about speedy postage now. I do notice if a seller maybe makes 100% profit on postage, say charge a fiver for first class and only post second class 8 days later at the cost of £2 or so, I would mark stars low for that. Anything of say up to a £1 above stamp price wouldn't really bother me I have to say.

It is far simpler to work out what you want to charge for posting, the minimum price for the item and add them together for the starting price, wait for free listing, and then put postage free. I got fed up with 2 things, 1. ebay not allowing you to put the true cost of posting a book 2. the buyer looking at the stamp price and not accounting for 97p for a padded envelope etc.
My beef now is that people don't understand the term 'dispatch'. I dispatch the next day but I send second class-which is quite clearly shown-and then they don't give 5 stars!! Second class will not get it there the next day. This time of year it will be slow but it couldn't be dispatched quicker!
I also agree with fergoose-if I think the postage too high then I won't bid.