postage charges - what is reasonable?

[Kveta]

I just bought a dress which had £4.75 postage charges. It arrived today, wrapped in recycled brown paper, with a £2.20 stamp/postage paid sticker (2nd class), and the paper was badly ripped, so dress hanging out the side.

does that sound like a reasonable charge, or should I query it with the sender?

query it definitely - is not only greed it is fee avoidance. And don't let them fob you off with petrol costs, etc. If they are private seller that is not permitted.

Whether it's permitted for private sellers is debated, some of the Ebay guidance is vague. It feels quite immoral to me to expect seller to charge nothing for their time, travel costs & packaging materials. You don't expect a shop to refund you for your time & travel costs to go collect a purchase.

If you're not happy then just tell the seller, OP, I would refund you whatever you asked, especially given the packaging proved so inadequate.

I don't expect seller to charge nothing for packaging, but feel double the postage cost is maybe a bit much. But wasn't sure if I was being picky, hence checking here :) thanks fergoose!

I have just sent off a few ebay parcels today.

I always wrap garment in a polythene bag, and new brown paper, firmly secured with sellotape and brown tape.

I charge postage according to ebay guidelines eg when you are putting an item on it will tell you the max you can charge.

I charged £2.50 ...at the PO it came in at just over £2 which I think is reasonable.

If it came in at say £2 under what I caharged, I would refund £1.00.

I think charging 2.50 is reasonable if postage is 2.20. I'd ask her to refund the difference.

Yep - I'd query it! I've just overcharged several people for p&p (didn't realise how much cheaper it is bringing things to the uk for postage than from abroad :) ) and I have just refunded them all. Even for £1 I think it is important to be fair and to be seen to be fair!!

Query it.
I charge £2 or £2.50 for items of clothing - a pair of jeans costs £2.20 to post.
Really annoys me when people charge £4.75 for a T-shirt, and I always check the P&P costs before bidding.
It should cover an envelope, a stamp and maybe 10p more. It does not cover parking costs, fuel costs or time spent in the post office.
I always refund through paypal if I've inadvertently overcharged. Notice that buyers never contact me when P&P costs more than they've paid...

thanks all - I queried it and she refunded me the whole £4.75 due to the state of the packaging - feel a bit about that, but do still think £4.75 for a £2.20 post charge was absurd - if she'd charged £3 for it, I would not have queried it at all.

as a private seller your time costs nothing as it is in your spare time if your time has a value it is a wage/ salary and therefore taxable

only business sellers can charge for time as they use total profit as their income and it is taxed ( this is not a comment on whether they do or not just the legal position)

what ever you do with unwanted items costs something, it is petrol parking to take to charity shop, or recycling centre or whatever, an expense to be claimable must be necessary, exclusively for that purpose ie you could not post birthday card at same time it must be a separate trip to school run, shopping etc, highly unlikely for the genuine private seller, a genuine private seller will not be posting 20 parcels a week every week

30p extra is ample to cover the packaging materials for clothing