A 2nd class package is £2.20 -am I missing something

[sherbetpips]

So as far as I know a package (not a letter) sent 2nd class in the uk is £2.20. So why do buyers on eBay try to make complaints about postage. I have had feedback comments with 'postage expensive, etc. Usually eBay remove them from serial complainers but am I missing something - are the post office ripping me off?

you are paying way way too much for packaging

I sell mostly china on ebay ( as a registered business) I charge about 50p extra for breakables only 25p if not breakable like books, brass, vintage linen

my posting stars are 4.87

mailing bags cost 5-10p on ebay
bubble wrap works out at 23p per metre, mailing boxes are about 12p each for small 6" cubes about 25-40p for 12" and above

by costs for sending say a collectable is about 35p -70p bubble wrapped boxed and with packing peanuts, the 70p would be for large cut glass vase, only multiple items such as tea set would justify packing fees of more than £1

it would be cheaper for you to buy bubble wrap and plain bags, also you can get padded envelopes much cheaper than 80p each

anything more than 35p extra for clothes is just silly

Royal mail is competitive below 2kg and cheapest below 1kg second class upto 750g at £2.20 is unbeatable price wise

obviously if you send 100's of parcels a day you might get better price from a courier

also I assume seller has weighed if item says 2.80 postage I assume it will cost 2.20 and 60p is for packing

if it says £4 i assume it weighs more and will cost 3.50 second class with 50p for packing both reasonable however if it says £4 postage and it cost 2.20 that is 1.80 for packing then that is completely unreasonable and I would expect £1 refund for excess postage

I consider the postage as part of the cost of the item and factor this in when I am bidding. I never expect a refund on postage and wouldnt mark down for it. As long as the seller gets the item to me promptly I have no problem. I also wouldn't expect to be charged more if the postage was dearer than expected.

I also consider the postage as part of the cost of the item when bidding, but don't expect to be ripped off. I recently paid £4.50 for postage... it came 2nd class and cost £2.20 wrapped in an old carrier bag. I complained and got the difference refunded. Sometimes it is difficult to estimate how much something will cost in advance - for example, if it comes neatly packed in a box it will probably cost more than you expected.

I've had the postage limited to 4.75 on some items (ski jackets) that weighed well over a kilo - some I had to send parcel post and I take the hit on those.

The smaller stuff I tend to charge 2.50 - that's 2.20 for postage and 30p for packaging.

If it happens to get into the large letter category or a lower mail rate than expected then I always send 1st class.

My P&P score is 5.

I am currently in dispute with a seller who packaged a polo shirt in a brown envelope (trying to get away with large letter). postage cost 2.20 - however the envelope disintegrated in the rain and the tshirt arrived sopping wet and stained. He charged 4.75 and will not give any explanation,. Still sitting in dispute. Apparently it's not his fault it rained - posting something to Scotland in November would be a BIG clue :o

People should not bid on items if they dont agree with the postage costs (simple as), you can see what they are charging so if its too high then why bid?

I charge £2.50 to post a small item, this covers postage and jiffy bag, i have never had anyone complain about my postage costs and my star rating is very high.

In my case - I did a search and saw the item was ending in a couple of minutes so quickly chucked in a bid and won - then I saw the postage but paid up as per the contract - thought at 4.75 he would have stretched to a proper mail bag - he is basically trying to screw the system - it shouldn't be "buyer beware" when someone is ripping the piss.

i charge £2.50 for clothes. I try to reuse packaging as it makes sense to recycle.

some of the postage costs do seem very expensive especially if they are not packaged properly like the polo shirt incident.

alemci - that's it, if he had got away with large letter he'd have paid out 90p and charged 4.75.

I live in the back of beyond so can send large letter, the biggest thing that'll fit in the post box, or courier. I list this as I only go to town with a post office once or twice a month. Courier with Hermes starts at £3.30. This is what I charge, people complain. Collection is always available and free.

If you don't want to pay the postage I'm offering please don't bid.

Hmm... I have just received my latest purchase - a silk tie for which I paid £2.75 postage. It came in a recycled jiffy bag with a 1st class large stamp on it - 90p! I can't decide what to do.... I was halfway through leaving feedback then cancelled it. To make matters worse it was a business seller!

I boycott the DSR system anyway (as a buyer). I don't want to have to concentrate on minor details of a sales transaction.

As a seller I know anything less than 5 gets frowned upon. Which is nuts. As a buyer I want to give everyone I'm satisfied with a 3. Because that sounds like "satisfactory." Only it's not, according to Ebay Inc.

I've been toying with the idea that maybe everything on Ebay should be offered with postage included. Would cost buyers more, probably, but just seems much fairer. Any local bidders for stuff offered with postage incluced could contact sellers first to ask about possible discounts upon local collection.

PurpleFrog supposedly (I have heard it argued, I personally think this is a load of cobblers, but anyway) business sellers are the one category that are supposed to charge you for their time. So £1.85 for 30 minutes to process & post your parcel wouldn't be unreasonable. I spent 30 mins getting to & from the PO today to post something.

However, as a private seller it is supposedly unconscionable for me to charge anything for my time.

lljkk - you're right - I had forgotten that! It must have taken her quite a while to score out the previous sender's address, stick a label over her own address and handwrite my address in biro!

Hmm - think I'll just keep quiet and mark her down a bit for postage!

yes it does take time and can be fiddly. The worse thing is if not everyone pays fairly quickly say after a Sunday night. I only want to go to the post office once.

I was so pleased today that I managed to park on my way home so at least I wasn't going out of my way IYSWIM.

So I've been using a4 Jiffy bags to send stuff in and I'm being charged 3.15 second class recorded. So it's going as a parcel rather than large letter is that because it is too thick?

Yes, griphook - A4 and less than 2.5cm thick is a large letter

That's 2nd class small packet rate, I think griphook, technically not "parcel" rate (which starts at £5.30. Almost nothing in a jiffy will make it into Large Letter rate (the cheapest 2nd class band).

One reason I state 3 days dispatch is to try to minimise the number of trips I make to PO. I imagine buyers nonetheless mark me down for speed of dispatch/delivery, though. I'm sure almost no one actually reads the dispatch days before bidding (I know I forget to), so they just think "Should it have arrived by now? Probably." without checking the actual T&C in the auction.

I must have been doing this all wrong because I only ever charge the actual postage. I send the majority of things first class standard which is £2.70. So I charge £2.70. But then again, I steal borrow jiffy bags etc from work.

And people honestly don't read the dispatch time.
I state 2 working days after payment for dispatch but people still message me to ask why it hasn't arrived after 2 days.

I think there are many schools of thought about what is reasonable postage charge, Tantrums. You won't get a consensus.

The way you charge you end up paying FVF on Paypal charges, which would irk the blank out of me.

Even if you charge exactly same as RM you will still get people who seem to mark you down on postage. Eg.: folk like me who tend to think that 3 stars is a perfectly satisfactory rating.

I think it's outrageous to expect private sellers to charge nothing for their time, travel costs & parcel tape.

Plenty of buyers don't care about postage part, most I'll wager, they just care about total with delivery.

I reckon Ebay Inc. only care about fee evasion when postal charges that are ridiculously inflated, like charging £10 postage for a 70p stamp.

I reckon that ? 70% of my buyers don't leave any feedback. I wonder if that % has increased since DSRs came in.

I think maybe if I had to actually buy the packaging etc I might charge for that, but it just seems a bit...I dont know, wrong to charge for something I get for free IYSWIM
I think 3 stars is satisfactory tbh, I don't think you should have to give 5 all the time if it wasn't outstanding.
Mind you out of my last 35 items sold I've only had feedback on 21 which is a bit annoying.
I always give feedback on a purchase, and I always leave feedback when someone pays for one of my items promptly.

A tip for getting stuff in Jiffy as Large Letter - we use MailLite bags so I only know the size on those. If you use the G/4 size it's slightly bigger than A4 so normally won't go as LL. But if you fold over and tape up the edges it does - you still have to get it under 2.5cm though

This has meant we can drop the postal prices on about 5 of our popular items as we can now get them through LL instead of packet.

What's does FVF and DSR mean?

It depends what you are sending. It is a real pain that Royal Mail dropped the lower weight bracket of their "small packet" category - it really pushes the price up for some things. Like MrsZoidberg I use MailLite padded envelopes, so things like DVDs and Nintendo games go as large letter OK. For small clothes I use plastic mailing bags, wrapping clothes round a thin sheet of A4 card and sealing in a poly bag before putting in the mailing bag. With a bit of creative origami, most of these have gone as Large Letter OK!