I'm in a quandry with postage, can I have some views please? (sorry its turned out long)

[MrsZoidberg]

I've been selling for quite some time and I kept getting low stars on postage, so tried a different system and I'm still getting low stars!

(Don't get me started on the other categories I also get low stars on despatch time - I post same or next day!)

My issue is with packet size (I know RM are changing this which is going to make it even worse!) For example, I sell an item that weighs 30g, but is over 1" hence £2.20 2nd class. I feel that the majority of people do not understand RM pricing and so will think this should cost about 80p to send! I asked a few friends etc what they thought it should cost and this was the average. The majority of people only seem to send the odd letter and cards - most of which are letter size, and don't understand the pricing in proportion system.

I now use RM business post which doesn't display the cost on the stamp, not that I think many people look at the stamp value when leaving feedback, so this is just getting worse.

We thought about making it free post on everything, which of course means I add the cost to the item, but I frequently sell these in multiples i.e. 3 at a time so I would actually be paid £6.60 for postage but it would still only cost me £2.20. this is nice for the profit - but people would stop buying them from me as I would no longer be competitive, and even if they did keep buying them, I would feel really guilty about the overcharging.

So we tried adding some of the postage cost to the item and then charging 50p per extra item. (we sell a wide variety of shapes and sizes so need to make sure the majority of combinations still work, i.e. don't leave us out of pocket on postage by going from LL to packets size etc) This looks good on the bigger items, but on the Large Letter items, looks really bad i.e. if they buy 3 items from me that are under 100g together, and fit LL then it costs me 69p but I'm charging £2 (£1 for the first and 50p each for the others). So I'm still getting low stars.

I'm now out of ideas.

I run a business so need to make money and not lose it. But I also want to be fair to my buyers and not overcharge.

So, for all you lovely MNers who have made it this far, please can I have your views as either a buyer or a seller on how you feel I should charge P&P.

Without knowing what it is you sell I can't offer a solution that will probably work - but, could you maybe do something similar to the (eg) bubble wrap supplier I use (something? monkey) (search for bubble wrap and you will see them
They use free postage and have 2 drop down menus which then produces the correct cost.

Sorry - I haven't made much sense (in a bit of a rush)

Sorry, I should have said, I sell craft items, so typically light weight but can be bulky

Still haven't come up with a fool proof solution for you.

There's a thread active on the ebay forums at the mo, where they are basically saying ...only on ebay would someone expect a postage discount on free/inclusive postage.

I can only come up with 2 options.
1 - offer free p&p for everything. You at least will build up your DSRs. If you notice a real drop in repeat buyers then have a rethink.
2- offer real p&p per item and ask in the listing that they wait for an invoice so that you can combine/reduce their postage.

I would send 1st class too instead of 2nd class - if you post immediately and it takes several days to arrive 2nd class a buyer may mark you down for that.

That's the odd thing Fergoose, I get loads of positive comments about the speed of my service - which is why I'm then surprised when I get a low star for it.

Thanks Six. Both options have their negatives though. 1. Multiple orders are way over priced, 2. it doesn't help with individual purchases. I'm doing my head in over this quandary. I want to offer free P&P but DS (partner in the shop) says No as it makes our items uncompetitive (which he's right about).

It took us ages to come up with the charging low P&P, adding the difference to the item and adding 50p per extra item. 3 days of making sure it worked across all our items. So on paper it appears we are charging less than it costs us, and yet we've still had a couple of low scores! - Only 3s not 1s&2s luckily.

Aaargh - I want to get this sorted before 1st April as we're going to have to alter everything then anyway. Loads of our stuff is still light and yet now falls into Medium Parcel size on the new system At least we can offer 2nd class over 1kg now - better for the multiple orders.

Add up to another 6 items for no further postage charge type thing? Some wool sellers on ebay do that. Mind you, I just bought 500g of wool and paid 2.20 postage which was a bargain on wool that was already on deep discount.

Or charge per item but immediately refund any charge that comes out higher than the RM cost.

I wonder if in the listing you could state that there would be a combined postage rebate if people bought Xmany, along the lines of

"Buy 2 and get 50p refund for combined postage!
buy 3 and get £1 refund!
Buy 4 and get £2 refund!

Please contact me if you want to buy 5 or more items, or items of varying sizes, to verify what postage rebate would be."

What are your competitors pricing the same or similar items at and are they doing free P&P ? Can you price yourself the same as them or a penny or two cheaper ?
I see what you are saying about the price increase for multiple items when you do free postage, but a lot of buyers won't even consider that the postage is included or if they do they won't care.

I sell a lot of items with "Free" P&P and found that sales increased quite remarkably when I introduced it. Also by offering it you get an automatic 5* for P&P which is worth bearing in mind if you need to improve that score.
My "Free" option is 2nd class, but I also offer 1st and Special Delivery. Not many buyers choose them, but some do and those ones seem to like the choice.

Have you worked out if your lower scores are coming from particular items ?
The DSR reports that you can run allow you to see scores left for individual item numbers and categories. It may be that you only need to tweak one or two listings to make the difference.

Regarding your lower score on dispatch, do you have your preferences set so that buyers get an automatic email once you mark the item as sent ? That helps a lot too with communication and dispatch scores in my experience.

Thanks for the ideas.

Most craft sellers tend to stick to one field i.e jewellery making (mostly LL size and light) or knitting (mostly packet) but mine is mixed (like Hobbycraft - well i can dream ) . Few offer free delivery but i like the idea of getting more sales

With the despatch, i always mark it despatched the evening after i post.

I'll drill down the categories to see which items are causing it. Thanks for the suggestion

I am always impressed by speedy dispatch - the wool I ordered at about 2330hrs, had a message to say dispatched at 0650 the next morning. Arrived next day. Always gets good feedback. Aileens Wool Shop on Ebay if any knitters are reading

Though I have only ever not given 5 stars for noticeably crap service (like when I paid extra for 1st class, but it wasn't dispatched for 3-4 days, or once when they didn't post my item until 9 days after I paid) I virtually always BIN and pay immediately.

Don't get into refunding postage, as if you start doing lots of refunds it may flag up an issue with paypal. This happened when people out-of-area kept ordering from me for a local delivery item, then requesting a refund to avoid paying extra p&p. Paypal suspended the funds for several weeks as a precaution.

I'd just add a note to the item description saying wait for an invoice if they want combined postage.

beware from 1st april anything more than 8cm is going to be a medium parcel they start at £5.20, time to check out something like despatchbayfrom £2.28 per packet minimum of 4

also explain in your descriptions

" because these items are bulky they are too big for royal mail large letter category and so cost 2.20 to post second class this means they will take 3-5 working days to arrive, if you would like them faster please mail me before paying and I will invoice for 1st class,

generally within UK upto 3/4/5 items would not cost anymore to post if you buy more than one wait for corrected postal invoice before paying"

DOING with paypal refunds will not flag up if explained like "hi susie a small refund as postage cost less than i thought regards doing"

i do this but mostly because something I thought would be over 1 kg is 980g or overseas where only a gew gramees makes a big difference

That's great wording Sarahtigh Thanks!

We're working on it this weekend, checking sizes of all our items and how it will affect us. Bloody RM

if it is your business you need to do some research on other couriers etc, how many parcels to you send a week? are they all the same size? some couriers offer discounts if several parcels to pick up I mentioned despatch bay even royal mail do discounts if enough postage I think it is £1500 a month so quite a lot

you can set up on advance sell so postage is £3 and each additional item 20p or something ( that is with BIN not auctions)

be upfront with packing charges, " we add 20p/30p/50p to cover boxes and bubblewrap

if a business and you just send in mailing bags I would advise absorbing costs as if you buy in bulk they are only about 5-6p each if you have to buy say 4x4x4" cube boxes and bubble wrap then add as above

also as a business add a comment like "we hope you are completely sAtIsifed with purchase our feedback and Dsr's are important to usso if there is a problem please get in touch and it can almost certainly be resolved amicably"

Thanks Sarahtigh.

All my parcels vary in size, we have stuff that will go letter up to stuff that goes courier - mainly split 45/45 between LL and Packet on current system. and 10% the rest.

We have just started using the RM business post - £5000 per annum minimum and we will just scrape through, at our current selling rate. (This is what has caused the issue as it no longer displays the cost of postage)

We mainly use jiffy bags, or wrap in bubble wrap and brown paper (all new), we shop around and our packaging costs vary from 8p to 25p. We did think about mailing bags but a lot of our stuff is fragile or crushable so feel that this is the best option for us.

We spent the weekend calculating out various options. We have tried for the past 2 months to use the idea you've said I,e, adding a small amount for each additional item and we feel that we have lost sales, but I can't fathom why - if you order 2 large items from me and I only charge you 50p for the second, you'd think you were getting a good deal wouldn't you?

We're now going to try free P&P. The items that concern me are frequently bought in multiples but can be sent under the limit for the postage quoted for 1. For these, we're going to put in a variation i.e. i.e. 1 costs ££, 2 costs approx. 1 3/4 ££, 3 costs approx. 2 1/2 ££ etc.

We also took some items off of free P&P when we tried adding the extra 50p for secondary items, our sales have definitely dropped on these so we hope that these will start selling again. They are our lowest profit generators, but we sold loads of them making it worthwhile.

You're great at wording things so I'm going to be nicking some of your suggestions