Postage etiquette question

[Ijustworemytrenchcoat]

Hello,

I very rarely sell anything on ebay but have started listing things every now and again. I am rubbish with postage costs and last week charged £2 to post an item that cost £4 to send. So I listed something else with £4 p&p and it only cost £2.

As a buyer I just suck it up if I over pay postage, but does it annoy you? I don't know if I should refund the £2 to the buyer.

you could offer to refund part of it - don't forget to factor in the cost of the packaging.

but for future reference, weigh everything in its packaging on the kitchen scales and check the royal mail sizing/price guide before you list it.

Refund the £2. You can do a partial refund on paypal. Just add a wee note saying you overestimated postage

There are no real conventions of what to do; if there were ethics about it, then the buyer that OP undercharged by £2 would be morally obliged to repay OP.

As a buyer, I only care about the total I paid with delivery, I never break it down. Ebay doesn't care because they get 10% no matter how you break it down. But Ebay does care if buyer is unhappy; so they ask Buyers directly about that. Maybe the best thing to do is to list the item with postage inclusive ("free"); add the postage to your start price. Then Buyers pay the same total including delivery but can't complain about how the charges broke down.

& you get an automatic 5* for P&P on your DSRs for free P&P

Thank you, I think I will do a refund or partial, and I like the idea of free p and p just putting the starting price up.

This has happened to me today. I won an item and paid £3.90 and when it arrived the packaging was torn and the seller had only paid £1.10 to post. I believe I was reasonable to query this with the seller, in that if you charge over the top postage it's not unreasonable to expect it to be packaged better. Well it hasn't gone down well at all and I'm obviously being a total pain in the area.
Once you've listed a few things you get to know how much things cost to post and anything I'm not sure of I take it into the p.o to check
hth

That should read pain in the arse but pain the area works just as well too