How are you marking up postage now?

[casparthecat]

The post is so complicated now (Royal Mail size/weight pricing structure) and now eBay charging fees on postage charges. Grrrrrrrrrrr.

So, if I were sending a small parcel which costs me £2.80, what would you charge?

Do you not just charge £2.80 or am I missing something? I have a stash of brown paper, parcel tape and address labels which I use. And bubble wrap if necess. But I have a big stash of it so actual cost per parcel is probably only a few pence. I'm fairly sure that you aren't allowed to factor in the fact eBay are charging fees when calculating postage. eBay fees are the overhead you accept you are going to incur when you sell stuff on there.

I charge £3.50 - ebay take 35p plus PayPal have their cut too. I tend to use recycled packaging but still have to pay for a whole roll of tape for securely sealing the parcel.

You are only supposed to charge actual postage. Buy if you are a private seller and not business then I don't think buyers judge as harshly. But still be prepared to receive less than 5 stars for your p&p charges.

rocky if you don't take the ebay fees into account and sell an item for only 99p and £2.80 p&p - the buyer pays £3.79; paypal take 33p; ebay take 37p; royal mail charge £2.80. You get 29p from the sale. Seriously think about considering the fees when you calculate p&p!

Most ebay uses realise the situation and don't expect you to only charge the postage cost - I get 5 star ratings for p&p from the majority of people who've bought from me.

Ebay does allow you to charge for packaging. Not everyone has a workplace to steal stationary from a stash of suitable envelopes and bubble wrap.

I dont think ebay is worth using any more as private seller TBH.

The reason I am asking is because I thought eBay are taking a cut of the postage too.

So... If I list the item as £2.80 postage I am actually going to be out of pocket.

What I would really like from eBay and Paypal is how much I am being charged on each item. They manage to break everything else down but their fees are a bit of a black hole.

Pretty certain that ebay take 10% but round down so if the total sale is £3.49 they would take 34p. I could be wrong!

Google paypal fees calculator to easily calculate paypal fees. This one is good:

www.paypalfeescalculator.com

I charge £3.30 and send My Hermes for £2.98 with recycled packaging. Why pay RM when for the same money you can have it collected and it is tracked?

3.4% + 20p.

www.clothnappytree.com/ppcalculator/

I only list with inclusive ("free") postage so that buyers can't fuss if they don't like what I've put down (guesstimated). And it guarantees 5*.

I don't offer auctions right now, I don't even like them as a buyer.

I make sure the price guarantees a minimum of £1 profit after all fees (& postage). otherwise I look at what similar items have actually sold for; I start with relatively high value as the starting price on a 30 day listing, and slowly reduce the value every few days down to my actual minimum by day 25 of the BIN listing.

Is that a kind of reverse auction?

For a truly desirable item I might try an actual auction. Don't have much stuff like that, though.

I find it all very hit and miss. I had a little spat with a buyer this week who was whining that the postage cost was too high for an item - I pointed out that sending it via Royal Mail was actually the cheapest option and stated that if he no longer wanted it I wouldn't neg him. He paid up...
I also find that sometimes the Ebay calculator isn't quite accurate and it's cheaper than I expected when I get to the post office - I always refund the difference when that happens.

Solid - you may find Hermes or Collect + is much cheaper than RM -plus it is tracked.

And as a seller you can't neg a buyer.

And do ignore the calculator - it states £5.65 to post a dress - daylight robbery.

@Magic7
Choose Fixed Price listing (rather than auction format, it's soon after the place on page where you choose the picture to use), and change duration to 30 days (just below again). Private sellers have 20 free listings/month which includes fixed price listings (buy-it-now).

Butterfly - it was going to Ireland, hermes etc only deliver within the UK.

However this whole business of large letters and small parcels is a PITA as the jump from one to the other is so big and it's so annoying when you get it wrong.

I don't tend to buy from sellers who use collect+, myhermes etc as couriers are a pain in the arse to get to redeliver if you're not in. The RM delivery office is near me and much more convenient.

I use the RM website to calculate my postage, and then add approx £1 to cover packaging and fees. Never had a complaint from a buyer yet.

Do people think it's better now to do free P&P?

I've switched to that, but either Ebay is really quiet, people like to see separate charges, or I'm selling stuff no-one wants...

I think I agree with you, Nanny. That buyers are put off by inclusive postage. I've seen a few anecdotes to confirm the same. This is contrary to what Ebay says buyer prefer.

I dunno solution. I like how protected my postage star is so I am sticking with inclusive. No easy way forward.

I think i charge £3.20 so I am not out of pocket with the 10% postage charge. I did think about using Hermes but am not sure.

I have used collect + once for sending books.

If something is over a KG does it jump to the £5 mark with RM for postage and is that when Hermes or C+ become better options?

I have been doing free P&P for a while now and have had great success with my sales,I also make sure my parcels are folded correctly and as flat as possible,ie : a dress can be folded "shirt style" and fits nicely into an A4 sized grey bag squash out all the air just before you go into the Post Office and most will go through at £2.80 if not its myHermes if too bulky,shoes wrap side by side in bubble to stop damage or heel to toe and they should also be £2.80.Keep your customers happy by letting them know the parcel is on its way as sometimes they don't get notification from e-bay,keeps for good star ratings.

Yes, I pack carefully and well. I always mark as despatched.

I have so far used a mixture of Hermes and the PO, but I do think I prefer the fact that Hermes is tracked, although I haven't come unstuck with a delivery - yet!

But do my charges look too high? Where I would have started a blouse or cardi (VGC) at £2.99 + postage, does £5.99 inclusive seem too high a start to people?

So difficult. And if you relist then that's your 20 free soon used up!

I charge £3.30 - Hermes all the way with me. Why pay the same to Royal Mail when it isn't even tracked?