Do you refund postage if it's less than you charged?

[CharmingChampignon]

I am new to selling (buy almost daily!) and my DM did the post office trip for me with my first lot of sales. I have just looked at the post office receipts and noticed that for a couple of items she was only charged £1.19 where the buyer has paid the (suggested by ebay) £2.80 that I charged. Would you refund the difference to the buyer at this point? I think I do remember a seller refunding me £1 or so once in a similar situation. If I should refund, how do i do it? Will I incur more PP fees for doing so?

No and I've got almost 1000 reviews with 100% fb. Its not just the post cost, its the peripherals.

Depends on what you have sent. Did it require a padded bag, bubble wrap, cardboard box, etc. When you get something commercially sent through the post they charge packing AND handling, so time involved is included.

I charge 3.30 which covers my postage, packaging, a bit towards my fees and if I can post as a large letter i refund down to 2.00. I don't know if it affects feedback but I get free listings for being a top rated seller so I don't want negative reviews and people are more likely to leave bad feedback than good. I find a reasonable postage charge gets you more views on your item, I can't understand people paying 4 pounds to have a small item posted.

If it's more than 50 pence difference, usually. I charge for packaging materials too.

No because of packing. Just a warning too that eBay sometimes suggest completely the wrong price. It once recommended a price far too high and another time much too low. Youre better off weighing the item and working it out yourself.

I normally refund if it's £1 or more.

How do you refund?

I do refund if it's over £1, it's a bug bear of mine when people over charge. I generally weigh items but do sometimes get it wrong and I am happy to give the extra back as I have already added in a small amount to cover packaging.

Just go into PayPal or my eBay and its eady . you can refund all or part of the payment.

*easy

You can send a payment via paypal to their email address which you can see on the paypal transaction. I have found this way avoids using the refund buyer option on the transaction which may be taken as you have refunded due to an issue by ebay.

robin that is the wrong way to do it - you refund part of the original payment, never send a separate payment to the buyer as a part or full refund

The reason I changed the way I was doing it via the item transaction (refund this item and yes you then refund 50p or whatever the difference is) was it was making me miss out on free listings cos they take it as you have refunded for an issue not as a refund for some postage back. This may be different now defects have changed though. I never had a problem just sending the 50p £1 or whatever as a separate payment - yes you dont get a tiny fee amount back but I found it was keeping my transactions without any refunds on them so they were straightforward sales. Obviously it would be different if I was refunding for the item as a return.

and then the buyer claims not received and eBay refund them all of their payment so you lose out even more.

I send tracked & signed so don't have that problem.

I just do free postage and packing as Royal Mail is so complicated now and I was making mistakes (undercharging/overcharging).

No complaints!