How do you know how much postage is?

[MrPony]

I'm new to this, was just listing a dress on eBay and it suggested £5.50 as the postage. How would I work out if this is accurate? Is there a general rule of thumb?

I use Hermes at £2.80 up to 2kg. £5.50 is extortionate and far from accurate I think. Will put most buyers off too

Try to keep items flat. If they are under 25mm this reduces the postage costs a LOT. Also you have to decide if you want the package to be tracked or not.

Best bet is to use Royal Mails Price Finder website.

I always use Royal Mail for anything that isn't oversized, as Hermes tend to put a lot of buyers off.

And RM often neglect to get a signature which means you are wide open to buyers claiming not to receive your item.

smiling it doesn't matter if a signature is obtained or not...... As long as a status says "delivered" then a seller will always win a case.

And besides, myhermes don't obtain a signature unless you pay an extra quid.

£5.50 is NOT accurate for a dress sent by RM. as already advised use their price finder on the RM website.

With RM if they don't bother with a signature then it won't show as delivered, and Hermes you don't need to pay for a signature for cheap items - it still shows as delivered.

1st class - £3:35
2nd class - £2.95

A bit more if the dress is especially heavy.

Those prices are based on no tracking and a plastic bag parcel about the size of A4, full.

I always use collect plus. You drop off items at a local shop once you have printed off the repaid label at home. Its done purely by weight and very easy. Its accepted as an option on ebay.

I don't have problems with RM not obtaining signatures. Well, I'm a business seller and obviously have the very occasional item "lost in the mail" (maybe 3 or 4 a year out of apx 2000) but I've had a LOT of problems with Hermes. Prob around the 4 or 5% mark.

I'm a business seller too and I send approx 5000 parcels a year. About once every 1000 I get a report of an item not arriving. It does vary by category though, and eBay parcels are more prone to disappearing than Amazon ones.

For easy pricing of RM parcels, I recommend this site;
www.seajays.org.uk/postage/ . i have a RM account now but I used Seajays a lot before that.