Ive paid £3 postage for an item that only cost 55p to send. Am I over-reacting?

[monalisasmile]

Hi all. Im quite new to ebay and this has been bugging me since last night when the item was delivered.

Ive briefly read some of the other posts here and I must admid that mine might seem quite trivial in comparison to some.

I sent the seller a mesage this morning querying the postage difference and received this reply (I dont think it would be fair for me to reveal the seller's identity in any way, so ahve removed it from the reply):

"hello, To be honest i am new aswell. Ive sold quite alot of dresses and in the begining i under charged and lost out. So what i did is i set my standard rate which isnt that dear. And then i dropped the price of my dresses. Some designer was only £1. Check out the items in feed back. I belive you can see the p&p at the time of bidding and its your choice if you bid or not. My exact thoughts when i posted yours was great ive made a little money on p&p aswell so i do understand and it is a LITTLE PERK. I have 4 children all under the age of 9. I do have to drive 2 miles to the post office plus packaging which i know is peanuts in this case So i will offer you £1 out of goodwill. That is purley so i hope you dont give me bad feed back . But overall, £6 for a loverly dress that is delivered to your door is a bargin."

I think most of what is said is irrelevant, what does anyone think please. I though p&p was for 'postage and packaging' nnot 'petrol and person circumstances'.

Most online shops charge at least £4 for a home delivery and they tend to make a profit on that. I really don't think you can justify complaining if you knew the price of the P&P before hand.

I'm not sure theres much point me posting as I'm kind of repeating what others have said, but as a long standing (mostly) buyer and seller on ebay I agree with the points made i.e. if the seller is up front about p&p, then you are making an informed decision when you bid. Similarly if they don't state 'combined postage reduction' then you can't really complain, even if you think it stinks!
You're never going to know exactly how much it costs to post, but its usually pretty obvious if they're taking the p*ss so you just dont bid. They'll have feedback too - if thats all +ve, then ask yourself is it still a bargain even with what you might consider elevated p&p costs? Then who cares what they're asking?
Usually, sellers are just normal folks trying to make it worth their while selling stuff on ebay. The charges and fees for ebay and paypal have risen from nothing in the past to pretty substantial now, so it makes sense to 'round up'. Plus as has been stated, people have to pack up stuff and get to the post office. It might not be deemed 'ethical' to do it but its pretty logical and fairly standard practice. I don't have a problem with it at all. Theres always something else to bid on

Does it really matter to the buyer how much the P&P is? If the item costs, for example, £5 including P&P, does it matter if the P&P was a quid or 4?

From eBay/PayPal's POV I can see they don't like inflated P&P because they don't make money on that part of the sale, but to the buyer, I think it is irrelavent really, surely you would only bid if you are happy with, or can afford, the whole payment?

And I know the OP is saying she didn't know until it arrived how much it would be to post, but at the end of the day you agreed to pay the first amount, the refund, in my opinion, is very very nice of the seller, I don't think many people would have even offered it.

It does niggle when you see you paid a lot more than you really should have for the P&P.
All this was put in perspective for me when I had a buyer carry on something wicked because she paid 20p more than the stamp...
I sell (mainly) and try to be fair with the P&P, not just for fairness sake but because I can lose sales if my P&P is higher than another same/similar item. When I work out how much I do actually spend on packaging and travel though....well, I wonder why I do it

The only time I got cross at paying over-the-odds for the shipping was when the item arrived 2 weeks late and poorly packed. I agree to the P&P before I bid therefore i have no grumble, unless....they take the pee.

P&P charges are always a sore point. Only last night I saw 2 items I wanted from the same seller. the P&P was a tad too high but I would have paid it - if i was only getting one item. I contacted him prior to bidding and asked if he combined the P&P. he replied saying no. I wasn't prepared to pay the high P&P so i didn't bid. Just a silly set of principles really

People soon get the hang of what they are prepared to pay, but mistakes can be made when people first start out on ebay. I have on a few occasions sent a newbie extra money when a packet arrives and the postage is less than I paid.

I sold some stuff on ebay a while back and really lost out on underestimating postage. One item cost me 5.20 to send but I only quoted 2.50 and by the time I had boxed it up even though I had weighed it, the cost went right up so I was 2.70 out of pocket.

I wouldn't have dreamt of asking the buyer to pay extra, it was my mistake.

The one thing I forgot was the packaging and some stuff I have cost, it has cost me another 1.50 to buy packaging for................ so to be honest, I think you are wrong as if it was a t.shirt you can see that in the photo and you know it's not going to cost 3.00 to send. Sorry

I have an ebay shop and hate the problems that postage brings. I have been charged £7 postage on a 99p item in the past and when I looked at the label it cost the sender about £1.50 to send it!
I think sellers should consider the pricing of the items more carefully. I am all for adding something onto postage to cover packing and handling but not taking the piss. In my case though postage is small amounts cos I sell small items.

online shops don't make a profit on 4.00 postage unless they are selling eg cds all th time..if it is a flat rate on any parcel of goods then at first class postage rates it can actaully work out at an overall loss..don't forget VAT, bubble wrap boxes tape etc

I send many parcels that cost 7 8 or 9 pounds or more

the cheapest are 1.70

it is swings and roundabouts but if you sell diverse items then 4.00 postage is barely breaking even

I always try to round it up , cds/dvds I charge £1 for and they cost about 60p to post but then add a jiffy bag at around 30p if its new.It bugs me to see people charging £3-4-5 for dvd postage so I don't bid.I always check price incl p&p.

i underestimated a coat postage cost in the end. after ebay fees, paypal fees, i made 10p.

misdee; but you're great at ebay. Dont ruin my mental image of you!!

I 'won' a load of ELC animals for ds1 some time ago, for about £4.50 including postage, and it cost the seller £7.59 to send. Now that is bad estimation.

it was mty early days mustrunmore.

it wa sa very heavey coat. i just didnt realise how heavey. d'oh!

I used to sell designer make up (Chanel etc) on ebay and always charged about £2.50 for a single item, however I would combine postage. Yes the postage costs less than that but IMHO they were getting a brand new boxed full sized item at between 30 - 50% of the cost in the shops, always packed in a brand new jiffy bag, with proof of postage. It usally cost me around £1 to send the item and about 20p for the bag, plus my time/effort of going to the shops

I often underestimate postage. The last 2 items I sold were combined and the buyer didn't ask for reduce postage (and paid quickly). The postage was too much, so I emailed her and offered to send her some more stuff (it was SN stuff) for free. She hasn't got back to me yet, but would be happy to.

If I think postage is too much I just don't bid tbh. I find that sometimes peope overcharge but others undercharge, so I figure it all works out.

Sorry to HICACK this thread

Mustrunmore and to please goes to this thread asasp.

I agree with everyone who says you agreed to pay the P&P when you bid, but it does niggle when you know they obviously haven't paid very much for it. I recently paid £6 postage for a bulky but squashy item, quite lightweight, believing it was going to be boxed or whatever, it came wrapped in a black bin sack and cost about £2.50 to post.

It is annoying, but when I sell, if the p&p costs me significantly less than I estimated, I refund the buyer a little bit. What goes around, comes around and all that. Dh thinks I'm soft, but i'd rather feel I was being fair, and giving someone a nice surprise makes me feel good too.

Chalk it up to experience I say.

I have my own shop on ebay and run it as a business. My postage rate per item is £1.50 or £1.25 and I do discoun t for multiple items. The actual cost of the stamp varies from 37p to £1.23.
Now some would consider this to be overcharging on postage & packaging.However on top of the stamp there are additional costs of the envelopes, tape, plastic bags, tissue paper, labels for addresses, petrol to and from the post office and most importantly time spent picking,packaging and at the post office. At busy times I, like many other mail order businesses, employ someone to pack the bras for me as there just are not enough hours in the day.
What i'm trying to explain is that there is much more than getting your item to you than the price of the stamp.

Have to say that I am at including a taxi fare in the cost of postage.

it was the only way i could get the package to town, it was huge, i dont drive and i have 2 children, 14weeks and 2 years. i had no other way to get to town with it!

and the bloke only paid £21 for a full set of newborn and 0-3 month clothes, so the clothes he acctually got for £3. if the acctual clothes had gone for say£12 i would have reduced postage to £10 and paid the taxi out of the money for the clothes.

i said this to the bloke and he has left positive feedback saying they are great items and im very honest!

I bought a lot of happy land (ELC) toys on ebay before Christmas. I paid £5.50 for the items and £3.00 p&p so £8.50 in total.

The parcel cost the seller £15.40 to post!!!

I agree some sellers overcharge but I have never been undercharged so much before. it would have been cheaper for the seller to take the lot to the charity shop.

If an item has high p&p stated, say £20 for a bundle of baby clothes, then people only bid a couple of quid for it, as they factor in how much is being charged for p&p. If the same item had p&p stated as £2 people would bid up to £20 or more, so you're generally still paying the same all-in.
I buy & sell, my time spent packing and going to the PO has a value, included in the p&p charge is the hour it takes me to walk to the post office and queue then walk home. Am I really expected to be doing that for nothing? Surely thats the whole point of p&p, to cover all costs involved, and even when you consider you've been charged a lot more than the stamps cost, I bet you've been charged a lot less than an hour at minimum wage!
If you know the p&p charge up front you have the right to bid or not, and adjust the amount you are willing to pay accordingly. If you're that concerned ask the seller beforehand to tell you how much the item weighs so you can check on royalmail.com, and to detail for you what other costs they have factored into the p&p charged, if you're not happy with the reply, don't bid. As a seller I'd really rather my item didn't sell at all than have to deal with someone being petty over my p&p charges.

Only read the OP but P&P includes all wrapping,tape etc as well as cost of driving and parking and actually sending. If you don't like the postage don't bid

P+P includes all postage costs
The packet, in my case I incur parking charges as well.
Most people lump their ebay fees (sellers pay a listing and final value of sale fee plus paypal fees) onto P+P
I don't postage for one small thing is never over £1.80

I think lower postage attracts better bids, I avoid items that have IMHO excessive postgae and £3 for one kids dress would fall into that.

yes

you read what the postage cost is before you bid and if you think it's unreasonable contact the seller before you bid, i know it's annoying but if you saw what the postage was before you started youcan;t really say anything

plua postage includes things like bubble wrap, paper, plastic, jiffy bags etc and these can add to the price too

if i thibk that postage is too much on an item i suggest a different courier or say that it doesn't have to be 1st class etc

Hi as the op just thought i'd make my final post on this. Thanks for all the replies.

I have replied to the seller just after my last post yesterday politely declineing her offer of a refund. I made it clear to her that iam new to ebay and did not understand that p&p in ebay terms means "how much seller will charge to send" as opposed to "how much it will cost the seller to post". A lot of valid points were made eg. about parking costs etc and standard postage charges which in broad terms are balanced against items that actually cost more or less than the stated cost.

I also did not want the seller to feel that she needed to 'buy good feedback'.

Im glad that I asked the intial question though, cos for clueless people like me receiving a dress in a standard envelope, I just looked at things from my point of view and a superficial level.

Im off sick from work at the moment and have just bought three more items since yesterday. I hope i get better soon or at this rate i'll end up sending more than I coud be earning!

Thanks again all.