I’ve over charged on postage - wwyd?

[AngryCrispLady]

Not by much. Something I thought would be £2.90 as second class small parcel went add £1.22 second class large letter. Would you refund the difference to the buyer?

Thanks

I tend to pop some coins in the parcel if it happens to me, this might not be practical if you get your items weighed at the Post Office though.

I discovered a while back that you lose money on refunding via PayPal as I used to do that, not sure if it has changed since then.

Reasons I now use 'free' inclusive P&P because sometimes once something is packaged up I find that the rate I thought it would be is not the rate is turns out to be, sometimes it costs me more and I lose out but it is easier in the end.

I have done this and haven't refunded. Buyers take postage costs into account when deciding how much to bid (well, I do). You haven't been disingenuous it just so happens postage was less than you were expecting.

I probably would refund if either there was a big difference or buyer asked. But never happened.

Also postage isn't just the actual postage it is also packaging costs and cost of getting to and from post office and queueing up etc.

The problem with charging more than the stamp price is that some buyers will look at the stamp price and the postage price listed and mark you down. If they are really pissed off about it they will mark all the stars down even if there was nothing wrong with the item or delivery time. You are not supposed to charge for time spent getting to the post office or waiting in the queue, only a small amount to cover materials and the actual postage cost.

They have been known to leave a negative feedback and some sellers don't know how to appeal or fail to get it removed.

Make the listing 'Free P&P' and add a bit to the price and avoid the problems.

When I found that a package cost less to post than I’d Ebay had auto calculated I did a partial refund, sent a message to the buyer explaining what I’d done. Item was signed for the next day. I never received any feedback, any acknowledgement of any sort. Just plain rude when I had gone out of my way to be fair.

Hi, Sorry if this is a stupid question - am new to selling on ebay - but I have a similar dilemma. I charged £8.90 for delivery as I was going to send by courier but buyer asked if I can send via Royal Mail as they have "had bad experiences with couriers in the past".

No problem I can send it Royal Mail signed for - but it's only £3.85 so quite a lot cheaper. (I managed to get the packaged item to be bang on 2kg (literally to the gram!) by using a plastic mailing bag and a little bubble wrap, to wrap the item (pair of boots in original box) rather than putting box inside another cardboard box, anything more than 2kg (even 10g!)and 2nd class signed for goes up to something daft like £13!) Hopefully the P Office scale agrees with mine. :)

It was a buy it now not auction and buyer did ask really nicely re Royal Mail and paid full asking price even though I allowed offers. So I think it's fair/right to refund the postage difference as it's nearly £5.

Anyway, am waffling on - the question is - I want to refund the difference - but how do I do this?

Thanks.

you can refund via pay pal. Go on to your pay pal a/c find the relevant
transaction, and it's pretty straight foeward from there on.

if you are a private seller you can add packing materials to postage but you can't add time ( you can only charge for your time if you are working and if so you are no longer a private seller) neither as a private seller can you charge for parking fees or fuel as it is assumed as private seller
you post as part of your daily life
only a business can charge business expenses like vehicle use, time etc

however if you charge more than 20-25p over the postage you will almost certainly get lower stars and too many lower stars will lead to restrictions on selling

I wouldn't refund, surely everyone factors in postage charges when they are deciding on their maximum bid?
E.g. If the most I would pay for a t shirt including postage was £10 then

• if postage was £5 I would make my maximum bid £5
• if postage was £2 I would make my maximum bid £8

Or is this just me?