Ebay Postage seems so high............

[anniebear]

anyone else notice how high the postage seems on clothes?

I have been looking at dresses for a 5 year old and the p&P for quite a lot are between £2.50 and £3.50

It would probably only cost £1 to send then the padded envelope if needed

I started looking on E Bay a while ago now and people didn't seem to try and make money on postage then

Just my waffling thoughts lol

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

D'oh!

[GranToAirMissiles]

Still relevant though [zombie face]

[HazeltheMcWitch]

Zombie thread....

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

I really don't understand this.

When I order online from eg Wallis, part of my decision as to whether to shop there is the reasonableness of the P&P - most online shops charge £3-£6 unless the order is £50-£100+

That's part of my buying decision. Why should eBay be any different?

[GranToAirMissiles]

Why not make postage & packing free, thus attracting buyers and saving yourself a lot of weighing and calculating hassle, and add something to the item price to compensate?

[SecondhandRose]

I just gave someone back £3 postage as I had charged £9 to post a heavy jumper for worldwide post but it came in quite a bit less as she was in Italy so I refunded her £3 to her Paypal account and she didn't even say thank you!

[mumfor1standfinaltime]

I agree that sometimes people can take the p*ss when it comes to postage and packing on ebay, like for example a ladies vest top which I was looking at had £5.95 postage!

I wouldn't bid on anything which had a high postage rate, and the more people that don't the better!
It is also done in a way so that people can pay less fees, for example it is cheaper to list an item such as an item of light clothing with a start bid of 1p and put the postage at £9.99 (making seller a min of £10) than doing a start bid of say a fiver with £5 post. This is against ebays policy. You cannot list something which has excessive and unrealistic postage.

I also think that at this time of year obviously people want to make as much as possible.

I am a regular seller and buyer on ebay and the only thing I wish they did was to have a search bar for postage rates, they have one for start bids/maximum price of item, so why not a postage one?

[VoluptuaGoodshag]

Ditto - I always look at the P&P to determine if something is a bargain or not

[Skribble]

Thats where you have to be careful when looking for bargains, look at the costs as a whole and decide if you would be better buying localy. P&P is the first thing I look at its right there in black and white when looking at lists of items.

[zippitippitoes]

I think you can see the postage cost so if you make a mistake it's your fault, I've only bouhgt a few things on ebay and i do the same as with any other website find out the P&P first and then decide whether to buy or go elsewhere.

[ginmummy]

But if you pay £5 for something as a bargain and you have to pay another £5 (or whatever) on top it's not quite the bargain it first seemed.

P.S. Never bought or sold anything on ebay. Just playing Devil's advocate.

[wanderingstar]

I do think it's totally fair to charge for post and packing - the packing element to include your envelope/mailbag/label/your time spent assembling the parcel carefully. Plus, where I live, although i do sometimes walk to the PO, sometimes i have the car and need to use expensive pay and Display bays. Obviously it's against the rules to charge an excessive amount, but I try to keep to the going rate for similar items, or a little less. It's not just the cost of the actual stamp to be factored in ! If I were running a business, quite rightly ALL the costs associated with post and packing would be in the accounts as a cost, not just the 65p or whatever that some of you think ought to be all the buyer pays for.

[Skribble]

Sorry wrong htread I don't want more ideas on this one

[Skribble]

Bump for other ideas

[Skribble]

BTW I don't charge £3.50.

When buying second hand on ebay I go by the total price including P&P and think do I want to pay that.

[Skribble]

I have 100% feedback and feel I am far with postage it is right there on the listing for everyone to see, you decide if you want to pay £3.50 or whatever to get it delivered.

I sell quite a lot of different things and try to weigh them and work it out as best as possible, but it can be hard to get multiple purchases right as it goes by weight and size not quantity of items. Also it is quite difficult how much it will weigh once packaged and I can't wrap everything up them weigh it as people buy different combinations and quantities.

I had a customer who bought a few things seperatly before I had figured out how to offer discounts on postage and the postage combined was quite high, I offered her a refund on part of the postage she said it was OK not to bother so I put in a couple of extra items and thanked her very much.

If you think postage is a bit much don't buy it, why buy it then complain that you paid too much because of what is on the stamp, the amount you are going to have to pay is not hidden or added without your knowledge.

[quanglewangle]

In that case, don't forget ths cost of the petrol!
Sounds very reasonable to me.

[misdee]

i just charged somone £30 to send a buggy. postage cost was only £25, but i had to pay for the box/tape/ink also i had to lift and drive the bloomin thing to parcel force.

[quanglewangle]

In fact, now I think about it, p&p is the place to charge for time and effort, not to mention packaging materials.
Much more appropriate than tacking onto the item, which imho should reflect the worth and condition of the item and not postage costs.
Hiking fees onto p&p may not be allowed, but it acts as a useful guide. After all if you costed time it could be an awful lot more - even if you costed time very modestly!

[Piffle]

alos posting often involves paying for parking, the envelopes themselves are up to 15 p each even buying in bulk.
Also lots of people hike their ebay selling fees onto p+p which is NOTa llowed but as paypal charge for receiving funds, Ebay stopped allowing sellers to charge for the use of paypal and postage went up...
I keep postage at £1.75 for small kids items - ebay evens out, if you have high charges it does put sellers off, unless you have a really desirable item...

[quanglewangle]

How true.

[VoluptuaGoodshag]

For heaven sake - no one is forcing you to bid or buy. No-one would sell items on ebay if they thought that it was their public duty to do so subsequently all those cheapy items would never find new homes where they would be used. How many times have you been 'caught out' with the postage anyway? Once is bad luck, twice is excusable but if you continually bid against items where you think the postage is too high but don't bother checking beforehand then it's your own fault

[quanglewangle]

Yes but tissy, there isn't a slot for "a-bit-extra-for-my-time-and-effort" so what's wrong with including it with the p&p instead of the price of the item? The same logic could apply to both. But that way the seller benefits and the buyer doesn't lose out. Everybody should be happy.

[tissy]

no, I'm not saying that it should be a public service, what I'm saying is that postage costs should BE postage costs and not Postage-packing-Ebay-listing-fees-Paypal-fees-and-a-bit-extra-for-my-time-and-effort, that's all. Just because "everyone" does it, it doesn't make it right. If you have in your mind a minimum price you want for an item (for example what you would sell it for in a face-face with someone at a car boot sale) why not just list it for that price? I think it is dishonest to sell and item for a minuscule price and get the profit on the postage costs. And Ebay must disapprove as well, or there wouldn't be a procedure for reporting people who take the piss.

[quanglewangle]

Well, I am on your side Voluptua.
I have in the past lost out on p&p so now I play safe. I workout the p&p before listing but have sometimes found including an extra bit of paper e.g. the packing slip tips it into the next postal charge bracket, and bang goes all my profit if it is a cheap item. Plants are the hardest. Weigh them dryish and water them before posting and the postage rockets!!
Must go and ride into the sunset....