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Ebay and excessive postage fees


NikNik

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I am bid on an item in Germany. It's a small item around 5Kg in weight and the seller has postage down as £40. Other similar items have postage rates to UK half of what my seller is asking; these seem more in line with what I'd expect to spend.

My concern is this: if the seller does not use a shipping service that correlates with his postage cost, do I have a recourse to claim back the excess? Many years ago I fell foul of a Canadian seller who pulled that stunt and I vowed I wouldn't let that happen again.

So, anyone got such experience?

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But it's there for you to see before you bid, if he charges £40 and it costs £10, then he makes £30 - but he'll also get ebay fees for the £40 charge - yes Ebay also take a percentage of any delivery charges.
Yes, it's a lot, but it's your choice to bid or not.

Once you have the item you could contact him and ask about the excessive charges - or contact him now and ask him will it really cost that much?
 

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A bass (fully boxed up and weighing 9kgs) I sent to Germany cost £60 (fully insured for £500).

Depending on value, insurance, size and packaging costs this may be right or a little overpriced. The judgement is yours...

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Just consider the price plus p&p as the total you pay. Let the seller worry about how it's split: they pay fees on the lot, so there's not really much to gain from overcharging p&p unless they have priced the item keenly.

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Isn't there a recent thread on here where the person posting didn't use insured post and it went missing? I have customers who ship heavy items around the globe and that price doesn't sound horrendous if there's insurance & tracking and whatnot.

You pays your money....

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I just look at the combined total, if it's what I want to pay then I'll buy it. 

I've just bought an item that was £17 with £13 postage, the postage was far too much for the item sent, but the next cheapest, which happened to include free delivery, was £45.

To me the split is irrelevant. 

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On 29/03/2019 at 10:14, Fastra said:

But it's there for you to see before you bid, if he charges £40 and it costs £10, then he makes £30 - but he'll also get ebay fees for the £40 charge - yes Ebay also take a percentage of any delivery charges.
Yes, it's a lot, but it's your choice to bid or not.

Is that a thing now? I didn't think you could charge fees on a delivery service, as it would eat into the funds for the service itself.... Which would mean you're getting royally F'ed if you're a seller. 

I do believe if a seller lists something up for sale and the postage is a lot less than imagined, you shouldn't have to pay anything more than asked. If you ask for an additional service, i.e. insured & next day, instead of the slow boat from China, then you'll probably pay over the odds to get the service you asked for. 

On the otherhand, if you think they're profiting from the delivery fees, I'd question them beforehand and just make sure you're being charged adequately. No one likes being ripped off. 

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9 hours ago, bigsmokebass said:

Is that a thing now? I didn't think you could charge fees on a delivery service, as it would eat into the funds for the service itself.... Which would mean you're getting royally F'ed if you're a seller. 

 

Yes it was changed a few years back as rather than listing an item for £50 and £5 p&p, they list it for £5  and £50 p&p to avoid paying larger fees, (extreme example but you get the point) Or if an auction, put a high postage price, the bids would be less but the same fee avoidance was achieved. 

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@Maude there's always a way around things and it's a shame there's always one who spoils it for the rest but it just seems pointless to sell things on eBay now if you're getting charged on every aspect of a sale. Sale, delivery charge, PayPal... I'll just take things to a charity shop or post it on here 😂

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Its irrelevant what the payment / postage breakdown is isn't it? I mean if it £100 plus £40 postage its £140, so it is the same cost as something that is £120 and £20 postage.

The fees for eBay are on the total cost plus shipping, as back in the day there were a lot of people that took the fosters (especially chinese dealers), where it would be 97p and £50 postage.

 

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40 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Its irrelevant what the payment / postage breakdown is isn't it? I mean if it £100 plus £40 postage its £140, so it is the same cost as something that is £120 and £20 postage.

The fees for eBay are on the total cost plus shipping, as back in the day there were a lot of people that took the fosters (especially chinese dealers), where it would be 97p and £50 postage.

 

Are the postage rake-offs Ebay take the same percentage as what they take in FVFs? Not sure. If they are, I guess the postage is irrelevant, but if they aren't.....

Anyway, seller has replied saying insurance is included in this cost.

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Some of it must be inexperience.  If you've never sent a bass, and you can't package it because people might ask for photos, etc., you don't know what the cost to send will be and a lot of sellers are going to overestimate just to be sure it's not going to cut into the amount you're expecting.

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2 hours ago, NikNik said:

Are the postage rake-offs Ebay take the same percentage as what they take in FVFs? Not sure. If they are, I guess the postage is irrelevant, but if they aren't.....

Anyway, seller has replied saying insurance is included in this cost.

Yep, exactly the same cost:

When your item sells, you pay 10% of the final transaction value, including postage. We call this a final value fee. We cap final value fees so you'll never pay more than £250 for a single item.

So it doesn't matter where the money comes from, you pay the fee on it. So if you want to charge the right amount for postage, you need to add it to the fee. But it is also why in ebay you can select for price + p&p when you sort.

 

 

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On 31/03/2019 at 02:04, bigsmokebass said:

Is that a thing now? I didn't think you could charge fees on a delivery service, as it would eat into the funds for the service itself.... Which would mean you're getting royally F'ed if you're a seller. 

I do believe if a seller lists something up for sale and the postage is a lot less than imagined, you shouldn't have to pay anything more than asked. If you ask for an additional service, i.e. insured & next day, instead of the slow boat from China, then you'll probably pay over the odds to get the service you asked for. 

On the otherhand, if you think they're profiting from the delivery fees, I'd question them beforehand and just make sure you're being charged adequately. No one likes being ripped off. 

Yep - absolute fosters take - they take 10% of any postal charges.
So I use Parcel2Go, nothing to do with ebay - yet they still take 10% of what ever I charge my buyer - so there is a reason why charges seem excessive!

 

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