A friend at work has a bone to pick with some eBay sellers who charge excessive amounts for shipping. It really ticks him off when he gets charged $14.99 shipping for a $9.99 item, and finds out that the shipping only cost $1.85. It doesn't matter if the item was a great deal at $24.98 — the fact that the seller made $13.14 on the shipping charge bugs him.
Padding the shipping charges has advantages for the seller:
- A lower starting price or Buy It Now price generates more interest. When choosing between cheap and expensive, most folks will look at the cheap one first.
- Lower listing fees and lower final value fees. A lower starting price generates smaller listing fees. A lower ending price generates smaller final value fees, since the final value fee is charges based on the final bid price, not the total price.
High shipping charges do have disadvantages, though:
- Potential buyers may walk away after seeing the charges.
- The auction could get pulled if the shipping charges are deemed excessive and if eBay calls it fee avoidance.
- Buyers may be unhappy if they didn't catch the excessive shipping charges before buying the item.
When I look at an eBay auction, if I don't know what the total cost to my door is going to be, I don't bid. Reasonable shipping charges, high shipping charges, ridiculous shipping charges, or no shipping charges do not matter to me. Sellers have to do what they have to do to sell. I'm not going to call then on their decisions unless they deceive me or don't charge me what they say they'll charge me. I take the item price and the shipping price (whatever it is), add them, and base my bidding decision on that sum. I don't really care how much eBay makes or doesn't make on the transaction, because the transaction is free for me as a buyer. Nor do I really care how or where the seller makes his/her money. If they put all of the profit in the shipping, I don't care! I just want the best total price I can get.
My friend was thinking that a system that takes all of the guesswork out of shipping charges would make eBay a friendlier and simpler place to do business for both sellers and buyers. He also thought that it would be of prime importance for eBay to institute some uniform shipping pricing system to enhance the buyer's experience and reduce the number of buyers who walk away disgusted that a seller would rip them off on high shipping prices.
I sell on eBay as well. I think I charge reasonable shipping, and I state it clearly in all of my auctions. But if I had to justify all of my shipping charges to ensure that they were not excessive — by putting in weight for each item, for example — it would be more of a pain for me, and I'd tend to not list as much. Fewer products listed and sold on eBay means fewer fees for them. Are they going to raise a stink if I list a gold coin for a $0.99, plus $1,000 shipping? Of course. But if it's reasonably close, I'm sure they've found out that giving sellers leeway is the best way to encourage them to list. It's not really in eBay's best interest to get into the sellers' knickers like that.
Additionally, from the buying standpoint, eBay is a marketplace, and a surprisingly loosely-controlled one at that. It's up to buyers to be knowledgeable, ask questions, use common sense, and to beware. I'm just about as comfortable buying off of eBay as I am with any other store, because I know what to look for in a potential seller and I check the shipping charges! I don't think that's particularly hard, but if it is for someone, eBay probably would be too daunting for them to use.
What do you think about this shipping charge tactic? Good, bad, indifferent?
The excessive fees are getting out of hand at times, and it is a major irritant to me. Yet, if I've had a good experience with a seller, I tend to go back to them again even if I don't like the way they handle shipping fees. Like you, I look at the total value (including shipping) when I bid. I guess I've just learned to adjust, but it certainly makes me suspicious of sellers with inflated charges.
I agree on reasonable fees. I've also sold items with reasonable fees and had the buyer whine later that my fees were too high (I think I had an extra 50¢ for my labor of packing up the coin, filling out all the customs paperwork, packaging, etc.) To frustrate me further, he was from OUTSIDE the geographic areas I specified AND the US POSTAL SERVICE refused to even insure the package to that country. Frankly, I wasn't familiar with what the charges would be so I put a small premium on the Global flat rate price (just for the hassle). Everything was clearly outlined in my listing. It just bothered me because there are plenty of 99¢ laptops with $1999.99 in fees. "Fair Shipping fees" is a feedback criteria now too. I'm not sure how much that will weigh in on ratings, but it's been added.
I gotta agree it's a bit lame and deceptive to start with super low prices (sometimes a penny) and charge $19.99 shipping. I generally find that the sellers choosing this route are power sellers on ebay or ones with ebay stores. They've got a ton of merchandise and they'd rather go the buy it now route where they basically know the exact price because they charge a crazy high shipping fee. But it still irks me. I sell a lot of stuff myself on ebay and I'll tack on maybe an extra buck or two to cover my own expenses, more if I actually have to buy extra supplies (like boxes or bubble wrap, etc.). That's to be expected. And even with today's crazy gas prices, a little extra to cover gas to the post office is fine too. (Although you can easily do it free and online through usps.org's webstie).
But I too get suspicious of crazy high shipping rates. Plus, it drives me insane trying to watch/compare different auctions for the same product. It's cheaper here, but has more shipping. It's more expensive there, but regular shipping. The buy it now is super low but crazy shipping, etc. I went through this yesterday in fact, and my head is still spinning trying to figure it all out…
I rarely buy on ebay anymore due to inflated shipping charges and that I didn’t receive some goods I ordered. Unless it's an item I can’t find anywhere or ebay store. I’d rather shop amazon or a yard sell.
As long as it is reasonable, I don't have a problem paying shipping fees. It takes time and effort to ship items. There are a also lot of benefits on the seller's end for having the higher shipping fees – mostly the opportunity to add a little income to the final price without eBay taking a cut. But I also don't think sellers should take advantage of the situation.
"Inflated" shipping charges?? Excuse me, but eBay sellers do not live at the post office. FYI, I am not an eBay seller…so my opinion is not biased. Sellers have to pack up your crap you buy and drive out to a post office, or print the label on their printer etc. If you don't like the shipping charge, stop crying and don't BUY it. Your item needs a box, packing, and most likely a trip somewhere in a car and waiting in a long line to send it to your address. I feel the shipping charge is justified.
I shop a LOT on eBay and have for many years. I avoid any auction with inflated shipping charges and low bid prices. I feel they are dishonest sellers because I am buying the item not buying 'shipping x four'; and if the seller tries to be 'creative' in this manner, then what else may s/he try to get creative about? It also makes a failure of the Search by Lowest Price option. I don't mind at all paying for actual or approximated shipping along with a reasonable handling fee, as long as they're clearly stated. Other buyers agree with me apparently – try searching for any item and notice how few inflated shipping ones have sold. But I'm a picky buyer I guess – I also avoid auctions with tons of junk on the page (please get to the point!) or ones that make it difficult to find the shipping charge.
I agree with you completely. Anyone who buys on eBay without factoring in shipping costs is a fool begging to be fleeced. If the $5 item I want has a $20 shipping fee, I move on. If it isn’t on eBay, I check goodwill.com. If worse comes to worse, I’ll wait til it appears at the Salvation Army for $1. Few items I shop for are “must have”. Also I look for those merchants on eBay offering free shipping.
Those are great ideas! I hit Goodwill pretty often. They do a decent job with turning over inventory so that things are different.
ebay is just making a killing as usual and nothing can really stop it as its just too big company may aswell just live and let live
I tend to avoid sellers who inflate their shipping charges now, because I've found that they DO tend to be the dishonest sellers. (I'm not talking about a dollar or two to cover costs, I'm talking about $15 to ship something for $4 and so on). I used to think that as long as the final price was what I was willing to pay, who cared – but people who gouge on shipping have turned out to also be the ones who misrepresent items, don't disclose flaws, and don't answer emails when you have a problem. True, as long as you pay with paypal you can dispute it and try to get your money back, but who wants to spend the time dealing with that? So now I avoid them, but it's really not because of their shipping, it's because I think bidding on their items is risky.
I only sell a few things every now and then. I tend to guess on shipping charges. A few times I have been way off. So much so that I refunded part of the money because I felt guilty and didn't want the buyer thinking that I inflated the shipping charges on purpose.
When I'm buying, I also factor in the shipping charges when deciding how much to bid.
Ebay is setting people up to be pissed off. They call it all shipping. The correct thing to do would be to call shipping "shipping" and explicitly break out handling.
1. This would make the handling charges go down (that which is bad and measured goes down).
2. People who have a real cost to handling crap can actually charge what it costs to handle it, and people know what that is when you buy it.
For instance, I sold a bunch of my old books on ebay. I said there is a $3 handling fee per book and told customers I'd combine shipping *but not handling*.
I told several people that. One them bought 18 books then balked when they were charged $3 per book to handle them as they were told.
Why this is correct to do:
————————–
I arrived at this fee costing out all the money it cost to mail all the books, buy all the envelopes things to mail the books in, the paper to print out all the mail things, the tape to tape everything, and the ink to print all the labels with (1/2 cartridge). This came out to 2.76 per book per my estimates. I put in a margin so I wouldn't lose money in case of random other fees. Could I have done that cheaper? Probably, but it was what my cost was at the time, and I didn't want to spend more time on it.
Frankly, I don't think most amateur sellers, properly cost out all of these materials and the cost of a clerk to handle everything.
Even though that particular box cost less than $60 to handle, my total price to buy all the supplies, the 5 trips the store and 4 to the mailbox all added up to the same amount of money after all. (I really came in at a number of about $2.10 per book in the end, but I had no way to know that in the middle of it all).
Perfection of Auctions:
———————-
The price in an auction should be determined by the value of the item. Not of the value of an item minus the costs to get it to you.
If that was the case, a buyer in Singapore buying a diamond the size of a peanut from a jewelery store in Manhattan would be undercharged compared to the guy who walks into the same store and buys the same diamond if they both paid the store the cost of shipping and the price of the diamond. Its a lot harder for the store to get the diamond to Singapore than to the dude who walked in.
If you're going to try to force people to eat those costs, you should *also* allow them to setup complex costing rules, like 10 cents per email you send me about the transaction, or $15 dollars to fill out a Canadian customs form and deal with their bullshit.
( Actually, I think that's going to be my Canada policy from now on: Yes I ship there, but handling is $18 dollars per item :o) )
flifla, people aren't shipping these items out of the kindness of their heart it is a business transaction and shipping materials, time and mileage are all costs of doing business. I don't think anyone is up in arms over the person getting a couple of bucks over actual postage cost but when you have sellers with thousands of feedbacks who charge 5x shipping costs, I have to believe they are just waiting for the people that don't read the details. I have bought and sold quite a few things on eBay, thats not how I do business and I don't do business with those that do. I estimate my shipping costs as close as I can (yes I have stuffed a dollar or two in the corner of a box I am shipping if I was way off) and the price reflects what the item is worth, it's not hidden in the details of the transaction. When I was selling a ton of CDs, my packaging cost was 10.5 cents per CD. Those people with thousands of feedbacks buy those shipping supplies in bulk (off eBay of course), make a couple of runs to the post office per week but they seem to be the majority of the people that slap a book in a 40 cent mailer with $2 in postage and charge the buyer $9.95.
That being said, I have little sympathy toward those that don't pay attention to the shipping charge. People are too careless on eBay (along with other places) with their money and maybe if they get stung by inflated shipping charges, they will be more careful in the future.
I try to be as fair as possible when I ship things for buyers on eBay. I rarely charge over a dollar for the shipping and handling expenses. I guess if people are willing to pay for extra expenses, it's not such a bad thing.
i sold some "nike roller blades" mens size 10 very expensive
on "ebay"
i started at $1
and only the one bid..
the skates were all there and more
but I wanted $20 shipping..
i took the blades through customs, gas, packing etc..
and the guy whinned that i made $0.23 on shipping..
a person can dispute shipping and it is in ebay on how to dispute "excessive shipping"
anyhow i spent hours in "customs" clearing those blades..and didn't ask for that..just wanted the skates to go to someone that could use them and enjoy..for the cheap price..
then the guy "whines about 23cents"
The biggest problem I have with sellers that "shift" their price into the S+H column is that it doesn't allow me to shop for items based on their final total cost to me. Having a low item price moves these sellers to the top of the search results at the expense of sellers who are pricing their product fairly and their S+H expenses fairly.
Great, great comments everyone! Thank you!
I appreciate the comments both from the buying side and the selling side.
Most of what I've sold has been shipped with "free" (re-used) packing materials and the price I charged has usually been enough to give me a profit, cover those costs, and allow me to charge actual shipping.
I haven't bought so much on eBay that I've seen any appreciable dishonesty with those who inflate their shipping charges, so that's something to watch out for.
@m2storey: That really sucks. There will be people who will never, ever be satisfied with a deal, and I think you ran into one with your skates. I think that buyer will find that folks won't want to sell to him, though.
Interesting, I really hadn't thought of the shipping charges in that way. I just starting unloading some of my personal clutter on eBay, and have been unpleasantly surprised to find the actual cost of shipping some of my stuff. I have a set of dinnerware up right now, and the 16 plates total almost 15 pounds. I used both the USPS and UPS websites to estimate the shipping costs, and it will cost me about $15 to ship in the US. Frankly, I didn't expect to ask that much for the plates. I put in a minimum bid of $10, as I would like to get SOMETHING for them, which means the plates will sell for a minimum of $25. I wish there was a cheaper shipping solution. I am putting all of my heavier stuff on Craigslist, hoping to sell it locally to avoid shipping charges.
You can report unfair shipping prices to ebay (http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-shipping.html) click report at the bottom. I once saw someone a bunch of Items and the shipping was £98 and the starting price was £0.99. The shipping only cost about £15 so the seller was really trying to avoid paying selling fees. I told someone and they reported them and the shipping prices went down in about 2hours so if you report them there will eventually be no-one doing it but it requires a lot of effort.
I do not think that shipping materials or labor should go into the shipping charges, only the variable charges should be included.
If the shipping materials and labor are the same to ship to Alaska or Florida, they should be in the price of the item… not shipping charges.
I am using eBay less and less because of ridiculous shipping charges.
Excessive Shipping Charge on Ebay: Good or Bad for the Buyer?
I've often heard buyers complain about a seller who overcharges on shipping. They feel that they are being cheated. Let's look at a couple of examples to see if this is really the case.
For our purposes, let's assume that a seller is wanting to sell a $30 product and make a 10% or $3 profit on the sale. Since the actual shipping charges will be the same regardless of how much is charged, we
can ignore that amount. Ebay final value fees are 10% of the actual item amount. PayPal fees are roughly 3% of the total amount (item + shipping).
Example #1
Shipping Charges = $0 (free)
In order to make the desired profit of $3, the seller would need to charge $37.93.
$37.93
– 3.79 (10% ebay fees)
– 1.14 (3% paypal fees of cost + shipping)
= $33 (the seller's product cost of $30 + $3 profit)
The total cost to the buyer would be $37.93 (item cost) + $0 (shipping) = $37.93
Example #2
Shipping Charges = $10
In order to make the desired profit of $3, the seller would need to charge $26.79.
$26.79
– 2.68 (10% ebay fees)
– 1.10 (3% paypal fees of cost + shipping)
+ 10.00 (shipping charges)
= $33 (the seller's product cost of $30 + $3 profit)
The total cost to the buyer would be $26.79 (item cost) + $10 (shipping) = $36.79.
As you can see by the above examples, while the seller is still making the desired $3 profit, the buyer is actually paying $1.14 less in example #2. This is the amount that has been saved in Ebay and PayPal
fees.
Perhaps the next time that we see a seller who we feel is overcharging on shipping, we should thank them for passing the savings on to us.
I really don't mind paying shipping on most things – I even understand the need to add on extra funds here and there but I recently bought a 9.99 item and was then charged an extra 30.00 for shipping.
I thought it was excessive so I emailed the seller thinking it was being shipped quickly. I received a reply talking about having to pay e-bay $1.55 to insert the ad paying E-bay an 8.75% value fee and paying Paypal a 2.9% charge plus 30 cents to collect payment from me.
OK fine I get these – but was that 30.00? The reply went on to talk about the other expenses of doing business, like the time and gas and mileage charges, paying an auto leasing company to go to buy the item, and then the costs to come back to the sellers office office and the costs of wrapping paper, boxes and tape, and the time to wrap it, and so forth and so on…
It was a long winded justification of jacking me on the shipping costs.
As an e-bayer, I paid a day or so after the explanation because I had made a committment to buy the item. As a consumer I am a little peeved at this sort of practive.
Indeed, as a consumer – I understand that people need to mark-up a product – often by 100% – to make a profit. Honestly though, I would rather pay for that increase up-front and honest then on the back end in a sort of 'sneaky' way…
I shop on e-bay for a number of reason – often to find things I can't get in my community, or for interesting or antigue/hard-to find items so price is only one consideration when I shop.
Until this incident, I have found most sellers to be very reasonable and had never balked at the cost for shipping things… but this was my first experience with such blatent infation and I have to say I was shocked and a little angry.
I will be more careful from now on and request shipping costs before I buy when they aren't listed.
Sorry for the rant but this is stuck in my craw today.
Adding an extra buck or two for buying parcels/packing material and then a few more bucks to cover gas to get to the post office etc are just plain excuses! What, you drive to the post office back and forth once per each item you sell? I don't think so, you wait 4 days or a week for the pile of parcels to mail out to grow, then you go to the post office ONCE and mail everything at the same time.
I buy alot of CDs and DVDs, and the eBay shipping prices are 100% outrageous. How many times haven't I seen shipping rates like "1 st CD $6.99, each additional $4.99". If I buy two CDs from that seller, the shipping alone is 12 bucks! When the seller in reality pays a couple of bucks.
If you compare eBay sellers' prices (total price, including shipping expenses), to Amazon's marketplace sellers, you will find out that the total price is cheaper on Amazon in 99% of the cases.
I have stopped completely supporting eBay and its scammer sellers, unless I am on the hunt for a rare item I can't find on other sites.
Next time you're buying something on eBay, compare the prices with Amazon's marketplace sellers' prices before actually going thru with the purchase!
I can also advice you that Amazon's customer service is 100 times better than most (i'm not going to say all, because there are some honest ones left) sellers on eBay. If I receive a broken item from Amazon, they replace it without any hassles. Would most eBay sellers do it? No way. "It's not my fault, it's the postal service fault". And don't get me started on their totally pointless retaliatory feedback system that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
To make a long story short: 90% of all sellers on eBay today are LIARS, THIEVES and SCAMMERS. End of discussion!
Hello, i sell many item in ebay. to keep eBay from eating our profit i think its reasonable to inflate shipping charges. Example: i sell a cd for 5 and charge 7 for shipping, fees are about 1 dll, you geat still a great cd for 12 dlls. Noe ebay has limited shipping to just 3 dlls. Noy i have to sell the cd at 10 and charge 3 for shipping to barely make the same money as ebay also DOUBLED the listing and FVF… so now to make the same profit, my customer need to pay 13. Its clarly better to inflate shipping charges as the savings gain on not paying ebay more is passed ususally to the customer.
At the end the buyer can alway disagree to the purchase and an agreement can be easily reached to cancel whatever transaction, therefore, buyer and seller should be able to choose freely how to advertise, for how much sell and purchase, it one doesn't like the other product or price, well theres are always other sellers and buyers in the market
I want sellers to charge outrageous shipping and handling. It allows them to sell at an overall lower price. Why? because more money to gets to be shared between buyer and seller and leaves ebay and paypal out.
I'm not going to look at and calculate the actual fees, but here's what I mean by way of fictitious example:
Item $0.01
S+H $100.00
Total $100.01
Cuts
ebay $0.20
buyer/seller $99.81
Item $100.01
S+H FREE
Total $100.01
Cuts
ebay $14.00
buyer/seller $86.01
buyer/seller +$13.80
Now the buyer and seller have $13.80 to divvy out between the two of them. When everything else is equal, the seller will have saved $6.80 and the buyer $6.80. The buyer gets a better price and the seller is able to profit and to continue buying and selling. He has more resources with which to buy and sell.
He can also bring more goods to the market. Goods must have an acceptable profit margin. If that $6.80 margin is done away with, it will reduce the variety of products he can sell and it will also decrease his volume. When you decrease volume you put upward pressure on prices.
Ever noticed how ebay doesn't simply list the total price on the item up for bid (bid+shipping+handling)? I mean, there are computer programs out there that can still add, right? It'd be quite simple to do. They don't do it because it'll begin to make sense in your mind that it doesn't matter what column you write your expenses in or which way you choose to itemize them.
All that matters is the bottom-line: BUYER: I now have the product and I now have X less dollars. SELLER: I now have the money and I now have X less inventory.
It's like saying you want to pay someone 10% more for the Free Shipping text on their auctions – ABSURD!
This is what you get when you send your kids to public schools.
How can any price be unfair? In order for a price to effect a transaction BOTH parties must agree to it. Would you sell a soda can for $1,00000000000 if I offered it to you?
Also, when you whine about unfair s+h charges to ebay all you’re doing is asking them to raise the price on YOU by demanding they extract a larger percentage of you and the seller’s transaction. You’re also increasing their cost of doing business by having them micromanage your idyllic world.
Do people think anymore or do they just act like animals and follow their ravenous instincts?
Don’t like the higher shipping? Go back to doing ‘business’ on CraigsList.
And while you’re there picking through someone else’s junk, try to understand why a seller would rather make a buck instead of surrendering his wares to you and coughing up fees to ebay and PayPal, thus walking away with NOTHING for his time to offer that “just what I was looking for” item to a sniper who pounced on his auction at the last minute for .99¢ with “reasonable” shipping charges.
It’s a shopping site not a garage sale!
Oh, and here’s another bit of realism to all you “disgusted” wannae be snipers…..
The ‘WINNER’ of an Auction is actually the LOSER as he is the person who was willing to PAY the Most! If the price is .99¢ and the shipping is XXX$ and 1. You want it, 2. The TOTAL price is fair….. what’s the beef? At least you know some inexperienced flea market shopper (bidder) isn’t going to raise the price on ya! Now hurry up and “Buy it Now” before someone else does because you wanted the thrill of being the “winner”….. or you expected to pay .99¢ for that American Gold Eagle….. Dunces!
Hmm… don’t shop there.
Ebay shipping calibrations are too high I go directly to the post office or ups to ship my products, and in most cases make a small proffit $1 to 3 bucks after packaging costs, I have also taken my losses. I can see that sellers in some cases need to make some sort of a proffit from shipping but in general its ebay and pay pal that make the bucks or they wouldnt be so big.
Does anyone shop at ebay anymore? My God! With the whiny sellers, eBay thinking both buyers and sellers work for them, the lack of competitive pricing, no real customer service, virtually no one who can read or listen and protection programs that are a total joke why would people still shop at eBay? I mean, I do get that back in the old days when ebay was about the only game in town people would ship there, but why would anyone in their right mind waste their time with the idiots at ebay when there are thousands of other more legitimate places to ship where you don’t feel like you are in a den of thieves and you can actually complete a transaction with out reading the equivalent of the dead sea scrolls to get through the rules? No one needs to put up with that eBay crap.It is ridiculous. You can smell the paranoia from page one. Screw ebay. Who needs them.
Some of these comments are weird. As a principle (and who knows if there are principles for this), I wouldn’t think you’re supposed to be making your “profit” from the S+H. You’re supposed to be making profit from the price of your auction, and S+H is just that “shipping and handling” – pretty much 0 sum gain. If S+H is your profit margin, why the heck are you selling for so low? I sure as heck don’t sell my items at a price below what I want as a profit, and S+H is just that, S+H costs.
In a way, even though it feels like a money grab from e-bay, I’m glad they’re charging the FVF on cost+S+H so sellers stop having the old incentive to gouge on S+H (i.e. lower FVF) and can maybe be a bit more honest about S+H.
I mean, come on, a $4 or $5 markup on S+H? Give me a break. $1 or $2, yeah, I can understand for packing, etc. but geez.