eBay

jimichrome · ‎12-14-2023

For about the last half dozen sales, buyers are paying me 50-100% more for shipping than is required. In the end I inform Buyer of a better rate, switch ship service & issue Buyer's account a refund. Of course they're thankful. While I want to offer the best rates, It's more work for me the seller to make these adjustments.

When prepping an item to sell, would it not be better to have seller and buyer be working off the same shipping chart and I mean the one where either party "Compares All Services" and choose rather than specifying 2-4 random prior to posting. What am I missing? I could sell more stuff if buyers knew in advance about lower shipping cost.

monster-deals · ‎12-15-2023

@jimichrome wrote:
For about the last half dozen sales, buyers are paying me 50-100% more for shipping than is required.

Sounds great.

You could have just stopped there.

lisa5768 · ‎12-15-2023

@jimichrome wrote:
When setting up an item for sale I pick several ship services, a 1 or 2 for delivery speed and a couple more for cheapest possible. Doesn't the buyer at least get to choose among the few I offer? A buyer just paid me $19.10 for shipping a item. ( I don't know where he got that figure, it did not appear in the "Compare all services list ). I found and changed the shipper to a cost of $9.30 and refunded buyer the savings.
Thank you for reply, Jim

@jimichrome

You are spending a lot of effort trying to manage the shipping. In my experience buyers very rarely will bother choosing a shipping option. eBay defaults to the first one offered on the list so that is what they "choose". If you want to offer more than one then have the first one as the least expensive and then an expedited one in case they want it faster.

This should make your shipping much easier and you will not have to spend so much extra time on it. As others have pointed out you are paying fees on the shipping your buyer pays so be sure to account for that, and any packaging materials cost, in your quest to refund the buyer.

lisa5768
Volunteer Community Mentor

jimichrome · ‎12-15-2023

Re: "eBay defaults to the first one offered on the list so that is what they "choose". I had suspected as much so for future sales I'll be more careful to arrange a better sequence of shipping service offerings".

Re: "As others have pointed out you are paying fees on the shipping your buyer pays so be sure to account for that" When issuing a refund to a buyer via eBay, the algorithm recalculates a new total for the 13.5% fee. So I end up being charged a slightly less fee.

Thanks for reply, I'll mark it Best Ans.

nobody*s_perfect · ‎12-15-2023

@jimichrome wrote: ... When issuing a refund to a buyer via eBay, the algorithm recalculates a new total for the 13.5% fee. So I end up being charged a slightly less fee. ..

You'd be credited the 13.5% that you had been charged for the refunded amount, but you're still paying a fee of 13.5% on the portion that you keep for postage.

For example, if you charge the buyer $10 for postage, you are paying $1.35 in final value fees. If you only spend $8 on postage, and you refund the buyer $2, then you'll only be charged $1.08 in final value fees. But that $1.08 will come out of your pocket; some sellers would hold back $1 of that $2 refund, to cover their fee.