numerous shipping fee quotes in one sale

[4x51955]

 I recently made a sale in which the initial email from ebay was "your item sold, for x plus 70.00 shipping". So i go to pack it up and when i go to the sale summary it says the buyer selected 3 day ups and paid 48.00 for it.

Upon research this option isnt offered! There is no "3 day UPS". The closest i could find was a 2 day for 44.00.

Now i had to contact the buyer and ask what they want- what a pain! Why are there so many different quotes? How in the world did anyone or anything come up with 70.00 to ship it? Does this confusion have anything to do with the fact that i can see that even though the package is being shipped to a US address, its being then reshipped to Europe?

[nobody*s_perfect]

The eBay shipping calculator shows the retail price for the service; that's why the buyer pays more for shipping than what the seller has to pay for the label.

Buyers cannot chose a shipping service that you did not set up in the listing.

Bottom line: You should ship via "2-day" UPS.

[4x51955]

thanks so much! I was going to just use the 2 day since it was the closest. 

[monica-sells]

Your listing only offered 3-Day UPS Select for shipping.

It would be 40.23 to (as an example Ohio) and 75.73 to California.

That almost certainly had to be selected when the listing was created,

As @nobody*s_perfect pointed out, If you have not passed on the savings to your buyers, you would pay less than your customer for most services (from your ship preferences),

Note: There are no UPS 2-Day Services except UPS 2nd Day Air® which I suspect you don't offer

[nobody*s_perfect]

Addendum: I went to look at your most recent Sold item and it shows only one shipping option: "UPS 3 Day Select".  Perhaps the buyer's location is really close to you, so the service which officially takes 3 days will this time only take 2 days?  

As I mentioned in the previous post, buyers are charged the retail price for shipping.  eBay sellers get excellent discounts when purchasing shipping through eBay. For instance, shipping a 7-pound package from CT to California via UPS 3-Day Select costs $70.08 retail and only $23.67 through eBay shipping, which is a 66% discount! You can check prices using eBay's shipping calculator:

http://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator

[deltilogical]

" For instance, shipping a 7-pound package from CT to California via UPS 3-Day Select costs $70.08 retail and only $23.67 through eBay shipping, which is a 66% discount! "

Is the $23 for USPS or UPS?

[nobody*s_perfect]

Both of those prices are for UPS 3-Day Select.

[deltilogical]

I just can't imagine how their margins allow for 66% off unless they are obscenely priced to start! 

[nobody*s_perfect]

Probably a very small percentage of UPS's total business is based on individuals who walk into a UPS Store and pay full price. For each walk-in package, the UPS Store staff have to take the time to weigh and measure the package, probably have to educate the sender a bit about their options, in general there's just a lot more hand-holding involved which is time-consuming and thus expensive.  And if you think that's overpriced, you should take a look at what they charge if they sell you a box and pack it for you!

Whereas if a sender walks in with a labeled package, the staff just scans it and tosses it in the back; they don't even really look at it.