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Shipping Label Fees
Why am I being charged 2/5 of what I earned on a sale for a shipping label? I sold something last week for $25. The buyer was supposed to pay for shipping. Ebay says they paid around $5 extra for shipping & I ended up paying like $10 for a shipping label. More or less the same thing happened with my last sale prior to that as well, except that person claimed they had to pay EXTRA because it was supposedly priority shipping, then never got priority shipping (I don't have any kind of priority shipping set on any of my items that I set, so if that's set up that's something Ebay did of their own accord.) What is going on? I genuinely needed that $10. I agreed to bump this item down from $30 to $25 only because that was still a range I was ok with & actually turned down a prior offer for $20. And I ended up with even less than that. This is immensely frustrating & makes me not want to use the site as there's no way a label I print at home + a box I provided costs $10 & no where that I can find does it warn you that you will have to pay this much for "buyer pays shipping".
monroe67
Mentor8 months ago"More or less the same thing happened with my last sale prior to that as well, except that person claimed they had to pay EXTRA because it was supposedly priority shipping, then never got priority shipping (I don't have any kind of priority shipping set on any of my items that I set, so if that's set up that's something Ebay did of their own accord.)"
The feedback from the buyer of your set of body scrub bars stated that they were shipped in a priority box.
A "priority box" is a box from the US Postal Service (USPS), white with bright red stripes and the words PRIORITY MAIL clearly printed on them in bright red. USPS rules are that their Priority Mail packaging is only to be used for Priority Mail, and not for USPS Ground Advantage. Priority Mail is more expensive than Ground Advantage, the current standard for mailing packages.
Yes, it is true that those Priority boxes are free. The USPS, again, expects that a box labeled PRIORITY MAIL will be mailed by a sender who pays -- yes -- the more expensive Priority Mail prices. More than "expects", really: it's a USPS regulation.
(BTW, no, it is not acceptable to take a free Priority Mail box from the post office, then tear it apart and reassemble it inside out, and use it with Ground Advantage postage.)
(This may be part of the reason why the USPS increases rates twice a year . . . .) (Talk about frustrating . . . .)
"eBay", neither as a corporation nor as any individual employed by them -- "eBay" could not have placed those boxes of body scrub into a PRIORITY MAIL box "of their [eBay's] own accord."
Your listing shows that you offer only USPS Ground Advantage shipping. The only reasonable explanation for what happened is that you put those body scrubs into a PRIORITY MAIL box, and you then put your Ground Advantage shipping label on a PRIORITY MAIL box. In contravention of USPS regulations.
That is why the US Postal Service asked the buyer to pay $5.00 extra. Your apology to the buyer was nice, but many eBay sellers would have reimbursed that buyer, possibly out of their own pockets. Your buyer was gracious enough to give you positive feedback, and not negative which might have been warranted. That alone would have prompted my selling ID to reimburse the buyer $5.00 -- maybe even more, for the gasoline and vehicle wear-and-tear she incurred with driving to and from the post office, not to mention her annoyance.
lisa5768
Mentor8 months ago@miriaowen_0
Buyers pay you the shipping you set up on your listing. You use that to purchase the label. The buyer nor eBay purchases the shipping label.
The buyer's payment to eBay includes the item, the shipping you set on your listing, and any tax they owe. eBay takes their selling fees out and sends you the balance.
It is the seller's responsibility to make sure the package information is accurate when creating the listing. You need to have all the packaging ready to go so you can enter the actual dimensions and weight. This is how the system calculates the buyer's shipping amount. If you do not have a postage scale you should get one so your package weights are accurate. There are many options available on-line.
From the feedback the buyer left about the Priority shipping, you put a Ground Advantage label on a Priority Mail box. You can not do that, you must purchase a Priority shipping label when using those boxes. That is why the buyer had to pay the difference. You owe them a refund for postage due amount.
lady_madonna
Mentor8 months agoThe buyer pays the shipping charges through Ebay and you pay to ship the item to the buyer. The funds the buyer pays will be part of your Ebay payout from the sale.
If you are having to pay more than what the buyer paid, then you are not calculating the shipping charges properly. You need to weight& measure the prepackaged item carefully and enter those precise figures into the shipping calculator.
Here's how to use calculated shipping when listing your items: