Shipping charge not matching eBay estimate?
I preloaded the shipping details and sold the item. Now buyer was charged less than eBay will charge me for the shipping label? Can someone help me understand what I did wrong?
3 comments
I preloaded the shipping details and sold the item. Now buyer was charged less than eBay will charge me for the shipping label? Can someone help me understand what I did wrong?
superboer08
OP1 year agoThanks! Great response. I checked advanced and it listed no services that cost the $36, but "Home Delivery" rate was greyed out, so you are probably right. (It was maybe greyed out because the buyer appears to be a business?)
You have helped me avoid the situation in the future. Thank you.
bgt_masters_of_tiki_d
·1 year agoHappens to me all the time. Ebay will tell you they will put in for the refund for the difference but that's a lie so don't bother. What the poster says above is exactly whats going on. If its a business address you get charged more than if its a home address. Mine are almost always $10-$15 under charged.
wastingtime101
·1 year agoYou'd have to click "switch to advanced shipping" on the top right for the full picture, however I'll make an educated assumption as to what happened.
I've seen this come up over and over where the buyer pays the FedEx Ground rate, but the seller is charged the FedEx Home Delivery rate (Ground service with residential surcharge).
eBay is supposed to charge the correct rate based on the buyer's address, but based on numerous reports in this Community, that's not happening. My best guess is there's a bug eBay needs to work out and no, it's not fair to the seller to have to deal with this.
The only sellers affected are the ones offering FedEx Ground that pass carrier discount on to the buyer.
Typically it's about a $4-6 difference - this one is about an $8 difference due to the size of the package.
I don't have any great advice other than suck up the difference on this transaction, then update your listings or settings to either:
- Don't offer buyers FedEx Ground until eBay fixes this
- Offer FedEx Ground but don't pass carrier discounts on to buyers
- Offer FedEx Ground carrier discounted rate but add a handling fee to cover this inevitable scenario - handling fee can probably be lower for smaller items and higher for larger items like this one.
More info on carrier discounts:
-----------
The question is whether you want to charge buyers retail rates or discounted rates. Keep in mind that you have access to discounted rates when you purchase labels on eBay regardless of how much you charge the buyer.
The setting to offer buyers discounted rates can be found on your shipping preferences page under the carrier specific discounts setting: https://www.ebay.com/ship/prf
Since eBay charges a fee on total cost buyer pays (item + ship + tax), by charging discounted rates you are losing money on every single package. If you want to make up for that you can add a handling fee or increase your item costs - or simply charge retail rates for a built in cushion instead of passing on the discounts.
----------
The buyer paid $36.46 for shipping
You paid eBay final value fees of 13.25% on that amount = $4.83 fee just on the ship cost. And of course if the buyer paid sales tax you paid fees on the tax, also. (fees link)
Keep that in mind when setting your ship costs and deciding whether to extend carrier discounts to buyers.
Hope that helps @superboer08 .