Why is a percentage of any shipping discount/refund coming off of the value of the item?
I've noticed recently that any shipping refund I send to the buyer now comes off as a discount on the item they've purchased, and more heavily on the item than applied to the shipping fee paid by the buyer. Most of my items are sold with "free" shipping, but when you use the rate calculator, it does not give the shipping discount to the buyer, so I try to return anything excessive. My last refund of $5.00 was broken down into two categories - a percentage of the $5 went to a shipping discount, and the other part went towards the cost of the item, as if they had a coupon. For example (ballpark): out of the $5 refund, ebay took $3.00 off the price of the item, and $1.50 off of the shipping fee. The leftover amount came back from the commission charged on the sale, so we will say 50 cents came back from ebay. I've only noticed this on the last 2-3 refunds that I have processed, but I'm trying to figure out what ebay is doing, and how this impacts anything like a return, etc. I know they must be getting more money by this practice, or they wouldn't have changed the way refunds are processed, but I would like to understand how this benefits them. Thanks!
gator08041971
·4 months agoI will say this:
If I was charging for shipping, and someone buys multiple items, and/or they were charged too much for calculated shipping, I do refund a portion in some cases.
But I have to agree with @panblanca here. Why on earth does eBay have to show the refund as being deducted from the item's sold price, rather than the shipping if it was to offset the shipping? Why can't we have it categorized properly, instead of throwing our order's cost numbers wonky?
IN that sense, I agree with what @panblanca is asking about here.
Sure, in the end, its comes out the same, but it makes things look off, and that's annoying to some, especially if they are particular about things being associated correctly when reviewing the data later.
redmodelt
·4 months agoIt has been done like that for a loooong time. You see the breakdown the buyer gets the full refund. I remember seeing this back in the early 2000s and found confusing, then I just went with the flow.
monica-sells
·4 months agoIf I understand your concern correctly, the buyer (customer) does not see the breakdown the same way you do. They only see a "total" refund amount, it is not detailed like the data you receive.
bdmh-enterprises
·4 months agoTo answer the original question..
First, it's been that way for as long as I can remember. The refund system is not designed to be the go to way of combining shipping. eBay would much rather sellers provide accurate shipping up front using rules and policies.
Second, it doesn't matter! You send $5 refund, buyer gets $5, your fees are returned, if there's a return the remainder is refunded, who cares how eBay wants to divvy it up on paper? If there's some accounting reason that benefits eBay by doing it that way, again who cares? doesn't affect you or the buyer.
It's like getting worked up over the pronunciation of tomato...
marchair
·4 months agoYes, I agree. It's basically just semantics. But what annoys me is that Ebay is lying to the buyer. I found that shipping costs were a lot less than I had anticipated, so I refund some of the shipping. The choice was "Shipping Adjustment" so they should tell the buyer that some shipping is being refunded. But instead they tell them that the price of the item has been reduced, too. Which is a lie.
(It has been this way ever since I came back to selling on Ebay, and I have complained a couple of times, using the feedback button.) However, unless it's just a test, it appears that they may be changing this and just showing the total without breaking it down. Which would be fine with me!
marchair
·4 months agoWell, I had to send a refund yesterday, because the actual shipping cost less than half of what I had estimated from the Pirate Ship calculator at the first of the year (it must have been off, so I will need to go check my other listings that used that "new" price after USPS increased their rates). Even with my keeping some to cover the cost of packing materials, the amount to be refunded was $16.60. Anyway, the first page was different than before and only had total of price and shipping, and amount to refund. But when I filled it in and clicked to the next page, it asked what the refund was for, and I chose shipping (it isn't "Shipping Adjustment" but I've already forgotten the phrase -- Maybe "Shipping Discount"?) Then when I clicked through that page, the refund is still applied to the item's cost as well as shipping. It was $10.05 for the item and $6.55 for shipping. It doesn't look like this is shown to my buyer, though, as it also had the fee credits, how much I owe for the refund, where they took it from, etc. As long as they're not telling my buyer that I'm refunding part of their purchase price, I'm fine with that.
christworks
·4 months ago@panblanca You making life too complicated for yourself over a few dollars. Unless you told the buyer you would send them a discount, I honestly do not know why you would send one. They bought the item at the price and shipping (?) you listed it at. (And correction: The shipping calculator did not charge your buyer more, you did. You entered in either a heavier package weight or larger package size when you created the listing. If you are finding you need to do this often, then you need to do a better job at estimating the weight and size of the package will be.)
You are spending time trying to refund a trival amount of money to a buyers who have already agreed to pay it, and apparantly did not ask for a shipping discount. They have no reason to know they overpaid, and I would argue if you did not consider your supply cost and eBay fees, then your buyer has not overpaid.
panblanca
OP4 months agoYou entered in either a heavier package weight or larger package size when you created the listing. If you are finding you need to do this often, then you need to do a better job at estimating the weight and size of the package will be.
Other than the fact that THIS was not even related to my initial question, you are making a few accusations here. When I create the listing, I already have the item in the box - actual weight and dimensions. I'm not making estimations. After the sale, the rate calculator uses that information, along with the location of the buyer, and it generates a price. Printing labels through ebay gives the seller a shipping discount, not the buyer. I'm not using inflated weights or incorrect package dimensions. I'm not charging buyers more. The rate calculator is charging the buyer the full price, and it is giving me a discount. I'm sorry if you find my honesty with buyers trivial, but in my book, if a buyer pays $8-$9 more for shipping than it will cost me to ship their item, then I believe they deserve some of that money back.
albertabrightalberta
·4 months agoYou are correct in that you are getting a discounted price vs. what the buyer is charged when your settings are such that you aren't passing the savings to the buyer.
Although you are able to set your preferences to pass the savings to the buyer in your settings (rather than issuing a partial refund after the fact) but you want to keep in mind that you're being charged FVF on the full payment made by the buyer so you're netting less than the cost of the label after fees. Thus, in passing the savings to the buyer, you could actually be losing money on the shipping label.
albertabrightalberta
·4 months ago"Most of my items are sold with "free" shipping, but when you use the rate calculator, it does not give the shipping discount to the buyer, so I try to return anything excessive."
@panblanca
Why would you give a discount on shipping when the item has free shipping? Even if the buyer buys multiple "free shipping" items and you combine and send in one package, there's no need to refund anything since they aren't paying for shipping.
But if you are trying to issue partial refunds for combined shipping on items with free shipping, ebay will discount the item price since there's no shipping charge to credit.
panblanca
OP4 months agoMost of my items are sold with free shipping, because they are under a pound, and I know the shipping will not exceed a certain amount. There are a few exceptions, where I have to charge shipping, because the item is heavier, putting it into a range of potential shipping costs that I cannot risk, due to the possible location of the buyer. These are the occasions that I am referring to with my question. It doesn't happen often. I just noticed that the last few transactions where I sent a refund, ebay separated out the way they credited the refund, and I was trying to find out why they were doing it that way now. In the past, it was always just listed as a shipping discount/adjustment and the value of the merchandise did not change.
christworks
·4 months agoI'm glad I'm not the only one who was trying to figure that out.
albertabrightalberta
·4 months agoLOL! It reminded me of the discussion earlier in the week in which an OP felt he was entitled to a shipping discount for combined shipping on multiple free shipping items.
panblanca
OP4 months agoMarchair's response hit the question I was trying to address. It isn't about ebay returning a portion of the commission they took; I understand that part. What I don't understand is when I gave the refund, why did they dedicate a large portion of the refund to the actual item, instead of just calling it a shipping adjustment? My example might have been confusing. Let's say the buyer paid $30 for a Lego set and $20 in shipping. I refunded $5, because the rate calculator charged her more than my cost to ship the item, so on the choices for a refund, I picked "shipping adjustment." When ebay sends the refund breakdown, they have adjusted the value of the Lego set to $27 (-$3) and her shipping is now $18 (-$2.) Why isn't it just a $5 shipping discount? It has to make a financial difference to ebay, or they wouldn't have made the change. Maybe it has to do with the final value fees - if they are getting a higher FVF off the shipping than they are off of the merchandise, then they would make more money by watering down the value of the item. I don't know. They make me crazy!
kibble-net
·4 months agoNo, ebay doesn't make more money from this. You are literally getting back fees when you do partial refunds. Whether it says it's from the shipping portion or the item itself is irrelevant as far as the fees go.
For instance if you are sending a partial refund of $5.00 then it will only cost you $4 and change because you're getting some change back from the fees.
The FVF on the shipping portion and the item portion is billed just the same.
marchair
·4 months agoThat annoys me terribly! I am not giving a discount on the item -- only refunding excess shipping. And the choice I ticked when doing it said "Shipping Adjustment" (or something like that). So I send a message along with the refund, to the buyer, stating that all of the refund is for shipping, contrary to what the Ebay message is saying. To me, it totally defies logic that when I choose "shipping adjustment" Ebay arbitrarily spreads the refund over the purchase price as well as the shipping, instead of applying it only to shipping.
However, this complaint may become a thing of the past, because when I just went to walk through the process in order to get the exact wording, I found that it no longer allows me a choice. It just says
bonanza125
·4 months agoYou issued a $5 refund so the system looks at it as a total which you are charged a fee for both item and shipping cost.