Customer Same Day Cancellation ~ Seller Loses .30 cents :-(

[z50com]

eBay should refund all but the .30 cents Paypal charges when a customer cancels an order.

eBay refunds you all the FVF but Paypal keeps the .30 cents for the transaction

If the customer cancels after paying all but .30 should be refunded. . .

[mam98031]

eBay should refund all but the .30 cents Paypal charges when a customer cancels an order.

As I'm sure you know, Ebay and PP are two separate companies now.  What you are suggesting would cost sellers MORE money than it does now.  So I'm not sure why you would want this to become Ebay's policy too.

Or are you saying that Ebay should keep the 30 cents and PP should not??  That isn't going to work, PP is not part of Ebay anymore.

eBay refunds you all the FVF but Paypal keeps the .30 cents for the transaction

So you are saying that Ebay should NOT refund you all of your FVF, they should be able to keep 30cents like PP does?!?!?  Why?  Do you have some need to pay additional fees to Ebay?  Are you concerned they are not making enough money on transactions?  For what reason would you want to pay Ebay more in fees?

If the customer cancels after paying all but .30 should be refunded. . .

I apologize, but I'm really not understanding your point.  For example, lets say your FVF was $1.00 on a sale that you had to refund for whatever reason you had.  You are saying you want Ebay to ONLY refund you 70 cents so that Ebay can keep 30 cents???  WHY?

Just in case you weren't aware, Ebay refunds the FVF to the seller, but they do NOT refund any listing or upgrade fee you may have paid on the listing.  They never have.

[z50com]

So your OK if I buy something from you and cancel the order 5 minutes later and you lose .30 cents to paypal?

eBay refunds 100% of your fees on a cancellation but Paypal does not.

Since eBay claims the customer is theres and they control the transaction and MAKE you accept Paypal I think they should take the responsiblity of the transaction and foot the .30 cents.

Now lets say I buy 100 of your items and then cancel them all, you're OK paying $30 in fees for NOTHING?

" Just in case you weren't aware, " ~  I have about the same experience on eBay as you have!

Been here since 1998 and have 14000+ feedbacks. . .

[slippinjimmy]

eBay does not "make you" accept PayPal. You can use your own Merchant Account to process credit cards if you prefer.

Of course you will find that it's standard practice in the payments business that Transaction Fees are not refunded so even with your own Merchant Account you will have the same issue.

I have no idea how many cancellations you get, I get maybe 1 for every 500 sales and most of those happen before any payment has been made so my annual losses rarely amount to more than a Dollar or two.

[z50com]

"eBay does not "make you" accept PayPal. You can use your own Merchant Account to process credit cards if you prefer."

I've been on eBay for 19 years and have NEVER seen a seller with a merchant account!

I have about 1 cancellation for every 300 transactions

It's just the point that I shouldn't lose a single cent on a 5 minute transaction

eBay should take that lose not me. . .

[myboardid]

You chose to use eBay's and Paypal's services, which they provided when the buyer paid for his purchase, even if he cancelled afterwards.  It doesn't matter if it was 2 seconds after or days after, Paypal still processed his payment.  eBay provides you a different service, and chooses to allow you to accept a cancellation.  They don't have anything to do with your Paypal account.  They are not responsible for what Paypal charges. 

If you cannot afford to lose 30 cents from time to time, perhaps you should re-think selling here.  There is risk of loss in any business enterprise. 

[angelno9]

---

---

So your OK if I buy something from you and cancel the order 5 minutes later and you lose .30 cents to paypal?

I fail to see why eBay should bear the cost of a PayPal policy. 

Now lets say I buy 100 of your items and then cancel them all, you're OK paying $30 in fees for NOTHING?

I'm okay with it in theory, because it has never happened to me and never will. And since I have read this board daily for a decade and not seen a single seller complain about someone buying many items and cancelling them all, I guess I would file this under "I'll cross that bridge when I never get there". 

[thingsoldandnew10]

All parties in this post have their points. I think "Z" is correct in complaining about the 30 cent fee being kept by Pay Pal when a buyer cancels a transaction.

Generally in business transactions the party who wants to withdraw from a transaction is the party who pays the bill. If that were applied to all transactions including Internet transactions, then Pay Pal should only refund a buyer the amount of the purchase less 60 cents (30 cents for Pay Pal + 30 cents refunded to the seller). That will never fly in a real world transaction. But there is a simple solution. The drawback is the solution involves some accounting: add the Pay Pal 30 cent fee into the cost of the cost of the item being sold'

If a seller is experiencing one return in 300 transactions then the cost to a seller is 30 cents per 300 transactions. Add a penny to the selling price on 50 percent of the items being sold. Hardly seems worth the effort when the actual cost is broken down. Every seller should ba accounting for Pay Pal fees in the pricing computation when selling. Even if a seller uses a merchant account the cost of processing should if not totally then partially paid for by a buyer.

In our case last year we had two buyer requested cancellations with approximately 100 transactions. Buyers cost us only 60 cents in actual monatary loss.

We deal with Chinese sellers and very often pay with Pay Pal. Those sellers also add in 30 cents to every payment due and label it the Pay Pal fee.

---

@myboardid wrote:

You chose to use eBay's and Paypal's services, which they provided when the buyer paid for his purchase, even if he cancelled afterwards.  It doesn't matter if it was 2 seconds after or days after, Paypal still processed his payment.  eBay provides you a different service, and chooses to allow you to accept a cancellation.  They don't have anything to do with your Paypal account.  They are not responsible for what Paypal charges. 

If you cannot afford to lose 30 cents from time to time, perhaps you should re-think selling here.  There is risk of loss in any business enterprise. 

---

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

So if you take something back to Target do you really think Target gets all their money back from the credit card processor? Would you be ok with Target charging you the buyer the transaction fee? Do you think other buyers would agree with that? Would they ever go back to Target?

It's 30 cents. If you're having enough cancellations that much money hurts you, you need to re-examine your business policies. Paypal DID process the payment. Why should they not charge for it? In fact maybe they should charge twice for having to undo it.

Buyers don't directly pay fees. 

[z50com]

It seems that everyone is NOT getting the picture here!

The customer is EBAY'S

When eBay's customer makes me pay .30 cents for NOTHING, I think eBay should eat the .30 cents, not me. . .

eBay can pay Paypal the .30 cents for THEIR customer cancelling the transaction.

I can afford to lose the .30 cents, but that wasn't the point. . .

[mam98031]

So your OK if I buy something from you and cancel the order 5 minutes later and you lose .30 cents to paypal?

You didn't ask that in your original post.  It may be the way you meant it, but it wasn't what you posted.  You seemed to be saying that you wanted Ebay to withhold 30 cents as well.

But to answer your question, I'm just fine with PP's rule.  They are a business and they provided a service.  It is a fee that I've always been made aware of and I have it factored into my pricing.

eBay refunds 100% of your fees on a cancellation but Paypal does not.

This is NOT true.  Ebay refunds the FVF ONLY.  They do not refund and never have, any listing fees you may have had or fees for added features.

Since eBay claims the customer is theres and they control the transaction and MAKE you accept Paypal I think they should take the responsiblity of the transaction and foot the .30 cents.

Well that is an interesting thought.

Now lets say I buy 100 of your items and then cancel them all, you're OK paying $30 in fees for NOTHING?

You are telling me that you would may 100 separate payments?  I think most buyers would submit one payment and 30 cents would be what was charged for that.  Hard to believe, but I use to get buyers like this from time to time years ago.  Not that they would cancel their order, but would actually purchase that many patterns from me at one time.  Oh I miss those sales!!!!

" Just in case you weren't aware, " ~  I have about the same experience on eBay as you have!  Been here since 1998 and have 14000+ feedbacks. . .

I did't question your experience!  I don't assume to know something I have no way of knowing.  Way too many people post with posting IDs or a smaller selling ID than their main one.  

[mcguire-hd]

---

@z50com wrote:

I've been on eBay for 19 years and have NEVER seen a seller with a merchant account!

---

We have a merchant account for accepting credit cards. The person just needs to call me so I can take the info over the phone if they don't want to use Paypal. It's not real common that people go that route and it happens maybe once every other month.  

[missjen831]

---

@z50com wrote:

It seems that everyone is NOT getting the picture here!

The customer is EBAY'S

When eBay's customer makes me pay .30 cents for NOTHING, I think eBay should eat the .30 cents, not me. . .

eBay can pay Paypal the .30 cents for THEIR customer cancelling the transaction.

I can afford to lose the .30 cents, but that wasn't the point. . .

---

No the customer is YOURS. The customer bought FROM YOU. They did not buy from ebay. This is no different than a shopping mall. If you rent a store front in the mall, the customers are YOURS, not the malls right? 

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

I didn't think that was allowed. I thought all sales had to go through Paypal or an online gateway?

[mistwomandancing]

If the buyer hasn't paid for their purchase through PayPal yet, there is no 30¢ charge accrued yet.  But if the buyer has already paid, PayPal charges that on facilitating the financial end of the transaction.  If the sale doesn't hold, they STILL have done their job in handling the money transaction back and forth, so they STILL get paid those pennies.

(It's like if you put an ad in your daily newspaper.... but you don't sell anything from your ad.  The newspaper did their part... and you still have to pay them for that ad.)

Certainly the best thing is to sell in such a way that there are very, very, very, very few transaction cancellations!  But when they do happen, that small loss is one of the normal losses in e-commerce business and needs to be covered in your business plan.

Do you actually think that you won't have little costs and losses along the way?  Maybe it's just those who have spent a life in retail sales who know that it ain't all profit, and that buyer-caused losses have to be expected, planned for, and covered.  It's a business expense.  Plan for it.  Cover for it in your overall pricing of product, and deal with it.

And edited to add:  ....and I hope you don't have so many buyers deciding to cancel doing business with you after all, that the 30¢ paid out to PayPal and not recovered is really a Big Deal to you.  If that is the case, perhaps it's time to take a look at what is turning them off, etc.