Partial refund

[mid-nj]

I found a cheaper way of shipping after the sale.  How do I refund the customer the difference?

[chapeau-noir]

Issuing a refund

You can issue full or partial refunds for items in Seller Hub or My eBay up to 90 days after the original transaction. Here's how:

1. Find the order in Seller Hub - opens in new window or tab or My eBay Orders - opens in new window or tab.
2. From the dropdown menu, select Send refund.
3. Choose a reason for the refund.
4. Specify a refund amount for the item or for the order.
5. Enter the refund amount, and select Send refund.

Refunds on eBay

[tarotfindsandmore]

You can go into your orders and do it from there.  The refund option is waaaay down at the bottom, below report buyer.  Just follow the prompts from there. (Sorry it's so huge, not sure what's going on with that).

[lakefor94]

Go to your Orders in Seller Hub and the pull-down next to the order will have an option to refund.

[onefootflipper1]

You really don't want to be sending unexpected shipping refunds, you are just lighting your own money on fire when you do that, and no one is expecting it.

Remember ebay charges full fees on shipping and you will incur non-obvious shipping expenses and in any case the customer agreed to the terms of the sale at the time of purchase, your actual shipping cost doesn't matter, they sure don't go back and pay you more when they end up being the one you lose $20 on the shipping.

[reallynicestamps]

If "cheaper" also means a lower level of service, don't.
Or at least,check with the buyer if they are willing to accept slower or untracked service.
(Yes, tracking only benefits the seller , but most buyers don't understand that.)

[kensgiftshop]

How did you find cheaper then Ground Advantage?

[simba6]

Make sure the buyer is ok with the change first.   Your not talking about media mail?

[onefootflipper1]

I looked at your only sold item, there is no way you are actually shipping that at a profit once you account for the ebay fees and the box.

[tarotfindsandmore]

That's an odd assumption.  The seller could use a recycled box and have "sourced" the item from his/her garage.  What makes you so sure there's no profit?  The eBay fees would have come to around 4 bucks for most categories on that total so that would leave around 26 bucks for the net income and then shipping would be 8-10 dollars, depending on the weight.  How is there "no profit"?

[onefootflipper1]

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@tarotfindsandmore wrote:

That's an odd assumption.  The seller could use a recycled box and have "sourced" the item from his/her garage.  What makes you so sure there's no profit?  The eBay fees would have come to around 4 bucks for most categories on that total so that would leave around 26 bucks for the net income and then shipping would be 8-10 dollars, depending on the weight.  How is there "no profit"?

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I specifically meant they were not making a real profit on the shipping. It shows $8.58 shipped to me, that is not going to be under 1 pound which means the cheapest it is moving is about $6.49. After ebay fees that goes to $7.39. Boxes have value, recycled or not. 61 cents for the box, 8 cents label printing costs and the seller is making a "profit" of 50 cents on the shipping of that item, and that is best case scenario.

Or heck, don't assign a value to the box and pretend printing is free and they cleared an entire dollar on the shipping, not exactly a rip off amount.

[tarotfindsandmore]

Got it! Wasn't trying to call you out, was genuinely curious.  I appreciate the clarification.

I'm a shipping refunder  myself so I do understand the OP's inclination.  I charge my buyers exactly what eBay charges me.  They get a refund if there's more than a dollar difference and I take the loss if I misguesstimate.  I think it fosters goodwill if nothing else.  

To me, a profit on shipping feels kinda shifty.  I work the cost of supplies into the cost of my items so I don't need to worry about taking a loss that way and I use calculated shipping because it minimizes the chances of over/undercharging, while avoiding the pitfalls of flat rate or free shipping.

[reallynicestamps]

Free shipping supplies can get very costly if the user works out how much time they spent finding, picking up, cleaning and storing the "free" goods.

Here in British Columbia the minimum wage is 29c a minute.

Time is money.

[jonathanbrightlight]

@mid-nj , what I'm about to say has been said by other posters, but I wanted to make sure these two details are emphasized:

If you had a specific method of shipping defined in the listing (your most recent sale was set up for USPS Ground Advantage shipping), you should not switch carriers or downgrade the shipping in some way (though I can't think of what would be a downgrade) without a request from your customer.  You should ship it the way you said you would.

You do not have to refund differences in shipping costs if you don't choose to, assuming you do ship with a comparable or better shipping option but end up saving money.  Your customer agreed to a specific method and cost, regardless of what the final label actually costs you.

[mid-nj]

"UPS Ground Saver" was about 10% less than the cited "USPS Ground Advantage" in my case