Sold item for too low of price, suggestions?

[reddley_animations]

I sold an item yesterday evening at $0.99 free shipping.. it will cost about $4 to ship. What would be the most professional method canceling the order? Should I ask that the buyer cancels or should I do so myself?

[hachumi]

The best thing to do is suck up the 3.00 loss and not start anything that low again

[candd205]

You have another item listed for $0.99 with free shipping. You need to change that listing, or this is going to happen again.

[itsjustasprain · Accepted solution]

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@reddley_animations wrote:

I sold an item yesterday evening at $0.99 free shipping.. it will cost about $4 to ship. What would be the most professional method canceling the order?

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There is no 'professional method' of cancelling the order. You set the price and the buyer paid it fair and square. 

You eat the three bucks (which you can deduct on your tax return next year as it is a Shipping expense), ship the item, and be thankful that in doing so you have preserved your clean seller record for such a low loss.

People can tell you horror stories about much bigger losses. Yours is just a minor glitch. Set your prices to be what you would genuinely accept to sell it for if you only ever get one bid.

[incredibulltool]

It's not professional at all, unless you suck it up and ship the item to the buyer like you agreed to do.

[albertabrightalberta]

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@reddley_animations wrote:

I sold an item yesterday evening at $0.99 free shipping.. it will cost about $4 to ship. What would be the most professional method canceling the order? Should I ask that the buyer cancels or should I do so myself?

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The most "professional" way of handling your mistake is honoring the sale, eat the loss and learn from your error. It's actually a pretty cheap education! 

[chapeau-noir]

Just ship the item - that was a very cheap lesson.

[ed8108]

You set the price, take responsibility

You entered into a binding contract

Ship the item

[fashunu4eeuh]

A seller-initiated cancellation is considered to be one of the cardinal sins on eBay. If you cancel the transaction because of your error, a defect can be levied on your account as a penalty. Defects have the potential of downgrading a seller’s standing on eBay. Too many defects can get one’s selling privileges restricted.

[2013grotz]

Like the others said, honor the sale and adjust your prices on other stuff so it doesn't happen again.  Cancelling, really doesn't do you any good as a seller, even for a legitimate reason (*), which this one isn't.

* - I recently had to cancel a sale because a DVD case ended up cracking and snapping in two as I was handling it to ship to the customer and didn't feel like it was 100% good to provide the product as it was now damaged.   And no didn't have a way to replace the DVD case as it was pretty unique.  But alas, still a "cardinal sin", still a major strike on my account.

[reddley_animations]

Thank you! I reconfigured one of my shipping policy's and I didn't realize I was using it on somthing priced that low.

[byrd69er]

Ship it and eat the loss.

Move on.

[coolections]

No, you do not ask a buyer if he does not want the item he won. You ship as soon as the buyer pays, and you thank them. You learn from your mistakes and how auctions work. Starting price is always the lowest you will accept.

[djvp53]

It's not the eBay perfect way to do it but when that has happened to me (twice), I shipped the item as it was, apologized, and refunded the buyers all the money without actually cancelling the transactions. I ate the shipping charges and the final value fees but I think I at least made the customers happy. At least I got good feedback from one.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@djvp53 wrote:

It's not the eBay perfect way to do it but when that has happened to me (twice), I shipped the item as it was, apologized, and refunded the buyers all the money ....

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Why would you apologize and/or refund the buyer's money, rather than just completing the transaction just as you would any other Sold item? If anything, you might congratulate the buyer on getting such a great deal and thank them for their business.