What if a seller underestimates the cost of shipping? Is that cause to cancel a sale?

[motorsdaddgum]

What if a seller underestimates the cost of shipping? Is that cause to cancel a sale? The shipping, after careful packing to avoid damage, creates a loss on the sale. Does eBay consider that like selling something not in stock? Penalty?

[heckofagame]

In most cases, if the seller does not follow through, it's a ding on the account. 

[evelyb30]

If you underestimated shipping...too bad for you.  It's not cause to cancel.  

[motorsdaddgum]

What is a ding? I've never had one.

[meme6253]

If you cancel you will receive a ding on your account, It is up to the seller to have proper shipping cost figured out properly so this does not happen, You either have to take the ding on your account or take the loss & chalk it up to a lesson learned.

[aproudparent2010]

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@motorsdaddgum wrote:

What is a ding? I've never had one.

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A bad mark, if you get too many you are banned from eBay selling forever.

And no that is not reason to cancel sale, an honest seller needs to go ahead and ship and take the loss

[kensgiftshop]

No, you ship it and make up the difference.

You would have to cancel as out of stock and earn a defect and possibly negative feedback.

[mustang707]

Hindsight is wonderful so here it is: I always package up my items as best as possible (excluding the final Scotch tape) then measure and weigh it BEFORE I list it to minimize any problems. Sometimes on large packages I take it to the post office first to have them weigh and measure it in case I am not sure. Also using FedEx is risky because they can add on charges later. A ding is a seller defect and too many of those will get you suspended. Shipping is a difficult part of ebay and we have all lost money on shipping when we were rookies. Still gotta ship it though.

[tinsoldierunderground]

@motorsdaddgum 

Anything on the seller's end that causes a sale to be cancelled is on them.   Unscrupulous sellers try to find curvy ways around this by trying to lay the reason off on the buyer.  This doesn't fly well, as the buyer can report this behavior.  As others have stated, enough cancellations and your account is toast, and you'll get banned.   

[slippinjimmy]

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@motorsdaddgum wrote:

What is a ding? I've never had one.

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A "ding" is a minor things that affects your service metrics, this is mostly inconsequential unless you get a whole bunch of them.

What you get for an Out Of Stock cancellation is a Defect (as specifically defined by eBay), Defects are serious things that affect your Seller Metrics, you only need to get a few of these and your account could be seriously impacted (increased fees, listing restrictions, demotion in Search, inability to run promotions etc).

More than 3 Defects and you could be demoted to Below Standard and find it takes a long time to dig out from that.

Seller Performance

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/selling/seller-performance-overview?id=4080

Service Metrics

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-standards-policy/service-metrics-policy?i...

[chapeau-noir]

There are dings (NBD) and defects (big deal) - you will get a defect. Avoid the defect and just ship the item. A lot of us learn the same lesson and take steps to prevent that in future.

[iamalwaysright]

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@motorsdaddgum wrote:

What if a seller underestimates the cost of shipping? Is that cause to cancel a sale?

No.

The shipping, after careful packing to avoid damage, creates a loss on the sale. Does eBay consider that like selling something not in stock?

No. You have it in stock.

Penalty?

If you cancel it, yes.

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Ship your item, take the loss and make up for it next time. This is all a part of learning to sell profitably on ebay. Many sellers get banned by canceling sales for unauthorized reasons. And frankly that's why many buyers don't bother going to ebay to buy, because buyers don't get what they ordered. Please do not contribute to the downfall of ebay.

[camsdepot]

This will hurt your account. You need to be careful with shipping, that will happen a lot if you don't verify it before, smaller items no problem, but anything over 10 pounds you need to know for sure the shipping cost on that thing or you risk losing a lot of money each sale.

Prepackaging items would secure you if you don't have a lot of listings.

[mantle1951]

Amazon sells them, not cheap!

[tarotfindsandmore]

Eat the difference, learn from it, and move on.  It's a part of doing business.