Buyers being able to "rate" shipping cost on a "calculated shipping" listing, should they be able?

[crosscomponents]

So I've been slowly building this store for this particular company, but I'm not new to Ebay. I've been selling here for 23 years actually. Since starting this store I've listed every listing with "calculated shipping". Some of the items are heavy and are better suited for UPS/FEDEX etc and calculated is the only way to A) keep it fair, and B) not have to worry about manually changing shipping charges. However on our ratings, we have a 4.6 for shipping charges, our lowest rating of all categories. My question is, should buyers be able to "rate" this category if shipping is "calculated"? If shipping is "Free", the option to rate it is grayed out / unavailable. Shouldn't it be the same way for calculated? We're not in control of those prices. We enter the dimensions and weights accurately and Ebay calculates it. So it's not like we're ripping anyone off.  

[stainlessenginecovers]

1.) the 'ratings' mean nothing

2.) the 'ratings' don't matter

3.) buyers seldom look at 'ratings'

But; since buyers are allowed to- if a buyer has to pay $26 for shipping an item, or $83 for shipping an item- they have the right to NOT be happy about it. Free shipping; although NOT really free- eliminates that issue.

[redmodelt]

Buyers see shipping cost before they press the buy button, if they don't like those cost, they don't have to buy. So really, they don't have any reason to complain about that cost, they knew in advance what they were going to be. After the item is bought, the shipping cost is locked in. 

[marnotom!]

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@crosscomponents wrote:

My question is, should buyers be able to "rate" this category if shipping is "calculated"? If shipping is "Free", the option to rate it is grayed out / unavailable. Shouldn't it be the same way for calculated? We're not in control of those prices. We enter the dimensions and weights accurately and Ebay calculates it. So it's not like we're ripping anyone off.  

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You may not be in control of the shipping prices, but you can be in control of where you purchase your shipping from and the shipping method you choose.

[marnotom!]

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@redmodelt wrote:

Buyers see shipping cost before they press the buy button, if they don't like those cost, they don't have to buy. So really, they don't have any reason to complain about that cost, they knew in advance what they were going to be. After the item is bought, the shipping cost is locked in. 

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Not necessarily.  The buyer may like the item, but not the shipping cost but will hold their nose anyway and purchase the item.

It's like you may like the food a restaurant serves but the service is awful.  You'll eat there anyway because of the food but you won't like the service just because you like the food.

[crosscomponents]

I don't think you're wrong, but only to some degree. If I do buy on Ebay, I always looks at a sellers detailed ratings. I also use our own ratings to find out what buyers like and don't like so we see if something needs improvement. It's incredibly minor considering Ebay is not even close to our primary source of revenue, but still interesting to analyze. Plus I've been tasked with creating an Ebay store for this company so ratings are something I will like to show the higher ups. I will never do "free shipping" again probably on anything. And certainly not on a store that accepts returns. We decided this store wouldn't accept returns as Ebay no longer offers a worthy incentive to do so. Save 10% on final value fees, ok, that could add up to something maybe, but is it really worth it? They don't even give you a top seller badge in the search results now unless you accept free returns so we figured why bother accepting them at all, it's not worth it for us.

[crosscomponents]

We offer the cheapest options, and it depends on the item weight/size. For smaller and lighter items we offer USPS Ground Advantage which replaced 1st class and increased weight limits, also USPS Priority, and UPS in many cases, plus all heavy items we offer UPS and Fedex Ground as they are cheaper than USPS at that point, and more reliable.

[soh.maryl]

So, a buyer sees an item, and sees what it will cost to ship to him.

He thinks the shipping is excessive, but evidently is willing to pay it, so he bids or buys.

Then he trashes the seller for the shipping cost when he leaves feedback.

And we see that action as perfectly OK and reasonable?

OK then.  

[nobody*s_perfect]

I agree that it doesn't make sense for buyers to rate calculated shipping. I suppose some sellers might fudge it by entering an inflated package weight?  Anyway, I'm glad that eBay stopped using those DSRs in their seller performance criteria. I'm one of the many buyers who pay no attention to them because they are basically so subjective.

I haven't gotten any pushback about shipping costs since I started explaining in my listing descriptions that the postage cost shown in the listing is the actual calculated postage cost from my ZIP Code to theirs, based on the package weight and dimensions.  I figure i don't need to mention that they're seeing the retail price  😉

[hawkwind5454]

That sounds rather like despising the food that you received, but giving the bad review to the GrubHub driver... Makes little sense. 

[lakefor94]

@crosscomponents 

I would not be concerned in the least with the ratings.

Under site preferences, shipping preferences you can see Offer Discounts to Buyers. There you can select to pass on savings from the eBay discounted shipping, to the buyers.

If I use calculated shipping, I want to make sure the shipping price looks as reasonable as possible. 

[crosscomponents]

The reason we wouldn't do that is because Ebay takes a percentage of the shipping cost also as you know. They used to offer the "handling fee" option to add to calculated orders only, but I don't see that as an option anymore. Maybe it only shows up when creating a listing, or maybe its gone now for good. But since Ebay is taking a cut of the shipping charges too the pricing has to stay calculated with no other discounts. We cant eat 13.25% on the item final value fee AND the shipping too. For the longest time the final value fee was 10% and the commercial USPS rate was 10% cheaper than retail. So the commercial shipping "discount" everyone was getting was only basically making up for the final value fee.