Regards,
Gator08041971 • Volunteer Community Mentor 2024
Many thanks to all of you. I am sure this 'conversation' will help future new sellers. It was definitely my mistake and my misunderstanding. I am going to the UPS store this morning to work out the costs.
I hate to cancel the sale because my hope is that the person who is buying this really wants it. I have several art pieces that we bought in the early 70s. They are international artists and are signed/numbered. I sold a piece several months ago and delivered it 150 miles (drive a Prius and enjoyed the drive) because I recognized that I did not understand shipping. I thought I had it right this time .... WRONG!
I am going to the UPS store with address this morning. Fingers crossed that I can find a reasonable rate to pay for boxing/shipping. If not, I will cancel. While I do not want bad marks, I am not a business that will be selling lots of things through eBay. In fact, after my lack of savvy, I think I should give up on eBay.
Thanks for all your comments and clarifications.
If you go to the UPS store they are going to charge you full retail price. It is hard to say which shipping service is cheaper but you can go to site called Pirate Ship and put in your zip code, the buyers zip code and the dim's and weight of the package and it will give you the prices and options. You do not have to have a Pirate Ship account to simply test it but if you purchase the label you will. I punched in one of the Raleigh, NC zip codes and one for LA CA and used a 38" x 32" x 5" box as the size for your package and estimated a weight of 8 pounds, 8 ounces. These are the shipping costs I see on Pirate ship. This would not include extra insurance or any extra services like signature receipt. Priority mail is not even an option probably due to size limits, and ground advantage is crazy probably because of the USPS size premiums.
I buy all my labels on Pirate ship, which has about the same or better discounted rates as eBay, and use a cash back credit card which lowers my shipping expenses. Pirate ship link is
https://www.pirateship.com/rates
Example for your package.
This is likely the issue. When you went to purchase shipping the 25 X 3 X 3 was automatically populated into the shipping box because this is what was entered into the listing. All the information you put before the shipping details (ITEM SPECIFICS) has nothing to do with calculating the shipping fees.
Open your listing and scroll a little further down the page and look at what you put in the SHIPPING for the measurements.
@sylsh9475 wrote:Many thanks to all of you. I am sure this 'conversation' will help future new sellers. It was definitely my mistake and my misunderstanding. I am going to the UPS store this morning to work out the costs.
I hate to cancel the sale because my hope is that the person who is buying this really wants it. I have several art pieces that we bought in the early 70s. They are international artists and are signed/numbered. I sold a piece several months ago and delivered it 150 miles (drive a Prius and enjoyed the drive) because I recognized that I did not understand shipping. I thought I had it right this time .... WRONG!
I am going to the UPS store with address this morning. Fingers crossed that I can find a reasonable rate to pay for boxing/shipping. If not, I will cancel. While I do not want bad marks, I am not a business that will be selling lots of things through eBay. In fact, after my lack of savvy, I think I should give up on eBay.
Thanks for all your comments and clarifications.
@sylsh9475 Please do NOT cancel, learn from your mistake, the Buyer can leave Negative Feedback on your account if you cancel on them. That is NOT good business. Your cost may increase at the UPS store because they will also charge you for the packaging and on a large item I suspect it won't be cheap. The package may grow in size too because UPS has their own spec for packing things so their insurance applies. You will also be charged their version of Dimensional weight so that will increase the price too.
The other thing that could happen, and I sincerely hope it doesn't is the Buyer files a return claim forcing you to pay the return shipping cost and if they only charge you the original wrong shipping for the return label the Buyer may have issues when they take it to USPS to ship it back to you.
The No returns accepted setting does NOT guarantee that items will not be returned. eBay has several return reasons that bypass that setting and forces Sellers to pay for a return label and refund when they get the item back.
I sincerely hope this goes smoothly for you ...
@ten_o_nine wrote:And even in this case, as noted by another poster, a box specifically for shipping art might cost around 15 bucks. The shipping is going to be way more than that.
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I disagree.
Again.
Why though? You still haven't explained your position?
And then you posted this:
Don't be surprised if they tell you around $200.
So clearly you know the shipping is going to cost more than the packaging. So what gives?
@sylsh9475 wrote:Mr Lincoln: The other thing that could happen, and I sincerely hope it doesn't is the Buyer files a return claim forcing you to pay the return shipping cost and if they only charge you the original wrong shipping for the return label the Buyer may have issues when they take it to USPS to ship it back to you.
I have not shipped yet. eBay is holding funds until April 6. Their message is "Great news - your item has sold! Because you have a limited selling history on eBay, your funds will be on hold until Apr 6. "
I tried to cancel, but I am inept at that as well. I got the following message:
Hi ,
This order couldn’t be cancelled because there was an issue with the refund.
Please try refunding the buyer again by adding or updating your payment instrument before March 26, 2024. Learn more
Let me start this reply with the fact that none of us here want to see you fail but at the same time your mistake is not new and through all of this you will not make this mistake again.
New and low activity Sellers have their funds held for up to 21 days on sales under $ 1,000.00. That has nothing to do with when a Seller has to ship to avoid a late shipping defect on their account. Shipping time frame is determined by your Handling time. If you do not get an acceptance scan or upload tracking from the receipt you get at the UPS store within your handling time you risk the late shipping defect.
You can read about payment holds here: Payments on hold | eBay
Some of what we share might be worst case scenario but the reality is those situations "could" happen although we really hope they don't.
I see you are trying to cancel the transaction but eBay is not allowing it. That may be because you have not set up your back up payment method so if you have insufficient Available funds in your account the payment method defaults to the back up payment method. You can add that here on this page (in the Payouts and charges section): Seller Hub | Your financial summary | eBay
If you add a credit card it will be charged to pay the Buyer back. Once eBay releases your funds you will get that money back via a Payout sent to your bank account ... assuming you have that set up: Getting paid for items you've sold | eBay
As I mentioned before, my advice is to take the hit on the shipping mistake, send the print to the Buyer and move on.
You "could" message the Buyer and just be honest with them about the shipping mistake and ask if they would consider messaging you to request a cancellation. If they do then you can cancel without getting a strike on your account. Right now if you cancel you have to use the Out of stock reason and that comes with a strike for Sellers.
The normal cancellation flow has three choices:
-Problem with address
-Buyer requested
-Out of stock
Unpaid items after 4 days adds one more reason for canceling: "Buyer hasn't paid" but that's just an FYI for you.
Here is a link to your Seller protections which will be beneficial for you in the future.
