USPS Parcel Select charges not calculated correctly

[contech]

So, I just had an item where the buyer selected the USPS Parcel Select option to ship. He was charged 11.50 by eBay for the shipping & handling fee.

When I went to PayPal and slected Parcel Select, it wanted to charge me almost $30 for the label! It was a 3.5 lb package. What is going on? The package is only going from Indianapolis to Brooklyn.

Fortunately, I checked the Priority label option for that item was only $10.50, so that's what I printed off instead.

Seriously, what's the deal?

[partial*eclipse]

Sounds like there was a typo in the package measurements:  Parcel Select postage to Zone 5 is $10.50 for 4 pounds and $29.42 for 20 pounds, which is also the "balloon rate" that you'd be charged if your package's length-plus-girth was over 84 inches.

[contech]

PayPal didn't ask for any package dimensions. I'm fairly positive I put the right weight in. I'll pay very close attention to this the next time I enter a Parcel Select.

[a_c_green]

---

@contech wrote:
PayPal didn't ask for any package dimensions. I'm fairly positive I put the right weight in. I'll pay very close attention to this the next time I enter a Parcel Select.

---

It's been a while since I had to do a listing from scratch, but I do recall (from several years ago now) noticing that if I didn't include Priority Mail as an option when setting up a listing that offered a Parcel shipment (back when I was selling vintage commercial signs that always required fairly large boxes), the Sell Your Item form didn't offer me anyplace to enter the package dimensions. I got burned once or twice when uploading a listing that would require an oversize box, but wasn't prompted for oversize pricing. If I offered Priority Mail as an option, I could then enter the package dimensions and also check the Oversized box, so the buyer would see the correct pricing.

Whether that's still true (at least in the format that I remember), I don't know, but your description of the problem does sound familiar.

[yourhartzdesire2016]

Hello, I am jumping in this older message because it best fits my situation, I am having the same issue off and on, today for example I use mostly calculated USPS shipping and my item that just sold has the correct measurement and weight as needed but when I went in to print the label they charged my customer $3.00 less than the cost of postage, I was giving a 5% discount and was told to take that off and update all my listings (big pain) to have the system "readjust" my weights, etc. and it seemed to work a few weeks ago when this happened on 5 sold items in one day which I had no choice but to take the loss and ship but today I am out $3.00 for Parcel and if I ship priority it would cost an additional $9.00 on a item that sold for just over $8.00? Something is VERY WRONG with the calculater.

[couldabeenworse]

yourhart - it's always best to start a new thread rather than tag on to an old one.

I've seen seemingly hundreds of posts like this over the years, and it's almost always user error.  The place to start is to get the weight, dimensions and both ZIPs and calculate postage at USPS to see what the correct amount is.  Then go back to the one that is wrong and check those same things (yes, be sure to check your own ZIP as well).

The shipping calculator is just that - a calculator.  It takes the data you provide and spits out a number based on that info.  It's far more likely that there is some error in your input than for the calculator to malfunction.

Good luck....

Good luck...

[derodworldwide]

Blaming the seller and not eBay's poorly made system. Check. smh

[kh-valeria]

Hello Everyone,

Due to the age of the thread, it has been closed to further replies.  Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thanks for understanding!​​​​​​​