eBay's calculated shipping does not calculate dimensional weight weight properly

[ccex]

I just sold five cases of 100 large bubble mailers to one customer.  She chose me because eBay's calculated shipping, which I used, told her it would cost less than $27 for FedEx ground to send all five cases to her business.  Each case measures 15 x 15 x 21 inches and weighs just over 6 pounds.  With the quantity discount I offered, the five cases cost her $54 plus shipping: $85 total with sales tax. 

When I went to purchase shipping labels,  eBay had calculated the weight for five cases, but kept the 15 x 15 x 21 dimensions I entered for a single case.  There is no way I can cram 200 bubble mailers into one box, let alone 500 of them, so I noted what FedEx labels would cost if I shipped the cases of bubble mailers individually or in bundles of 2, 3, or 4 cases.  The least expensive combination (two bundles of two plus a single) cost $95, and other combinations would cost up to $290 just for FedEx Ground shipping, which the customer selected.

I called eBay customer service asking them to write to the customer acknowledging that their calculated shipping method was not accurate.  They refused, and asked me to contact the seller to get her permission to cancel the transaction.  I stated that if I were the buyer, who paid the amount shown in eBay checkout, I would not want to cancel the transaction if the fault was neither the buyer's nor the seller's.    At least the CS rep understood that I was calling to avoid a big defect for cancelling a transaction, so she put me on hold four times.  After the first 20 minutes she said that the best that eBay could do for me was to offer me a credit for $33.89 to cover half the difference between what they charged the buyer for shipping and what they would charge me for the same.  She suggested that in the future I use flat rate shipping for bulky lightweight items but I asked her to go back to her supervisor and request that eBay pay for the total difference ($67.78) between what they billed the customer and what they charged me for shipping.  It will take 7 to 10 business days for this credit to be approved

Has anyone else suffered a loss on a transaction because eBay did not calculate multiple quantity shipping properly?   If so, how did you avoid this from happening again?

[ainpie-10]

All I have to say is good luck on that happening. I never trust calculated shipping and I always do flat shipping.

[nobody*s_perfect]

The problem isn't the dimensional weight; the problem is that there are multiple boxes.

[ccex]

...exactly.  eBay assumes that the volume of five boxes is the same as the volume of one box, but they calculated five times the weight.    eBay's listing page does not allow the seller to specify multiple boxes.  Unfortunately FedEx, UPS, and USPS know that five boxes take up five times as much precious space in their delivery vehicles as one box does, and they charge accordingly.

[ccex]

I called back and another customer service representative told me that it is very likely that eBay will pay me for their error simply because they have never had to reimburse me for an error in their shipping cost calculations before.    

I use flat rate shipping on small packages that only weigh a few ounces, often with a free shipping option.

For large, lightweight packages when the shipping cost exceeds the value of the item, flat rate shipping is dangerous.  Do you suggest I charge everyone the cost to ship the package to the far corners of the U.S.  (Alaska, San Jose CA, Puerto Rico, or Florida?)  Doing so means that my item would not be competitive for buyers closer to me.    How do you calculate flat rate shipping to keep your items competitive when there are huge differences due to geography?

[albertabrightalberta]

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@ccex wrote:

I called back and another customer service representative told me that it is very likely that eBay will pay me for their error simply because they have never had to reimburse me for an error in their shipping cost calculations before.    

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Please update to let us know if ebay follows through on that "promise!" 

I'm not holding my breath. They told you what you wanted to hear.

[fab_finds4u]

You figured the shipping. Garbage in garbage out.

[bbravo65]

@ccex 

...which "flat rate shipping" were you referred in your comment...?

...if for USPS Priority Flat Rate Services, you will pay the same price for shipping your package regardless the location or the weight...

...location will be mattered if you choose regular First-Class Rate or Priority Rate...by USPS shipping geography zones (1 to 9) and it starts as your primary address is zone 1...

[rfmtm]

The shipping calculator was never designed to work this way where a single "lot" needs more than one box.  The way it does work is to have a "quantity" listed (in your case five) and set shipping to not combine, but add the single calculated box rate for each extra item purchased.   This way it would charge for each individual box shipped.

Good luck with ebay refunding.  If they do it will just be a courtesy refund, because the ebay calculator did work properly.

[pjcdn2005]

When multiple items are sold, eBay's calculator has no way of knowing whether you will be using multiple boxes or one bigger box or how big that new box will be.  

[ccex]

Thank you rfmtm.   I learned the hard way that combined shipping assumes everything can fit into the box used for a single item.   I noticed that all other sellers of this bulky, lightweight item offer free shipping and charge a much higher price than I do.    To "set shipping to not combine" would adversely affect most of the listings I sell (for small items with room for two or three more in the package), so I decided to raise my price enough to cover the cost of shipping to about 75% of the continental U.S.

[rfmtm]

Just a note, that you can create multiple rules for combining shipping and then select the specific listings you want a rule to apply to.

[ccex]

on 11/14 albertabrightalberta wrote: "Please update to let us know if ebay follows through on that "promise!" 

I'm not holding my breath. They told you what you wanted to hear."

12 days and 4 calls to eBay later I have not received anything in writing.  I finally did speak to someone who told me that eBay's normal policy is to not issue a refund unless eBay gets reimbursement from FedEx.  Today's eBay rep noted that no one had ever asked FedEx if they made a mistake in the shipping charges that eBay charged me.  He explained that eBay will issue small "courtesy refunds" to sellers who believe that eBay overcharged them.  However, his guidelines from above are to try to limit courtesy refunds to $50 per seller per year,  never to exceed $100.  Then he informed me that I was already at $48.  (The previous courtesy refund was  when I requested 50% reimbursement for an item fore which a buyer damaged and received a full refund since I had no other options).  He was honest enough to tell me that in eBay's eyes, I complained too much to get another courtesy refund this year, (since my request was for $67.78).   His honesty let me know why on the first call, eBay offered to settle for  $33.89 but not $67.78.   The previous  four customer service representatives all thanked me for my 22 years of eBay membership and kept stringing me along, hoping that I might receive a refund soon.

I have learned to never again use eBay's calculated shipping for bulky items.  Free shipping is still the norm for eBay sellers of shipping supplies, although free shipping is much less common for small items than it was two or three years ago.  Now I know why.

[mtgraves7984]

@ccex 

Sorry you've been going through all of this. I'll put @albertabrightalberta (^^^) in the loop. Good luck moving forward.

[jstars]

eBay is last to admit to sellers that eBay's 30-year-old platform is full of "known issues".  In July , UPS charged my eBay account an additional $1,350 for an approximately 19 pound plastic car grille I had shipped from Virginia to Louisiana. My dimensions and weight within the eBay shipping calculator were totally accurate; the eBay shipping calculator was WRONG.  I was on vacation, which is not the time you want an unexpected $1,350 suddenly sucked from your bank account! After I paid to have funds wired to cover the bank overdraft, I filed an appeal with an eBay customer service representative, and did receive a refund after a month or more. eBay requested photos of the package I shipped, which I did not have (I ship over 30 packages each week).  I referred eBay to the information I had pre-filled within their own shipping calculator for that item. I also noted that the other sellers with the same item provided nearly the identical shipping charges for the item, which meant those sellers were also [without the sellers' knowledge] providing incorrect shipping charges to customers.  I am quite certain that either: 1. UPS and eBay have a contractual relationship, both UPS and eBay are making money from large-volume sellers who will not dispute the extra charges that hit their account weeks after shipments arrive at their destinations, and that there is no financial incentive to "fix" the calculator that is not broken for UPS and eBay; or, 2. eBay operates a 30-year-old platform with so many patches and holes that it does not want to admit it has another problem which requires an expensive repair.  My solution is to avoid UPS whenever possible. I have shipped only one item via UPS since last summer, and I only did so after taking lots of screen shots of the eBay shipping calculator, taking videos of me measuring the box, writing the dimensions and calculations on the box, manually entering the fictional, i.e. dimensional weight, into the eBay shipping calculator, then driving the box to a local UPS location and observing as the employee scanned the package.  I operate a business -- this process is absurd.