amount for postage, packing, shipping and insurance, if offered? In this
article, we will use the term shipping to include postage, packing and all
relevant costs.
Should You Gave Negative Feedback For Excessive Postage?
If the seller
failed to state postage charges, and then "rips you off" for postage, then yes,
but don't be hasty. Do bear in mind that packing materials cost money, and its
takes time (time = money) to pack things carefully. It also takes time and fuel
to travel to the post office. VAT registered businesses also have to account for
VAT on postage (so they need to add it to the basic costs). We believe it is
fair for sellers to recoup labour costs in their shipping charges. Ten minutes
equates to about 1 at UK minimum wage rates!
What to do About Rip-Off Shipping Charges
Charging excess shipping
charges is against eBay policy (this is because it helps the seller to avoid
eBay selling fees). If you think a seller asks excessive shipping costs, you
should report them to eBay, who may do nothing, but may suspend their account.
warn them, or ban them, depending on whether the offence gets repeated and other
factors. If shipping costs are clearly stated, it is illogical to give negative
feedback, as you could clearly see for yourself before you bought, giving
negative feedback under these circumstances is really giving yourself an "idiot"
vote. The other thing you could do about excessive shipping charges is simply
avoid buying from that particular seller. If everybody did the same there would
be no excessive shipping charges.
None eBay Item Shipping Charges
One way of looking at shipping
charges, and whether they are fair would be to look at the sellers standard
charges for directly bought items from their website or store as opposed to via
eBay. If these charges are the same as via eBay, then at least you can see that
they are not using them to avoid eBay fees. Of course, this does not guarantee
they are fair. One example we could cite here is Dell Computers. In the UK, Dell
charge about 50 shipping on a computer system compared with about 12 to 15
for many of their their competitors. Whether you consider it unfair depends on
you own viewpoint and ethics, Without doubt, the reason they do this is to make
their own prices look more competitive, but recoup the difference, perhaps more,
on the shipping costs. As a matter of interest, you may like to note that our
company charge exactly the same to eBay customers as to non-eBay customers. We
try not only to be fair, but also be transparent.
Increased Costs - Particularly for International Shipping
Because of
the international nature of eBay, it is unreasonable for all sellers to know the
cost of shipping all their products to anywhere in the world, by all the
different services available. If the vendor of the item you are thinking of
bidding on does not state shipping costs to your location, then the smart thing
to do is to ask him BEFORE you place your bid, rather than bitching about it
afterwards or giving negative feedback. Some sellers state that their shipping
costs will be fair and reasonable, or will be at cost price. In this case, you
could find the cost of sending a similar item to him, and you would not even
need to ask, although shipping costs are not always the same in both directions.
(We have a French customer who tells us it costs him more to post within France
than we charge for international shipping).
Two Examples From Personal Experience
items via eBay. Of these, some people forget to leave feedback or can't be
bothered, but we received over 6,000 positives, and under 50 negatives. The very
first negative we received was from a private individual who also deals in coins
via eBay. Despite not being VAT registered he charges a very similar amount to
us for non-insured shipping within the UK. His reason for the negative? We
suspect it was probably jealousy or stupidity, but he stated: "CHARGED 2.00
P
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