Excessive Postage Costs

[jvdv]

Just a gripe to get it off my chest ...

I will no longer bid on items where the seller is charging an excessive amount for postage - i.e $25.00 for an item that will fit in an Aust Post 500 gm satchel for which most sellers would charge around $8.50.

There, I feel better now.

[enigmabear]

At a guess, I would say many such sellers are in for a shock when they discover ebay take 10% of postage charges too

I understand the need for appropriate packaging etc but some postage costs are just downright laughable ,I too see such listings and move on

[kopenhagen5]

I also skip sellers with outrageous post costs.

Keep in mind some add signature and insurance.

And then if they live miles from a PO, petrol is part of handling costs.

[bluebudgies]

And some use the quick listing tool which seems to only have options for satchels, and the sellers don't know how to change it, let alone that they can change it.

[phorum_junkie*]

I take no notice of the postage cost. I search for an item by price including postage and then look at the first few to see which looks the most reliable going by their feedback and stars.

If one is $10 item price and $18 postage and another is $29 with free postage I would be nuts to buy from the free postage seller.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

while I understand where you are coming from, I always look at my total spend amount and take advantage of less bidders when postage costs seem excessively high.

It can lead to me getting a real bargain.

This strategy of mine would not work well if I needed to return an item for an item price only refund, but I just make sure I am careful when buying.

If you see something you really need or want that has a high postage cost then think of your total spend amount and reduce your high bid accordingly rather than outright excluding the option of buying altogether.

edit: pj posted while I was typing my post, and I agree with sorting by item + postage as that lists search results for you so you don't have to do all the calculations yourself to work out best value total spend items.

[collect247]

My question is why would you bid in the first place?

[springyzone]

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@jvdv wrote:

Just a gripe to get it off my chest ...

I will no longer bid on items where the seller is charging an excessive amount for postage - i.e $25.00 for an item that will fit in an Aust Post 500 gm satchel for which most sellers would charge around $8.50.

There, I feel better now.

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Packaging costs can be deceptive. What you think would fit in a 500gm satchel might not be how the seller wants to risk sending it in case eg it breaks. If that happened, you'd probably be the first to cry it wasn't packed well enough.

But, I do see your point. I think postage costs matter. They matter a lot. What it means for ebay is that it is no longer a great venue for selling some cheaper items, even if the postage is only at $8.50.

I was idly scrolling through some clothes listings on ebay (to compare to the actual brand website sales) and really, even if a second hand top or whatever is only $4.50, by the time you add $8.50 for postage, it is not an attractive option.

Most big online companies are putting a cap on their postage costs. That cap is often set at about $9.99 or $7.99 (excluding heavy furniture).

By comparison, it is making some ebay sellers look expensive. I would baulk at paying $25 postage on a small item too.

[phorum_junkie*]

As I said before I doon't care about postage when buying, which I do infrequently, but as a seller I kknow it is important to some buyers so I charge a nominal $5 postage for most items and build the rest of my end price into the item. Not only do buyers see it as cheap postage it allows me to give discounts for multiple purchases.

[*tippy*toes*]

I do see your point and have also been the victim on postage gouging. I have to ask though, which item would you buy? One for 1c with $49.99 postage, or the other for $50 with free postage? I bought the first one at auction because I knew it was worth at least double. There were no other bids. The other one sold for over $100 and had around 20 different bidders. Same seller. I'm sure there were plenty of buyers who saw the postage cost of the item I bought and thought there was no way they were paying that for postage when they know it would be far cheaper (especially coming from China). Yet, they were happy to pay more than double for the identical item because the postage was listed as free.

I do get annoyed when I pay a lot for postage, because the seller has listed as parcel post with SOD, then it arrives in a padded bag with 3 stamps on it. Sometimes the item plus the postage cost is more than what I'd planned to pay, but it was something I really wanted so was happy to wear the extra postage cost. For it then to arrive in a padded bag was straight out piracy. They weren't a new seller either, so knew exactly what they were doing.

I have listed things for parcel rate, then when the time came to package, it fitted in a padded bag, under 20mm, so I refunded the buyers the difference. My conscience wouldn't let me keep the extra. On the other side, I've posted items under 20mm at parcel rate because they are fragile. I've had buyers question why a small item would be so much to post. Some are then happy to pay the extra knowing the item will arrive intact.