Buyers paying less in shipping cost then me all of a sudden?

[adam.babb]

Hey everyone, Ive been selling on ebay for a few years now and though it has been mostly good selling items on ebay, the last few sales Ive made, have been very frustrating to say the least. My issue is with the postage costs payments differ between me the seller and a buyer. In the last few weeks I have found that  buyers for me at least recently have been paying the bare minium in terms of calculated postage costs compared to me where I have been paying almost double and even triple what I buyer initially paid after winning one of my auctions.

For example, I sold an portable potty for $1 and the buyer payed $11.20 for a grand total of $12.20 to me, when I went to purchase the shipping label, i was hit with a $20 shipping cost. **bleep**? and because the buyer was using a PO box address I had no choice but to pay for the $20 postage fee and lose $8 on an item i was better off not selling at all.

Then I sold another item for $50 this time a thermo fan, the buyer paid $16 postage, I had to pay $32 postage on my end. WHAT THE HELL, i cant win I may as well give up, its just not worth selling things on ebay at this rate.

My assumption is in the first example the buyer paided the price for an ebay (sendle) postage cost but because they have a PO Box address i have to use auspost to ship the item to them and so I have to pay the auspost shipping cost but why is the system allowing the buyer to choose which postage to pay for? shouldnt the system calculate the correct postage cost based on their address details and charge the buyer from there taking into account sendle dont ship to PO boxes. it makes no sense

I cant really example the second example as I roughly estimated the size of the box and over did the weight but no amount of readjustment changed my situation which means the buyer is in one of sendles heavy tax areas and so i paid triple the postage cost. any ideas as to what the hell is going on with these situations?

The only solution I can think of is to max out all of the measurements (LxHxW) on my auctions regardless of if the item is tiny or big  but when i tested the theroy on one of my current auctions using the postcode for one of the buyers location in the above examples it said he would have to pay about $32 dollars in postage for that item, so why did he not have to pay that in the auction he won already, he paid $16 so even if i did make max out the measurements the buyer still might not need to pay the correct amount. Im so lost with this I just cant eplain it at all.

please I need help or suggestions to solve this problem, because ilm really losing instead of making money selling on ebay and its just bull**bleep**.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

if a postage option is chosen that is incompatible with sending to a PO BOX then cancel the sale with "problem with buyer's address" as the reason.

Then block the buyer and do not relist if you are likely to lose on the sale. 

[adam.babb]

Ok thank you but the system shoukd be doing this automatically, the buyer should be locked into their address location the postage costs should be charge according to that fact why do buyers have an option either way is what i want to point out. I will be contact ebay directly to discuss the situation because i cant do this anymore.

[davewil1964]

You have several options -

Don't use Sendle.

Build the actual cost of postage into your price.

Don't guess. You have the item/s in your possession - weigh them and measure them.

Don't use Sendle.

Don't use calculated postage. AP have flat rates for up to 5kg country-wide. Avail yourself of this option when applicable.

If you know what your items are worth ($1 is unlikely to be the value, and if it is why bother selling it? eBay fees are more than that) try using Buy It Now rather than auction. Auctions, except in limited circumstances, haven't really been a useful tool for many years.

Edit: You seem to be charging $13.90 postage for things that could probably go as a large letter. Certainly they would fit in a Small AP satchel at $9.95, so you seemed to have solved your problem

[adam.babb]

Hmm i had a feeling sendle was going to be the problem here. I know $1 sounds like a waste of time to most people but im kinda obsecure items that i need to get rid of as soon as i can with plenty more items to try and sell after their gone. I dont know if people wouLd even buy some of these items nowdays but i feel the need to tey and make something off then then to just throw them away. also i included offers, low intital auction prices and buy now prices to draw more potential buyers to my auctions but even that doesnt work on some of the items ive tried to sell in the past. Ive had to throw some items in with other items ive sold just to try and get the item out of my hair.

[*sons_n_daughters*]

Why are you choosing to lose money on items you sell? For example, your Dual Core E2180, you have listed as a buy it now for $1. Postage to me is saying $32.45 (from Vic to NSW). If I bought that, the fees on postage alone are going to be nudging $4. For an item you have sold for $1. WHY????

You have sold multiple items for $1 with in excess of $10 postage (for me, showing $13-20). You are throwing money away, then whinging because buyers aren't paying enough postage, and you are out of pocket. YOU'RE ALREADY OUT OF POCKET!!!! No one in their right mind would throw away money like that. If they are only worth $1 with $13+ postage, throw them on the footpath for the next council clean up. At least you don't have to pay for that.

[adam.babb]

I appreciate your response i feel i am not fully aware of all of the hidden fees ebay charges for the sale of an item and i was not taking into account the postage fee costs ebay takes so thank you for informing me of that fact. I dont like to throw items away unless their broken but that cpu and cooler you mentioned has been up for sale for 6 months at that price and yet the listing has not really shown me many views and no one seems to want it at any price, so i might have to bin it after all.

I was only aware of a 10% cost of the sale price not including the freight to ebay, so if i sold an item for $1 ebay gets cents of the sale, i guess this information is completely false and i need to look into what charges ebay puts on so i am not losing out as you put it.

I am selling items to make a little bit of extra cash with all of the stuff i have collected and held onto over my life and so i wasnt trying to make a living or a business out of the sale of my old unwanted items. I have made some big sales in the past netting me a ni e profit but not all items i am selling achieve a massive profit and so to tey and get rid of the more obsecure items i sell them cheap hoping for a bidding war to occur which seems to rarely happen unfortunately.

Anyways ive spoken with ebay directly and they are going to look into the reasons why the buyers are paying a lower shipping fees then what i ended up paying at my end which is more a fault of the system then anyone else in my opinion.

[countessalmirena]

Final Value Fees are not 10%.

OP, you really need to be aware of what is payable so that you can set a price that will let you at the very least not lose money.

The FVF is ❝13.4% of the sale amount up to $4,000❞ (including the listed postage amount) plus an additional 30¢ per transaction.

If you can create a spreadsheet with formulae to help you automatically work out fees and margins, you’ll be in a position to set prices that won’t end up costing YOU.

Selling items for $1 seems to me to be an exercise in stopping the tides. There is also the possibility that the very cheapness of that will count against you. Customer perception may be “Oh, $1, they wouldn’t be practically throwing it away for $1 if it was any good”.

Try listing at a price that reflects the items’ actual value, or just below. Yes, INCREASE your item prices. If you list them at a price that says you don’t rate them as more than rubbish, other people will take their valuation from yours.

There is no point in having loss leaders if they don’t draw buyers to buy larger /big ticket items from you. 

Look at the excellent advice given by k1ooo, davewil and s&d; and good luck.

[adam.babb]

Though i appreciate the advice given in this thread i would not say its great advice, more of a "you need to know more about selling on ebay then you current think you do" type of advice. Ive looked up a ebay fees calculator to see what has been presented in this thread and i can now see what profit margins are like with all of ebays fees included and from what ive seen i should not sell anything under $10 to make it worth selling anything on ebay. If i knew such a calculator was available i would of used it earlier. But at least now i know and i have revised all of my listings to be more then $10 in value.

Also none of the advice presented so far has explained to me why the buyer paid less for shipping then i had to and it turned into more why the **bleep** are you selling at a loss anyways which though turned out to be true doesnt answer my original enquiry as to why it has happened and whether it was a listing error on my behalf. 

I dont believe low prices means putting buyers off as im 100% honest with all of my listings and i have maintaned a 100% positive feedback so far and i want to keep it that way as much as i can to help me sell more items in the future. I buy more on ebay then i sell and i am very price conscious when buying anything on ebay and i always go for the cheapest price available and prefer to spend less then pay more. So thinking as a buyer i would think spending less would mean i get the sale but not everything is saleable as it seems even on ebay and i need to find other aveunes to sell items no one seems to want.

[imastawka]

I haven't looked any further than your KMart teapots. Please throw out the one with the broken spout - it's not cracked, it's totally broken.  

Just sell the other one. Complete rubbish.

And there's no way you were going to fit both those boxes in a small satchel and post for $10.85

Please read APost's site for Nationwide postage costs with - If it packs it posts

If It Packs, It Posts - Australia Post (auspost.com.au)

edit:  Now also wondering about postage for a radiator at $14.00