Ebay charging fees including postage

[bric-a-brac-online]

How does Ebay allowed to charge a final fees which include the postage - I would have thought that the postage cost was only the seller and Australia post - how do they get away with it - loophole in the system may be

[i-love-my-sheep · Accepted solution]

This was implemented last May and according to the ACCC, they are allowed to do it. It's supposedly to stop those sellers that were charging high postage rates to avoid paying fees. For example, if they wanted to sell their item for $20 that would cost $7.20 to post, they would charge $1 for the item and $26 postage. That way they were only paying fees on $1.

[bric-a-brac-online]

this is a no win situation for the honest sellers only a money win for Ebay

[bettyboopsadaisy]

Yes this was all thrashed out months ago on the discussion boards, when it was introduced. We are just having to live with it now because with every change that erodes sellers experience on ebay, ebays only response reminds me of George Bush's old 'walnut' - 'You are either with us or against us'. And they add with very little grace, If you don't like it, you know what you can do !!!!!

[press_play_au]

I would imagine this has already been discussed elsewhere on here. I have been outraged since ebay started charging us for shipping fees but what I’ve been to busy to realise is that not only are they charging us a percentage of the shipping cost which goes on our monthly bill, but then when the money gets transferred into PayPal from the buyer, PayPal also charges us a percentage of that shipping fee.

Since PayPal is owned by eBay essentially they are charging us twice on one amount of money. There is no way that can be legal. If they want to charge us a percentage of the cost of shipping then shouldn't they take that percentage off the amount that the buyer pays before it gets put into paypal? Then when PayPal charges us its fee it's only based on a percentage of our profit and not charging us for a percentage of the $7.20 or whatever postage cost that eBay has already charged us for. 

This is totally outrageous. I am not very knowledgeable of legal issues but even I can imagine that this system would have to be considered illegal. They seem to have created the process exactly this way so they can charge us a percentage twice on the same amount of money.

[i-love-my-sheep]

Quite a few people contacted the spineless ACCC and they said what they were doing was legal. It might be morally wrong, but it's legal (apparently).

[homedecormel]

My mistake I should sell the items via diferent website it wont happen any more I have sold trough ebay last time

Why ??

simple

I have sold in the month 1565.10 worth items.

All feed including ebay,paypal, postage $299.65

My items actualy sold for $1265.45

Table on tresure market is 20$ a day coffee included free..

Think Before you list any think via EBAY.................

Good on you ebay no longer seller..

[badbundybear]

its B#$%^hit these postage fees >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>WAKE UP EBAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[antiquedolllady]

I am getting an enormous amount of flack from buyers when I include the ebay charges on postage in the postage cost.  I am selling items for a family member and trying to ensure that the posatge charge actually covers the cost.  In many case I am having to post items to Western Australia, NT and northern Queenland and am frequently losing money.  I have twice had quite unreasonable buyers complaning about the postage cost (only after they have received the item)- despite them only being charged the actual postage plus ebay fees on postage, and the cost being clearly stated in the listing. In one case I was left with $1.30 to cover the cost of wrapping a very large item in bubble wrap and packing it in a box etc - and the buyer is giving me a really hard time saying I am profiting from postage.  Ebay's postage fees are causing me a great deal of grief and makes Ebay an extremely unpleasant place to sell. The major problem in my view is that ebay has not fully informed buyers about these fees, nor do the listings make it obvious that ebay is charging them. The other problem I believe is that both of these buyers have been re-sellers and they are trying to maximise their own profits at my expense, with the potential threat of negative feedback. I am being forced to refund money to placate them.

[cq_tech]

I couldn't agree more. It's all very well for eBay to tell us to add the additional fees to the postage cost but buyers aren't stupid and most of them are well aware of how much something costs to send from point A to point B and if you charge in excess of actual stamp or postage cost, they're just as likely to hit you with a defect for charging excessive postage.

You can't even add the price of the envelope or padded bag or bubble-wrap to the cost by way of a handling fee because that also takes the postage beyond actual stamp cost and while most buyers accept that somebody has to pay for those necessities, there are still plenty of unreasonable buyers who still believe that those costs should be borne by the seller.

It has become painfully obvious to me that the only safe method of preventing the possibility of being defected for what some buyers deem to be excessive postage costs is to list with "free postage" and that way you receive an automatic DSR score of 5 stars and no possibility of a defect, which is eBay's way of forcing sellers to adopt "free postage" by stealth.

However, I flatly refuse to charge "free postage" because I think it's misleading to buyers to do so, and will continue to list all of my items with separate postage, which means that in order to avoid low DSRs or defects for postage costs, I'm essentially forced to charge actual stamp cost only and absorb the additional postage costs myself.