expensive items when giving free postage

bjlcr
Community Member

I am finding with adding postage to items it makes some of my items come up expensive.Ebay wants us to say free postage as it is supposed to get the item further up in the search.Also I thought the free postage is for free domestic postage .For outside Australia I have no chioce but to charge for postage,which is uually high.Ebay still charge their fee for the international postage even though the free postage is supposed to be for dometic items.It's a bit unfair.

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expensive items when giving free postage

expensive items when giving free postage

I ignore eBay on 'free' postage, except for anything that will go as a letter. Buyers are not mugs - they know 'free' postage actually means postage included. The ones who don't are probably going to be problems anyway, so it is a useful way to cull the dross.

 

Calculated on parcels aves having to edit everything when parcel costs go up, and allows me to properly combine shipping (if buyers actually wait for an invoice).

 

I don't care about jumping through eBay's hoops, or 'best' match. I have over 1400 items listed and not a single one of them qualifies for the 'premium' badge. Nor will any ever do so.

 

My business model works for me and I very much doubt any extra sales generated by following ebay's guidelines, aka 'Top Tips', would nett me any more money. They would probably increase my number of online shoplifters though.

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expensive items when giving free postage

I feel exactly the same way as you man.

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expensive items when giving free postage

Freepost used to get items bumped up, they dont at the moment. Ebays priorities on bumping changes.

 

It may make them seem expensive to you as a seller, but to buyers it is just as expensive either way. At least with it incorporated you cant fall into the trap of thinking "its cheap why is no one buying it?" and forgeting the effect adding postage has on buyers.

 

My items are one offs and have no set value, so I dont "add in postage", I list everything much the same price regardless of postage cost (I dont even work out what that will be). just provide a total price, then reduce until it sells. When I pack it the postage cost will be what it will be. The only effect it has on me is that when I buy stock if it looks like it may be more expensive to ship I double think about its popularity as I know the higher postage is just another overhead to come out of my potential margin. ie it cause me to buy smarter.

 

The higher priced items in my store are not ones that would appear to be more valuable or have more expensive post, they are simply newer listings. Older listings that would appear more valuable, or more expensive to post, will be cheaper. Hence I could have designer items cheaper than Target items. Length of time listed is the only indicator of popularity and value, not what it costs me, or what it would cost retail, or even how much it cost to post. How quickly someone clicks buy now is the only indicator of price point. They wil factor in or out any post inclusive or exclusive issue.

 

If you ignore the shipping cost as not you problem you end up with items that seem cheap but are not selling.

 

Most of my items are flat rate satchels so only reason for seperating postage cost out is for perception of cheaper price, and promoting combined purchases.. If  buyer is willing to pay $X to get something it makes no difference how you split that up.

 

There are swings and roundabouts to freepost, most of it is perception, biggest downer is it does reduce number of combined purchases. To me I have just found it simplifys the process, less to work out and less fuel for disputes.

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ASSUMPTION IS THE MOTHER OF ALL STUFF UPS!!
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expensive items when giving free postage

I don't list internationaly any more. I didn't sell a great deal overseas anyway but once ebay decided to charge the fee on the full cost of international post I stopped altogether, it wasn't worth the time and effort to try and sell things that had to be overpriced to cover the cost of the international fee.

 

As for free postage I always had that for my store items but have now started listing with a $5 postage charge so that I can offer discounts for multiple items.

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It says in this book I am reading that by 2065 80% of women will be overweight.

See what a trendsetter I am?
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expensive items when giving free postage

I'm changing the way i sell items, i've increased handling times and slowly starting to charge separately for postage.

 

One of my biggest beefs was if a customer returned an item for a refund it was costing me for the original postage because i had to refund what they paid (free postage), now in my return policy the customer has to pay for the return postage and the orininal postage if there returning for reasons other than a mistake on my (our) behalf.

 

Sick of Ebay telling me whats best for my business, 1 shoe does not fit all.

 

 

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expensive items when giving free postage

Australia post jacks up the postage which sadly has to be pasted on the ebayer comsumer.  I always include "free postage" in my listings. However If you you live locally you can always pick them up.

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