topic Re: a small moral dilemma with postage prices in Selling

a small moral dilemma with postage prices

themerchantscorner — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 12:27:42 GMT

firstly i'd like to say "Greetings" , this is my first post on the ebay forums

i'm having a bit a "moral dilemma " when i price postage costs

i always like to think that im offering fair postage pirces in my listings, even to the point where i lose money due to postage cost ( which i dont mind too much) however i've recently discovered that ebay not only charges a final value fee on the price of the item being sold , but also the postage price as well.

Because of this i've had to increase my postage prices slightly (by about 50 cents) and prices for future (which might also be from 50 cents to 1 dollar) but i now see that i'm mmaking a little bit of "profit" off of this which about 20 cents for some of my auctions that have blu rays or games

i dont normally think making proftis off postage is right ( even though some sellers make it obvious )

but for some reason this little thing bothers me as i feel it might shy away potential buyers

am i right in saying this?

any kind of a response would be much obliged and appreciated

thanks

Re: a small moral dilemma with postage prices

kopenhagen5 — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 12:37:50 GMT

Welcome to the boards.

Keep in mind you are permitted to charge a little extra for packing and handling costs, so if your charge exceeds actual postage by such a small amount that you mention, I wouldn't be concerned.

And if your postal charge is still in line with competitors, I doubt the small increase will affect your sales.

BTW, the reason for ebay charging on postage was to eliminate the sellers listing at 99 cents with $100 postage to circumvent fees, making the site more credible.

Re: a small moral dilemma with postage prices

themerchantscorner — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 12:47:09 GMT

thanks so much for that , it makes much more sense now as to why ebay charges for postage

really puts my mind at ease

Re: a small moral dilemma with postage prices

kopenhagen5 — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 13:15:42 GMT

You're welcome.

Re: a small moral dilemma with postage prices

phorum_junkie* — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 14:41:21 GMT

Don't fret, I can never understand why sellers charge only stamp cost or even less when they are perfectly entitled to charge for all packaging materials right down to the ink for writing or printing the address as well as a reasonable amount for their time in selecting and preparing the item for delivery.

Most of my items are delivery included but for the ones where I am charging for delivery i add about $1.50 to $2 to the actual cost and I have never had a complaint or received lower than usual stars.