Excessive Postage Costs?

[cactusfever01]

Interested in the general consensus; seller is selling a motorcycle part (headlight) for $220.

Postage is $60 (I believe this to be excessive considering the size and weight of the item.

I asked if pick up was okay; seller responded in the affirmative but the total cost would be $260.

Can a seller include the postage cost in the item price?

[digital*ghost]

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@springyzone wrote:

That might be logical, gutterpunz, but it flies in the face of human nature.

People don't like feeling they may have been overcharged on postage & they are always going to whinge about it, so sellers need to be a bit more cunning how they set their prices. 

Time after time I see sellers here saying-it's the total price that counts, not how much postage you get charged etc and while that is correct, buyer perception doesn't work that way. 

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But, at the same time, advice is tailored to the person asking the question.

If a seller was asking in the forum about how to set up their pricing and postage costs, or which costs are best put under which heading, 99% of the advice would be to keep the P&H as low as is feasible, and have all other costs covered in the item price, precisely because of the perception of these costs for the majority, which is not about reailty, but feelings based on pre-conceived ideas or (in some cases) personal principles. The advice to a seller is designed to minimise avoidable issues, if they so choose. 

Conversely, when a buyer asks questions like this, or if it's ok for sellers to charge more than actual postage costs, or charge for pick-up, the answer is almost invariably yes of course they can, because the advice should be about reality, not feelings / ideas, which is also designed to minimise avoidable issues for the buyer. When someone suggests or implies that the seller is doing something inherently wrong, it perpetuates the perception of the non-reality and encourages poor judgement of any seller who doesn't conform to those expectations, without considering anything from the seller's side, when there are myriad, perfectly legitimate reasons for them to want or need to charge those costs. (I am speaking generally here, rather than about this specific scenario). 

The fact that this perception exists is of course the reailty for sellers, so they then get to choose whether they will conform to that or not, but the point is changing or expanding perceptions is never a bad thing, and the buyer still gets to decide what is acceptable to them in terms of total paid. 

[gutterpunkz05]

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@springyzone wrote:

That might be logical, gutterpunz, but it flies in the face of human nature.

People don't like feeling they may have been overcharged on postage & they are always going to whinge about it, so sellers need to be a bit more cunning how they set their prices. 

Time after time I see sellers here saying-it's the total price that counts, not how much postage you get charged etc and while that is correct, buyer perception doesn't work that way. 

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Dont see any buyers going Gee that was cheap postage.  Sellers often loose out on shipping costs, depending on destination,

WA & SA especially, and set flat rate post costs accordingly.   By my calculations, if the hat in question was sent in a box, the total costwould be close to $40.00.   I bet we would not see the OP  offering to send the extra to the seller.   If as the OP claims in feedback, that the hat was damaged, then it should have been returned for a full refund.   There was recently a very good article relating to the falicy of Free Post  and the subsidisation of post to the majority of Australia by the residents of 2 cities.  If the majority of Australia was required to pay actual costs then they would not be buying online at all and probably would not have a delivery service anyway.

Cubing isnt it fun.  just sent a boxed item,  total weight  10Kg   Cubed weight  49.9Kg   Postage cost just over $102.   Packing

costs about $20   Time to Pack  approx 30min.   Now it just has to magically get itself 30km to the post office. 

[countessalmirena]

I need to play with my draft item for testing purposes a little more. I couldn't see the option to charge for pick-up and assumed it had been done away with.

[davewil1964]

It's available on all my listings. Maybe you are using the (very stripped down) 'quick' lister?

[countessalmirena]

Gutterpunkz, I think you conflated the headlight in this thread with the hat in another recent thread (the one about box rather than satchel)...? Mind you, I think I could get away with a Melbourne Cup headgear extravaganza featuring glossy feathers, ribbons, and a motorcycle headlight... (but I'd have a killer headache after that sort of weight on my head!)

Every other point in your post - agreed.

[countessalmirena]

No, I made sure that I had the "Advancef" option. I will have another look.

[digital*ghost]

I'm not sure the option has always been available, as I don't offer pick-up and also have vague memories of it being something that had to be specifically mentioned in descriptions (i.e. you could charge for pick-up, but only if it was mentioned up front). This might be way back when, when postage costs didn't have to be specified in listings (I was still pretty much a newby back then, mostly buying, and by the time I really got into selling, things had shifted a bit and quoting domestic postage was mandatory, so my memories of seller rules from then are fallible, and I couldn't even begin to tell you whether that field for adding a charge has always been there - I only checked because I couldn't find anything mentioning charges for pick-up in policies yet was sure there was some kind of provision for it. Edit: if you're not seeing it in the listing form, try checking for it under extra options, add or remove options or whatever it says these days, as some features aren't visible unless you've selected them to appear). 

I suspect, too, that if it wasn't always available, the advent of larger stores that operate out of warehouses but don't  have retail storefronts and still allow pick-up, made it necessary - many people think strictly in terms of picking up from someone's house and there being no direct, out of pocket expenses for a seller for the buyer to pick up, but if a postage charge includes the cost of warehouse staff to locate and prepare the item for transit, they may still have to do that when someone picks it up, and they still have to be paid for doing that. (I know people will argue it's better to have that in the item price, but the seller may charge it separately so it is not multipled many times if someone purchases multiples). 

[gutterpunkz05]

Your right there countess, was back out in the paddock and thought, hang on what thread did I reply to.  Ah well as someone once said, it happens.

[countessalmirena]

Aha!

davewil, digital*ghost, I can see how eBay have set this up. It is decidedly weird.

If I select "Flat: same cost to all buyers", I can set up postage rates based on domestic postal zones (although... I stll need to play with this). This also enables me to select "Offer local pickup" with a cost option.

If I select "Calculated: Cost varies by buyer location", I can also select "Offer local pickup". However, there's no option to select cost for pickup. There is an option to select handling cost, but it comes with a stern "– calculated postage only" caveat.

If I select "Freight: Large and bulky items", there's no option to offer pickup at all, let alone set a cost for pickup.

All of this seems very inconsistent and lacking in logic.

[wide-world-of-stamps]

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@countessalmirena wrote:

Aha!

davewil, digital*ghost, I can see how eBay have set this up. It is decidedly weird.

If I select "Flat: same cost to all buyers", I can set up postage rates based on domestic postal zones (although... I stll need to play with this). This also enables me to select "Offer local pickup" with a cost option.

If I select "Calculated: Cost varies by buyer location", I can also select "Offer local pickup". However, there's no option to select cost for pickup. There is an option to select handling cost, but it comes with a stern "– calculated postage only" caveat.

If I select "Freight: Large and bulky items", there's no option to offer pickup at all, let alone set a cost for pickup.

All of this seems very inconsistent and lacking in logic.

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The dictionary definition of Ebay.