@digital*ghost wrote:
But, at the same time, advice is tailored to the person asking the question.
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).
Yes, I agree, that answers have to be rooted in reality, and I was probably off topic, but I was answering gutterpunz & the fact that buyers often will whinge about things. It can't always be avoided.
With respect to the question in the original post: Can the seller include the postage cost in the item price?
I believe the buyer is asking this in relation to pick up & the answer is no, not exactly. The item price remains the same, but the seller can add on an extra charge for pick up. Ebay itself offers sellers this option.
So his seller isn't breaking any rules.
That's the answer to the question asked, but I think once we have established that, I have been looking at what I see as some underlying concerns/issues behind the whole question, because I think they are interesting.
The post starts off by asking for a consensus of opinion about what we think.
We've established that the seller is perfectly within his rights but I suspect cactus also wanted opinions on whether it sounded like a reasonable charge because he felt the postage was overpriced. In fact I am betting it is half the reason he asked if he could pick up.
But the really interesting thing is cactus isn't just a buyer, he or she seems to have a reasonably long track record as a seller, yet this is obviously the first they knew of this ebay option & the first time they have come across it.
And I am not getting the vibe that as a buyer, he likes it very much.
If he didn't know about this ebay regulation, you can bet 99.9% of other ebay buyers don't either. That doesn't make a seller 'wrong' to make use of it, of course.
But the whole post is an interesting glimpse of possible buyer perception. Just saying.
PS To gutterpunkz, you're right, buyers rarely come on here to complain postage was too low etc but that does not mean they don't notice or speak about it. I've had quite a few friends mention they bought something with 'free' postage or because postage was cheap. They notice, they definitely notice. Plus me-I still recall an excessive postage charge from about 14 years ago. Still resent it.
