It seems that where I live is a problem for a lot of your dealers,I can have free deliveries from al

[joseverm]

It seems living on Macleay Island, part of the Brisbane Metro area is a major problem for a lot of your dealers, I can recieve goods from all over the world postage free, but having goods sent from within Australia can not be done. Maybe your suppliers need to update thier postage part of thier website to advise free postage exclusions. On several occassions now suppliers have accepted payment, confirmed the order and then made excuses to renig. on the deal. It may be an idea to advise these suppliers that if they accept payment and cofirm, it is then a legally binding contract for them to fullfil there part of the bargain .

[shoppingbag*]

Firstly, let me point out that you are not talking to eBay here. This is a forum for buyers and sellers to discuss things. eBay do not read here. Do you really believe there is such a thing as FREE postage? Well I wish I could find a Post Office or Courier who would work for nothing, and supply their time and petrol to deliver things all out of the goodness of their own heart.  If you can find one of these please let me know. SOMEONE has to pay for delivery, no ifs or buts. When you see something that has so called FREE delivery, then the price of delivery is added into the cost of the item, and often you will pay a lot more than you would have if they only charged you the actual postage. Many Asian countries include free delivery, because their postage is dirt cheap to begin with, but you are still paying for it in the price. In Australia, the Postal workers and Couriers do not work for free. I sell items and use Calculated postage, which calculates the price to the purchaser automatically via my listings, because parcels in Australia go by size, weight and distance. I just enter the size and weight and the listing calculates the postage (via Australia Post) for whoever is looking at my ad, and everyone sees a different postage cost depending on their location. Postage costs for my items could be anywhere from $8.30 to over $20 depending how far the buyer is from me.  If I were to add so called FREE postage and not having a crystal ball to know who will buy or whether they are in the next suburb or the other side of the country, I would have to add $25 to each of my items to cover the so called FREE postage, so most buyers would end up paying a lot more than they would at the moment with my listings that calculate the postage for each buyer. It seems obvious to me that if you are on an Island, maybe items have to be ferried there and this would add significant cost. You are not on the mainland, so obviously a problem.

Good luck with your search for the Free postage.

[lyndal1838]

You cannot force any seller to offer free shipping.

It is not a case of excluding an area from free shipping.....maybe they do not offer free shipping to any area.

[countessalmirena]

From my location (Melbourne) to Macleay Island, if I were sending a parcel with dimensions of 8 x 8 x 8 cm, with a weight of 5 kg, AP satchel price would be $17.65. If I used a box, price would be $21.60. There would be extra costs if signature on delivery and/or extra cover for loss/damage were required.

Are you perhaps comparing postage by Australian sellers with postage by Chinese sellers? You may perhaps be aware that under the Universal Postal Union, Australia has an obligation to delivery mail (incl. parcels) from China to the delivery address without being recompensed for that? Postage for Chinese is heavily subsidised by the Chinese government, which is why Chinese sellers are paying very nearly nothing for postage in many cases. (They can afford to absorb the postage cost in even quite a cheap item, and make it "Free postage".)

Even when an item sent by a Chinese seller is addressed to someone living in one of the remotest areas of Australia, where domestic postage costs skyrocket, that item from China has got to be delivered without AP being reimbursed for the actual cost of delivery.

The next time you receive something from an overseas seller, and pay no postage cost, bear in mind that this is due to Australia bearing the cost of the delivery because of the Universal Postal Union.

• Australia therefore contributes approximately A$0.83 million annually to the UPU’s regular budget, which was 37 million Swiss francs in 2010.
• Australia also incurs additional expenses arising from both voluntary and mandatory activities within the UPU framework of about $0.37 million per annum.
• It is expected that implementation of the amendments will add $2 million to $3 million to Australia Post’s costs. Australia Post will meet these costs from existing income sources.

[egglesdtp]

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@joseverm wrote:

It seems living on Macleay Island, part of the Brisbane Metro area is a major problem for a lot of your dealers, I can recieve goods from all over the world postage free, but having goods sent from within Australia can not be done. Maybe your suppliers need to update thier postage part of thier website to advise free postage exclusions. On several occassions now suppliers have accepted payment, confirmed the order and then made excuses to renig. on the deal. It may be an idea to advise these suppliers that if they accept payment and cofirm, it is then a legally binding contract for them to fullfil there part of the bargain .

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I find it absolutely astonishing that anyone could think there was such a thing as free postage.

Please also bear in mind that most people who sell goods on ebay are not dealers nor do many of them have their own websites as you seem to think they do. ebay provides the website for sellers to sell their goods.

[digital*ghost]

I think the OP is not actually asking for free postage as such, but saying that Australian sellers look like they are offering free Australia-wide shipping, yet after they purchase they are told that free shipping can't be supplied to Macleay Island, and they're querying this because international suppliers will do free shipping to anywhere in Australia, but Aussie sellers limit it to specific areas (the explanation for that is simple, though. International shipping is flat rate, postal services overseas are not going to charge a seller more or less to ship to different areas of Australia. Just like if I send a 500g parcel to the US, it will always cost the same amount, no matter where in the US it goes, but if a US seller sends items all over their own country, they may be charged based on distance - variable costs means free shipping may only be cost effective to certain areas). 

I actually see a lot of listings (eg when I look at postage supplies, so the boxes can be quite big, even if not heavy), and they come up as free shipping, but they also have clauses that state the free shipping only applies to same-state metro areas. 

It's kind of annoying, but I've learnt to recognise the listings that do it now (some actually have it in a subtitle, so at least they are making an effort to inform buyers before they even click on a listing). I've never had one where they declined payment etc as all the ones I've looked at, the seller has put it somewhere in the description (which is the smart thing to do - having people buy and canceling over and over again is not the best strategy from a buyer's or seller's perspective, so most sellers tend to have it somewhere) 

These sellers really need to be using rate tables, so that they can charge different rates to different areas (assuming eBay's regions match the carrier's they use).

BTW, if a seller refunds, they haven't accepted your payment (they don't get an actual choice about whether or not they receive a payment, nor do they have any control of automated emails ebay send out, so refunding is the only thing they can do to decline or withdraw).