BS Reason for High Postage

[clarry100]

I was looking for an item on ebay and found it with a Tasmanian seller for a good price but their postage was advertised at $115.

The listing said they had 9 in stock but I only needed one.

So I contacted the seller asking them to revise their listing to a more reasonable postage cost so I could buy one. I even suggseted I could commit to buy and wait for an amended invoice to reduce the postage to a reasonable level.

They responded that they were unable to sell me one as there was an ebay system problem with the particular listing and that ebay CSR had advised them not to sell any at this time. And that ebay were currently investigating the problem with no time estimation for a fix.

So I thought I would help the seller and report the problem as a buyer so that it might expedite the fix for them. I related the story I had been given by the seller.

Ebay responded to me that they had looked at the listing and could see no problem with it and that there had been no problem reported by the seller. They suggested I contact the seller again. They also said they would pass this info on to their listings team.

So I made contact with the seller again and this time got a rather terse message back saying they did not wish to correspond any further with me and that I should buy it elsewhere.

So I went back to ebay again with that and it now looks like the listing has been removed. Not sure who by.

So it would appear that this is some kind of trick to deter buyers when they have really run out of stock. Not too sure why they wouldn't activate the out of stock option and set the listing qty = 0.

[twyngwyn]

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 Not too sure why they wouldn't activate the out of stock option and set the listing qty = 0.

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I think you lose your ranking in search results if you do that....can anyone confirm?

[247newdeals]

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@clarry100 wrote:

I was looking for an item on ebay and found it with a Tasmanian seller for a good price but their postage was advertised at $115.

The listing said they had 9 in stock but I only needed one.

So I contacted the seller asking them to revise their listing to a more reasonable postage cost so I could buy one. I even suggseted I could commit to buy and wait for an amended invoice to reduce the postage to a reasonable level.

They responded that they were unable to sell me one as there was an ebay system problem with the particular listing and that ebay CSR had advised them not to sell any at this time. And that ebay were currently investigating the problem with no time estimation for a fix.

So I thought I would help the seller and report the problem as a buyer so that it might expedite the fix for them. I related the story I had been given by the seller.

Ebay responded to me that they had looked at the listing and could see no problem with it and that there had been no problem reported by the seller. They suggested I contact the seller again. They also said they would pass this info on to their listings team.

So I made contact with the seller again and this time got a rather terse message back saying they did not wish to correspond any further with me and that I should buy it elsewhere.

So I went back to ebay again with that and it now looks like the listing has been removed. Not sure who by.

So it would appear that this is some kind of trick to deter buyers when they have really run out of stock. Not too sure why they wouldn't activate the out of stock option and set the listing qty = 0.

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I have seen people who are regulars here advice sellers to do this when going away rather than taking listing down to stop people buying. Personally I think it is a bad bussiness move

[247newdeals]

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@twyngwyn wrote:

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 Not too sure why they wouldn't activate the out of stock option and set the listing qty = 0.

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I think you lose your ranking in search results if you do that....can anyone confirm?

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I have never lost my ranking when I use the out of stock feature

[clarry100]

We use the out of stock option and seems not to lose any ranking when the stock comes back in.

Now that the listing is ended it has certainly lost ranking and any sales history as well.

So I think a bad move to use this method to deter buyers.

[digital*ghost · Accepted solution]

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@clarry100 wrote:

So I contacted the seller asking them to revise their listing to a more reasonable postage cost so I could buy one. I even suggseted I could commit to buy and wait for an amended invoice to reduce the postage to a reasonable level.

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I don't want to cause offence, but I likely will (so I apologise in advance) as I am going to be brutally honest here and say if I received a message instructing me to do something like that, there's a fairly high chance the member would go straight on my BBL. 

I understand it's actually a policy breach to have items available if there's no stock to supply, and inflating P&H to deter buyers is also expressly against policy, so I'm not saying the seller is blameless or 100% innocent of any wrongdoing, it's just that I would have found that approach both presumptuous and demanding. 

As the seller had indicated that they were trying to prevent / deter sales, I personally would have either left it at that, or - at best - advised them of the out of stock feature so that if they chose to, they could avoid any potential problems with sales (you may be surprised how many sellers are not actually aware that this feature was introduced). 

I also don't understand why you contacted CS, given that the exact nature of the problem doesn't seem like it was provided, so it wasn't like you were able to give eBay any information that would have actually helped fix the problem, if indeed there was one. Maybe, maybe probably, the seller lied, likely to avoid further problems / explanations, which I warrant many sellers have done, in varying degrees. 

[typhoon4u]

It could have been a mistake by the seller. Perhaps it should have been $11.50.

Only after the contact was it established it was marked up on purpose.

No harm making a subtle enquiry asking if that is the correct postage, as I see it....

[digital*ghost]

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@typhoon4u wrote:

No harm making a subtle enquiry asking if that is the correct postage, as I see it....

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I agree, but subtle to me would have been simply confirming if the P&H was correct, and / or asking if there's a possibility of a more economical alternative. Messaging to tell a seller to revise a listing and reduce their postage, if that's indeed how the message was worded, is not so subtle. 

[clarry100]

Sorry DG. No offence taken.
My initial message to the seller was short and simple. Why was postage on this item $115 from Tasmania?
There response was the story about the listing problem and not being able to sell it.
That was when I asked them to either revise their listing or perhaps send me an invoice with the postage amount corrected. They still insisted that the listing had a technical issue and that CS had advised them not to sell this item at this time.
So since eBay listen to complaints from buyers over sellers I decided to take the matter up with CS myself on the basis of a negative buyer experience.
And on it went from there.
Tonight we were out. When we came home there was another message from CS to tell me that the listing has been removed by the seller because the seller is actually out of stock.
They suggested that I might like to find this item fromanother seller and gave me a few oother sellers to try. Unfortunately all of them are about 40% higher in price too. Probably why the other seller was out of stock as his price was by far the best I could find in Au
I can get it cheaper from China but kinda wanted to buy from an AU based seller.

[whiznumber6]

Some sellers used to have dirt-cheap item prices and insanely high postage, as a way of avoiding eBay Final Value Fees - it's touted as the main reason why eBay began calculating the FVF on the postage-inclusive total.

Not all the sellers have woken up - I've just come across a seller located in Victoria who's listing items at $1, $2, etc, and charging huge postage: $1 "Buy It Now" for a pair of Prada sunglasses, $119.80 postage, that sort of thing.