Charging a fee for cancelations...

[lemony_gem_toys]

Ebay SHOULD charge buyers a fee for cancelations.  The amount of people that cancel each month because their "child" made the purchase without permission is extravagant.  It costs me between 30$ and 50$ a month in paypal fees.   If ebay wants to stream line their payment method then maybe they should cover the costs. 

[kopenhagen5]

When you refund a PayPal payment there is a fee reversal so it doesn't cost you.

[lizzys-allsorts]

Ebay don't need to, they have a perfectly good system in place called an unpaid item dispute for non payers requesting a cancellation... buyer doesn't pay... seller gets fees back

I cannot understand why more sellers aren't using it... 

I know it's a pain waiting the 8 days out, but i'd rather wait than lose my selling fees.. and I get a slight bit of satisfaction that I'm contributing to limiting the regular habits of these tyre kickers 

[kopenhagen5]

lizzy, OP has immediate payment set so buyers are paying otherwise they cannot buy.

Hence you cannot open unpaid cases.

But still with cancellations you get the eBay fee back and also the PayPal fee which is why I don't understand OP saying they are charged PayPal fees.

[digital*ghost]

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@kopenhagen5 wrote:

But still with cancellations you get the eBay fee back and also the PayPal fee which is why I don't understand OP saying they are charged PayPal fees.

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Because issuing a full refund to a buyer means that while the 2-odd percent fee rate is refunded back by PayPal, the seller pays the flagfall, which is retained by PayPal (it used to be refunded, but hasn't for a couple of years now).

That's 30c per transaction- you can refund a buyer less that 30c, but not via an eBay cancellation because that triggers a full refund... It might be possible to refund minus expenses, then process an eBay cancellation though (I've never tried it this way). 

I get maybe two cancellations a month on average, so for me it never really costs more than $1 a month in fees thankfully, so I write it off as just another one of those expenses buyer incur that are unrecoverable. (i.e. cost of doing business).

I can imagine if someone was getting so many cancellations as to rack up $30+ in fees (100 or more a month ?  ), the situation would be exceedingly frustrating. 

[kopenhagen5]

Ah yes, of course. Thanks, forgot about that fee.

100 cancellations per month seems excessive for the amount of listings OP has.

[davewil1964]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@kopenhagen5 wrote:

But still with cancellations you get the eBay fee back and also the PayPal fee which is why I don't understand OP saying they are charged PayPal fees.

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Because issuing a full refund to a buyer means that while the 2-odd percent fee rate is refunded back by PayPal, the seller pays the flagfall, which is retained by PayPal (it used to be refunded, but hasn't for a couple of years now).

That's 30c per transaction- you can refund a buyer less that 30c, but not via an eBay cancellation because that triggers a full refund... It might be possible to refund minus expenses, then process an eBay cancellation though (I've never tried it this way). 

I get maybe two cancellations a month on average, so for me it never really costs more than $1 a month in fees thankfully, so I write it off as just another one of those expenses buyer incur that are unrecoverable. (i.e. cost of doing business).

I can imagine if someone was getting so many cancellations as to rack up $30+ in fees (100 or more a month ?  ), the situation would be exceedingly frustrating. 

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And would tend to indicate they have a look at their business practices.

I realise that MIGHT be a small percentage of their sales. But that would mean it is a small issue.

[clarry100]

Wow. The OP must be doing some pretty good sales to be racking up around 130 cancellations after payment each month. Takes about that number to click up $40 lost in 30-cent transaction fees to PayPal.
With the number of cancellations we do after payment is made we just never worry about the odd 30-cents lost.

[lizzys-allsorts]

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@kopenhagen5 wrote:

lizzy, OP has immediate payment set so buyers are paying otherwise they cannot buy.

Hence you cannot open unpaid cases.

But still with cancellations you get the eBay fee back and also the PayPal fee which is why I don't understand OP saying they are charged PayPal fees.

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Oh, my bad I thought OP meant buyers asking to cancel prior to paying. I don't think PayPal give you 100% all the fees back.. I think there is a fixed fee of $0.30 non refundable per transaction... I guess with a large volume of cancellations it would soon add up.

[digital*ghost]

True, but costs can also depend on when the cancellation is requested.

I used to only mark items as posted when I got back from the PO, but -  because it seemed in a buyer's mind, as long as it's not shipped, a cancellation is a simple matter of asking for it - now I mark it once everything is packed and I'm about to go, because that's the point where I've incurred all the additional expense (packaging, postage etc - I wouldn't necessarily refuse a cancellation after that, and/or an order change, though).

Edited to add: I realise the OP is referring exclusively to PP fees, so went a little off track there 😄  I wonder if maybe the way PP show the fee reversal is confusing things, because they wouldn't be the first to interpret it as PP retaining the fee rather than refunding it back to make up the buyers full payment.