Does anyone else feel it is unethical that ebay encourages the seller to put in free shipping

[sandi8310]

I am having an ethical issue whe ebay encourages sellers to incorporate the postage/shippling fee in the price of an item and use the excuse that people will buy if it is shipping free. It is not freee yet ebay takes their 9.99% of shipping and for the product. Why do they weant to take the shipping fee. Surely tehy should only take their fee from the product and as an honest seller tell the buyer the fee for the product and seperate the shipping fee out and ebay keep their hands off that.

Maybe I am over reacting but I certainly did not feel right including the postage and ticking free postage so I stopped that on my products.

[dylan11235813]

I should point out that the so called free post is free post, but I decide to jack the price up by exactly the same price for inflation

[i-love-my-sheep]

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@expanded_perceptions wrote:

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@i-love-my-sheep wrote:

I only offer 'free' postage on large letter items. Parcel items have paid postage. I sell just as many parcel items as I do large letter items. I have a 5 day handling time, so nothing qualifies for fast and free and I have been doing pretty well when others have had their lights off.

As for the eBay suggestions tp increase sales, I found the best thing to do with those emails is ignore/delete them. I started doing that when they kept telling me to add item specifics. Most of the listings they were suggesting  have 6 - 8 item specifics, so I don't see how I can add anymore. 

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Yes, once bitten twice shy......already changed all my listings back to paid postage! I will ignore it all from now on.

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I initially had free post on all my items and the parcel items didn't sell. Absolutely nothing for 3 months. The large letter items were selling well. As soon as I dropped the start price and added a postage cost, the parcel items started to sell. That threw eBay's theory out the window real quick!! I suppose that $9.99 with $7 postage looked cheaper than $16.99 with free postage!

[cq_tech]

I refuse to offer my items with "free" postage on principle, but like you, when it first came in and I tried it, my sales virtually stopped dead. As soon as I started charging separate postage they took off again. As you said, it makes eBay's claims look exactly like the BS that they are.

[iamanark]

Ethics and eBay should not be used in the same sentence

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It is not over until the Fat Lady posts

[springyzone]

I can't say I have an ethical problem with it exactly but I think it would be fairer to label it as "postage included."

I can sort of understand why ebay introduced charging fees on postage. I agree it is not fair but I used to quite often see some sellers listing items at 99c but with eg $15 postage, while another seller with the same item might have it as $10.99 with $5 postage, which was probably closer to the real prices. Total cost may have been the same but of course in the old days, seller A was not paying anywhere as much in ebay fees. Even i was able to work out what was happening there and oddly enough, I used to feel annoyed when I saw listings like that as I knew quite well $15 postage was a total rip off.

If I were to sell again on ebay and I wanted postage costs included, instead of listing them separately, I think I would just jack up the total price to cover postage and fees. I don't see why any seller should be expected to absorb the extra costs and i don't see how they could, not unless they popped up the price of the items. Something has to give, somewhere.

To me as a buyer, I tend to look at the total price but I have noticed an odd thing. Say a friend wants to buy something. She might say-I saw it for $9. What she doesn't mention is the postage cost. In her mind & to her friends, the cost is $9. I suppose that sounds better than saying, "It costs $17 with postage."

I do have to admit that sometimes if i look at an item though and postage is included, it seems like a bonus & that is especially true if compared to an item that may be cheap but has a postage cost that is twice the price of the item.

But there is no getting around the fact that postage in Australia is not free and for ebay to label it as such is a little misleading.

[mccrae2007]

I have changed all mine to "free postage" but in my descriptions I call it "price includes postage".

I cannot sell a book for $9.95 which then costs $13+ to post without it being a total cost of approx $24.00.

I would like to think I am not misleading anyone then.

[58phantom]

I feel it is unethical to add a fee of 12% of the postage to the final value fee. The $cost of postage goes to Australia Post (for example) not to me as the seller.  I recently posted an item overseas and paid $AUD50 to EBay on top of the $413 I paid to Australia Post. It is also troublesome ethically that EBay keeps payment for two days, even when PayPal does the financial leg-work.