FVF on postage

[porcelainforyou2]

For people posting comments "agreeing with" eBay's decision to charge FVF on postage (probably a vanishingly small proportion of eBay sellers, and I am very suspicious that such postings have been made by eBay employees), please consider the following:

For sellers who sell bulk items of 'fixed' value for which postage is 'fixed' (e.g. items < 500g posted within Australia which cost $7.20 to any postcode) - e,g. C.D.'s or jewelry, it is easy to incorporate the FVF on postage (approx. 0.72c) into the item purchase price. For items > 500g it is impossible to incorporate the postage FVF into the auction starting price or fixed price. For example, I recently sold some plates to an international buyer in South Africa. The plates cost $9.99, and international postage was approx. $84. Are you seriously suggsesting that I routinely add $8.40 to the item starting price, when domestic postage on the item would only be $12 - $15, just in case an overseas buyer purchases the item?? I have now removed international shipping from my eBay sites, and restricted sales to domestic buyers only. I am currently "wearing"  the FVF on domestic postage, as I cannot incorporate it into the starting/fixed price, bbecause it varies so widely depending upon the buyer's postcode. Postage of a parcel to a buyer in W.A. (where I am) is significantly lower than to the Eastern states or to Tasmania, so I would need to add on 10% of "worst case scenario postage" (e.g. postage to outback/remote QLD) to the auction starting or fixed price, which would kill off sales to W.A. buyers, particularly those who want local pick up.

[bigbrickshop]

Totally agree with you.

The simple solution would be for eBay to add an extra  % field in the Calculated Postage section.

And for International Post change the policy to be the same as the US where the Postage on FVFs is charged at the domestic rate in the listing.

[digital*ghost]

This is the biggest problem I have with FVF on postage, despite the fact that almost all my items go as letters, so compared to many others I have been relatively unscathed by the change... It's impossible to add a wildly variable cost to an item price or handling charge, not to mention against eBay policy to include business costs in P&H charge, plus it would often result with buyers getting a bad impression if P&H seems inflated (a low star for P&H costs won't count as a defect when that system comes in, but people have negged for a few $'s difference in stamp price, and that is a defect). What it boils down to is how can someone successfully run a business when they have no real idea what their costs are going to be? Sure, we have a percentage, but as pointed out, many sellers won't know on what amount that percentage is going to be charged until after a buyer purchases and pays - bad business practice all-round. 

Agree that there needs to be some uniformity and stability for sellers that have variable P&H costs, which is anyone who offers more than one service (unless they're all provided for "free"). FVF on the lowest domestic P&H charge (which would work for all those using calculated or rate tables) seems like the most logical solution to me. 😄

[porcelainforyou2]

Wonderful comment!

Yes, I had considered the option of eBay adding a "seller charge" which can be entered as a % (percentage) of the calculated actual postage, rather than an absolute $ value, which is of course impossible to do at the time of listing, as the seller does not know whether the item will be bought by a buyer in the same state or in the remote outback of a state on the other side of the Nullarbor....

[asporty]

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@porcelainforyou2 wrote:

For people posting comments "agreeing with" eBay's decision to charge FVF on postage (probably a vanishingly small proportion of eBay sellers, and I am very suspicious that such postings have been made by eBay employees), please consider the following:

_______________________________________________________________________________________

I had the same uneasy feeling about people who supported ebay in my previous posting. A look at their postings indicated that a few at least looked genuine and not "plants". There may be plants though; ebay has enough money to throw around!!

Those few that support ebay mostly sell low value items targeting domestic market only. So at the most, they pay ebay only 70c extra. Not like us who target worldwide market.

Ebay has basically killed our export business and killed the golden goose. I am now adding $6-7 extra on top of the already very high international shipping prices to cover postage and my packaging expenses. Don't know if anyone is going to buy.

[porcelainforyou2]

Yes, I agree. A FVF on postage charged on the lowest domestic postage would be logical, from a seller's point of view, as somebody pointed out apparently happens in the USA.

However, I suspect that apart from a blatant "money grab" by eBay, the other reason for introducing the FVF on postage was to counter the few unscrupulous sellers who list an item for 99 cents  (when it is clearly worth much more than that), with a flat rate postage cost of $99, to minimise FVF. Charging FVF on lowest domestic postage may defer a few of those unscrupulous sellers, but one suspects that they would just increase their 'flat rate' postage from $99 to, say $105, to compensate...

[digital*ghost]

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@porcelainforyou2 wrote:

However, I suspect that apart from a blatant "money grab" by eBay, the other reason for introducing the FVF on postage was to counter the few unscrupulous sellers who list an item for 99 cents  (when it is clearly worth much more than that), with a flat rate postage cost of $99, to minimise FVF. Charging FVF on lowest domestic postage may defer a few of those unscrupulous sellers, but one suspects that they would just increase their 'flat rate' postage from $99 to, say $105, to compensate...

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I suspect that's a convenient "excuse" (from eBay, I mean). There would have been a lot of ways eBay could have handled that problem, only one meant they didn't have to actually do anything except collect more money, and unsurprisingly, that's the one they chose.

That reasoning is also undermined by the fact that a low DSR for postage costs won't affect a seller's defect rate. On the US site, they explained that they are no longer letting the low DSR for P&H affect sellers because (and I'm paraphrasing here) buyers don't ultimately care about P&H costs - I know there are some out there that are very finicky about it, but eBay is basically saying they don't care, and buyers still buy even if they sometimes feel gypped on P&H. 

[misterforgetfulsbooks]

Totally forgot to add the $13.20 FVF on to the $120 post to Canada I quoted doh!

[porcelainforyou2]

I suspect that eBay will not alter the "seller charge" field when sending an invoice to allow a % (percntage) additional seller charge. The reason is that buyers will then ask what the extra seller charge is for, and will learn about eBay's usurious FVF on Astralia Post's postage. At the moment the vast majority of buyers (as opposed to sellers) are completely ignorant about the newly introduced profit margin that eBay is levying via the FVF on postage.I suspect that eBay would prefer them to remain in the dark.

[davewil1964]

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@misterforgetfulsbooks wrote:

Totally forgot to add the $13.20 FVF on to the $120 post to Canada I quoted doh!

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Should have been $11.88 anyway. 9.9%