Hello - would like your opinion on listing items which include postage (ie FREE POSTAGE)

[babblingapril]

Is FREE Postage worth it?  I think as a seller we have to pay eBay some 10% on the entire amount - ie a book @ $10 including free postage is going to cost some $8.65 with an eBay postage label which means you pay eBay about $1.10, postage with eBay tracking $8.65 + $1.00 for the envelope, so you pay at total of about $10.75 selling your book.  Am I correct? Obviously more expensive items are different, but should I stop selling  cheap books and just concentrate on higher priced ones?

Please don't call me an idiot because I work hard for my points, but constructive criticism welcomed 🙂

Jenni

[everard6920]

Worth noting (and something I didn't think of, until I recently had my first change of mind return)

When you refund a buyer for a change of mind return, it gives you the option to refund the original postage amount or not. If you listed your item with free postage (ie the postage included in the item cost) you would not have this option - you'd essentially be forced to refund the item amount + postage, because it's in the item amount.

(Now, I can't imagine why any seller would want to refund the buyer the original postage for a change of mind, considering tha the seller  has already paid to post it and the buyer waited until they did to change their mind, but this is beside the point).

[misty_blue_treasures]

I have a mixture of both free postage and plus postage. But at the end of the day it is the same price to the purchaser, as if you say free postage you just include that in the price.

A couple of years ago I did a test of listing the same item, using both methods, it was hit and miss about which way people went, but over a 6 months period I sold about the same using either method, so I couldnt say one way was better then the other.

[south.coffee]

The only advantage of separate postage is your item listing higher when the buyer sorts by 'lowest price' where most buyers would sort by 'price + postage - lowest first'.

We have done the same comparison and find 'free postage' tends to attract more sales and we put that down to the search algorithm and whether buyers tick 'free postage' in the Delivery options filter.