@thecatspjs wrote:
Lol tas - so if I amass thousands of posts on CS by partaking in political debates or post to the games threads on a regular basis others should trust my advice more - I think not.
You know exactly what I meant by my post so please don't go overboard and make up things to suit
yourself,
Re:
eBay employees must declare themselves as such, and their posts are indicated by a bold blue border, plus this icon:
If they employed secret 'plants', then they're not doing a very good job if they can't convince you to change your mind, so either way it would seem it's eBay's loss.
I suspect that eBay would have a very hard job of "changing the mind" of any sensible seller re their FVF on Australia Post's postage. Their profiting from a 9.9% fee / levy / tax on Australia Post's postage charges will be counterproductive to both eBay and to sellers in the long run through the loss of revenue from sales to internatioal buyers. Some may argue that removing the international postage calculator will solve that, because the seller can add on the 10% to the international postage when providing a postage quote, but in my exerience many potential inernational buyers just cannot be bothered emailing the seller for a postage quote and then waiting for a reply. They just find another seller with the same or a similar item who offers flat rate postage or free postage. I used to have international shipping on all of my listings, but received few postage enquiries from o'seas. When the postage calculator software was instituted some years ago, I activated the international postage calculator and doubled or trebled my sales to overseas buyers overnight. I have now removed international shipping from all of my listings, which are now "Australia only". This is eBay's loss as well as mine (although I suspect that their income from the FVF on domestic postage will more than compensate, many times over, for the loss of revenue from sales to international buyers - I would love to see their financial analysis re this, which I am sure they carried out before introducing this deeply unpopular policy).
I would have naively thought that a suspicion that someone who tries to 'defend' the indefensible (FVF on Ausralia Post postage) might just possibly have some underlying 'conflict of interest' is not unreasonable. Other members seem to disagree. Mind you, some people actually believe politicians' pre election promises...
I am just very disappointed that neither the ACCC nor Fair Trading (both of whom I have approached and with whom I have lodged formal complaints) can do anything about this policy, unlike a few years ago when eBay tried to force everybody to pay by PayPal, which they own and generate further fees from. On that occasion, the ACCC steped in and reversed eBay's policy.
There is a possible solution for eBay, and that is, as several other members have pointed out already, adding a % (percentage) field in the "P & H field" in the listing or in the "seller charge" field in the invoice. At present, only absolute $ amounts can be entered, which is of little use when international postage can vary from $10.55 for a small parcel to New Zealand to > $120 or more for larger, heavier parcels (see other posting re $120 postage cost to Canada).
