I recently lost my 20% Ebay discount because of anonymous DSR shipping cost scores.
Everything I ship is with Delivery Confirmation in Reinforced Envelopes or Priority Boxes. I use Insurance when I think it's necessary on higher dollar items and cover any possible losses myself if I don't use Insurance.
My shipping charge is clearly stated in every auction and I give deep discounts to multiple auction winners. I would say I lose quite a bit more then I take in every month in Shipping & Handling charges. That's not even taking into consideration that Paypal also takes a little chunk of that shipping charge every time somebody pays you through them.
Doesn't really matter. With Ebay's ingenious system it only takes 1 person out of 100 to decide you purposely ripped them off by charging 50 cents too much for shipping a $10 item...............or somebody else getting pissed because you charged them $12 bucks to ship a group of items that ultimately cost you $20 bucks to ship because they have no idea how much Insurance costs or the fact it cost me twice as much to ship certain Priority packages to California as it does to ship it to the Northeast, since the USPS Zoning rates went into effect.
..........Or somebody leaves a low mark by mistake, or a competitor, or one of your more eccentric customers thinks it would be neat to mark you down here or there...........just because.
Unless you do huge volume it is nearly impossible to overcome a single low score under the present system...........and it's totally anonymous, so you don't even know who to block or avoid.
So forgive me if I'm not entirely sympathetic of post-auction shipping charge negotiations, or even suggestions of I ship this way or that way...........so YOU should also ship this way or that way.................or I don't mind taking a loss, so neither should you.
Also, most International packages, which I send plenty of, need to be dropped off and paid for in person at the Post Office. Also, anything Insured for over $500 also needs to be done at the P.O..
If you are concerned about the sellers shipping practices, a polite request to make sure the item is packed very securely should have done the trick. If he shipped with a 43 cent stamp and no protection to the card............then you can ding him. However to initially request a refund on an already established S&H charge if the stamp on the front didn't exactly match the S&H charge, would have probably annoyed me to no end...............and I am a very patient guy. I most definitely would have responded to your e-mail as politely as possible in return, and you would not have known I was annoyed.........but I most certainly would have been.
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