Opinion on a feedback to leave

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by sbfinley

I'm assuming that these were BIN's. If that was the case he should have factored his labor and private insurance into the cost of his merchandise and reflect that is his price, not his shipping. I would neutral feedback and ding every one of his stars while making a clear point in the text about his horrible packing.

The thing to remember is that not everybody does things the way that you do, and it's not always practical to just roll the shipping/handling cost into the item price. In my case, I handle a lot of items on consignment, and I use eBay to maintain a certain amount of transparency when selling other people's stuff for them. A consignor can look at my eBay store and see their items when they are listed. They can also see when something sells, at what price it sells for, and can figure how much they've got coming to them based on taking a percentage of that final sale price they see. If I were to start trying to itemize how much of the sale price they see went to shipping costs, it would be a never-ending headache, especially when a single order included items from several different consignors. Rather than try to parse out what percentage of the shipping cost should be attributed to Consignor A's item, and figure okay Consignor B's item weighs more, so more of the shipping cost should come out of his, etc., I just charge shipping separately. I also usually show several shipping options for each item, and have a list of combined shipping rates for most typical items that I sell. When you take into account shipping, packing, and collecting supplies along with postage and the percentage that eBay charges on shipping now, it's just about break-even for me, but the s/h charge is ALWAYS more than the raw postage cost. Would it be easier for the buyer if all the Fixed Price items showed $0.00 for shipping but with a higher per-item cost? Sure. But I'm not going to make my life a hell of paperwork and lengthy explanations to every consignor just because a buyer can't figure out to subtract the shipping cost from their offer price when deciding whether to purchase or not.

Originally Posted by ValKehl

Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that eBay policy places the burden of loss or damage intransit on the SELLER. Hence, I feel a seller is well within his "rights" to charge a reasonable shipping charge which would include insurance, even if the seller doesn't obtain any insurance on the shipment. In such instances, the seller is, in effect, self-insuring the shipment, and I don't feel there is anything wrong with a seller charging a reasonable amount for the self-insurance he is providing.
Val

You are correct that eBay basically forces all sellers to provide "insurance" on every item they sell in the sense that any buyer can force a return on any item, whether the seller specifies "no returns" or not. Some sellers choose to pass that insurance responsibility off to the USPS or UPS or Fed-Ex, for a price, and others choose to, as you say, "self insure." Many more sellers don't realize or charge for the burden being placed on them and just "hope nothing happens." When eBay first began disallowing an itemized charge for insurance, they sent e-mails to sellers telling them that they should just roll the insurance cost into the shipping price, which is basically what is being done here. Over time, many buyers have come to take "insurance" for granted and now expect sellers to shoulder the responsibility without any additional compensation.

Originally Posted by HercDriver

I would definitely leave negative feedback. I'm not sure why everybody is so tentative about doing it, but if the guy sucks, let everyone else know. It's not the end of the world for the seller, but it might make a new buyer ask questions before bidding. If it was a negative experience, let the feedback reflect it.

Geno

I agree with this statement too, but only after communication with the seller. Too often (as in, every time) the negative and neutral feedback I have received as a seller has been left by a buyer who never contacted me about any issue, and 9 times out of 10 they could have been easily corrected with a little communication. It is VERY frustrating for a seller to be ambushed with negative feedback over something they could have corrected or made amends for if they had just known about the issue. Slapping down a negative without first communicating with the seller does nobody any good, and if you're shopping with me, is ALWAYS grounds for being banned from future bidding/buying. In cases like this though, where the seller makes no attempt to make good on the issue or even admit that there is an issue, it's only fair that you let other buyers know about it.