Ebay sellers - high shipping cost even after eBay took part of pie?

[JasonD08]

Before you crucify the seller why not send him a message and ask?

Jason

[asphaltman]

What do you want to ask? He specified his shipping, it's not a mistake...all of his items are $40+ and they aren't all the same amount...so it wasn't a typo. I chose not to bid. I wasn't sure if there was some benefit to him doing this where he would make a few more dollars that ebay wouldn't collect, but figured I'd point it out to others to pay attention to shipping costs.

[bbsports]

Maybe e-bay is not following their policies anymore. A few years ago, there was a clause in their rules not to overcharge on shipping & insurance costs. If caught, e-bay has the right to remove the sellers items & the buyer would be credited back his listing fees. However, in the past I know may buyers e-mailed & called e-bay on these complaints & e-bay did nothing about it.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by bbsports

Maybe e-bay is not following their policies anymore. A few years ago, there was a clause in their rules not to overcharge on shipping & insurance costs. If caught, e-bay has the right to remove the sellers items & the buyer would be credited back his listing fees. However, in the past I know may buyers e-mailed & called e-bay on these complaints & e-bay did nothing about it.

What little enforcement they did on that pretty much went out the window when they started charging the same fees on shipping as they do on the item price itself. Before they changed, sellers would use high shipping / low item prices to try and skirt paying fees, so eBay had some incentive to put a stop to such things. Now that they just charge a fee on everything, the monetary incentive to enforce isn't there.

[tschock]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

What little enforcement they did on that pretty much went out the window when they started charging the same fees on shipping as they do on the item price itself. Before they changed, sellers would use high shipping / low item prices to try and skirt paying fees, so eBay had some incentive to put a stop to such things. Now that they just charge a fee on everything, the monetary incentive to enforce isn't there.

Lance,

There still is some form of automated enforcement in place. I know that not too long ago I was automagically denied a listing because of the shipping cost I had put it place. It was an over sized paper item that I was NOT about to fold and put the details regarding the shipping cost and why I was doing this in the details (mailing flat in a large, reinforced, cardboard flat). I couldn't get around ebay's automatic rejection from this so I just upped the initial bid with free shipping.

But I totally understand and agree with what you are saying regarding ebay's reason and relaxation of any enforcement on this. Yet if you go through their shipping process for paying for shipping they still take out their % on this even though they control it???

[ctownboy]

IMHO, eBay is a joke.

First, when a seller was charging too much for postage, eBay said for buyers to just leave a Negative in the seller's Feed back.

Next, eBay changed the rules and added the five star system specifically for problems with postage. SO if a buyer had a problem with the postage they could leave positive Feed Back but ding the seller on the five star system.

Next, eBay said screw it and just started charging fees on the postage.

To me, there had to be some law/s that eBay is breaking by doing this. Also, eBay gets an automatic fee increase every year when the USPS raises their rates. This is wrong and there has to be something that can be done about it.

David

[JasonD08]

It is pretty simple. If you do not like the sellers terms......then just move on. I am not defending someone with outrageous shipping, but just saying. Why frustrate yourself over it. It is not like he is doing anything illegal. Just my 2 cents.

Jason

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

What little enforcement they did on that pretty much went out the window when they started charging the same fees on shipping as they do on the item price itself. Before they changed, sellers would use high shipping / low item prices to try and skirt paying fees, so eBay had some incentive to put a stop to such things. Now that they just charge a fee on everything, the monetary incentive to enforce isn't there.

It's funny, Ebay's fees on Shipping are actually a higher % for many sellers then it is for the actual item they are selling, add to that Paypal also gets a piece of shipping which most people take for granted. Makes it hard to break even on S&H costs without feeling like you're gouging people.

Ebay claimed they did this to keep shipping prices down. All it did was make people up their BIN prices on Free Shipping items, and charge more for S&H in auctions so they could recoup the difference.

There really is no reason to charge $40 shipping on a card unless it's super expensive and it's going towards insurance. As a seller you may end up paying more in fees then you would with a higher price and lower shipping cost.

Either it's a typo, or they're trying to get unsuspecting people to pull the trigger on a lower priced item. Not many people left who aren't savvy enough to at least check the shipping cost before they pull the trigger on an item nowadays.

[cb7171]

Have no idea about the specific item but will tell you that Ebay has recently made some very confusing changes regarding listing of items and the associated shipping policies (they converted all existing listings into very confusing templates). Unfortunately they strive to fix things that are not broken and subsequently causing issues with listings. I can only imagine that attempting to create a new template (which I have not done yet) is probably equally as confusing/frustrating.

[tschock]

Originally Posted by asphaltman

What do you want to ask? He specified his shipping, it's not a mistake...all of his items are $40+ and they aren't all the same amount...so it wasn't a typo.

Again, as someone else said, I would ask. It very well could be a typo, and even more so possible if he is selling similar items. His original "template" could have been a typo and just got carried over to subsequent listings. It's happened to me (but not with stratospheric shipping though). Personally, I don't think it's a typo but trying to give benefit of the doubt.

My bigger concern/question is, for a card, how did he get a way with this through ebay's policies? That would be my bigger question/concern.