Ebay Clamping Down on Excessive Shipping
ebay are about to clamp down on sellers who overcharge on shipping and handling.
As ever with ebay there is more to this ….
On the face of it this ‘clamdown’ on over charging for delivery is a good thing for buyers and for the ebay image. Very true but what ebay actually care about is fee avoidance - the clampdown is only about money for them.
This is taken from the Powerseller newsletter
Excessive shipping has become a serious issue.
We’ve been very reluctant about telling our sellers what they can charge for
shipping and handling, but it is obvious that some sellers are clearly
taking advantage of the system.As always we are grateful for your reports and help. In addition we are
going to proactively target the worst offenders. We’ve already made a start,
and we’ll be ramping up our efforts over the next month or so.
Some sellers have always looked to profit from overcharging, the main reason being:
- Simple greed
- A way of getting the cost of fees back
- Some only make money on delivery - goods sold at cost or less
- Fee avoidance
As insertion and final value fees are based on the listing price and final price achieved, keeping this to a minimum saves a great deal on fees.
Hence things like this taken from ebay today
Deluxe ipod case - buy it now 0.02c - bargain !
Delivery $25 within the US !
Whilst ebay motives are selfish the place does need cleaning up, in all areas for that matter.
The above tactics just give the site a bad image and also make life impossible for honest and upfront traders who are forced to play the same game in order to survive the ‘cheapest first’ search etc
Harriett said,
August 25, 2007 @ 6:36 am
I’ve put this Excessive Shipping Charges Policy to the test and it doesn’t work.
Nothing was done. On one group of transactions, my total was $112.59 and my Shipping (not shipping and handling) was $80.00 and that was to ship from PA to MD.
Ebay is not listening and the messaged delivered by Mr. Cobb was just a mouthing excercise. Just think of all the money eBay is loosing by ignoring this problem. I don’t believe they get fees on shipping. This is the Sellers way to make more profit.
I had one Seller state to “Please, please, please….Do not leave negative OR neutral feedback. Any bad feedback sincerely undercuts our ability to provide these absolutely incredible deals.” And on their check out page, they state, if you do leave negative or neutral feedback it negates their 30-return policy. Isn’t that blackmail?
I’ve been in touch with other Buyers of this Seller and been told, if they left ANY negative feedback they, in turn, were left with negative feedback.
I think those of us Buyers, need to send a message to Mr. Cobb to know that actions speak louder than words.
For all those Buyers who feel frustrated about this dishonesty, know that I will continue to fight to make it right.
Thanks.
Rod said,
August 25, 2007 @ 9:04 am
Harriet,
sorry to hear of the bad experience. In my experience reporting violations to eBay is a waste of time !
The only time it works is:
For reporting a hijacked account
A report made by a gold or platinum powerseller.
If you do get a response it tends to be an automated or canned reply.
Ebay still mae money in the scenario you mention as most people use Paypal so they cream a slice off there !
The only real way to beat this is to use reputable sellers and look at auctions casefully.
I know ebayers are always looking for bargains but at the end of the day nobody can sell brand new items for next to nothing - there has to be a catch somewhere
Thnaks for the comment Harriet
All the best
Rod
jerry said,
April 18, 2008 @ 8:06 am
Recently i sold a item on ebay, it was a cast iron kettle stand, of course all metal, When i listed the item, I put down 15.00 for shipping, One of ebays pop-up’s came on and said my shipping was high and my account could be closed if found overcharging…..well the item was’nt that small or light, anyway i change my listing to buy it now with free shipping…post office would’nt and could’nt ship it for less than 17.96……I have also found their cal to be wrong, When shipping out of the USA, and alot of times to canada…..thank’s.jerry
Rod said,
April 18, 2008 @ 9:41 am
Hi Jerry
Thanks fo rthe comment and welcome to the site
thanks for that info, I wasn’t aware they were doing so such on an auto basis = it’s ridiculous. I can have postage of 15 GBP or about $30 on a heavy book never mind something made of iron.
They’re getting ever more intrusive.
The answer is more staff and police the site with humans not computer programs
Regards
Rod