"Ebay Shipping Costs" Topic

This has already been discussed but Ebay shipping costs are absolutely ridiculous in some cases. $54.99 USD USD to ship one box of miniatures come on!
Maybe this shold have gone under Rants. ;)

Pete

Link?

No link – just a recent observation – a lot of shipping prices on Ebay are now very expensive imo.

I saw the same thing, I had to dig down into the shipping options to even find Media Mail or Parcel Post, but they were there.

It's because of their policies.

Without shipping it via Priority Mail, you can't obtain a signature to prove it was delivered to the customer if they claim otherwise, so, hence the high cost.

EBay shipping costs?
Since when do ebay ship stuff. Isn 't it depending on the individual seller and the country of origins postal service that determine final postage and handling costs.
I live in Australia and I buy my hobby stuff almost exclusivly on the internet. Most postage costs from Britain and US costs me between $10 USD – $20. USD For me to post at cost from Australia to most places in the world its $30 USD – $40. USD
It totally sucks but its reality .

@Mako11 – I absolutely agree. I have had way too many charge backs. I will only ship in the US by priority mail with delivery confirmation (signature confirmation over $200 USD)to the address registered with paypal. Otherwise all the buyer has to do is report to ebay that it never arrived and paypal automatically refunds their money. Priority mail with delivery confirmation to the registered address is the way to prevent paypal simply taking the money back. I am right up front about the restriction in the auction description, no exceptions, don't even ask.

I used to buy a lot of books on eBay mainly from the UK but now the cost of postage to mainland Europe using ordinary Royal Mail not signed for it so ridiculously high that I no longer use eBay at all. It is well over a year now since I used that service. The Royal Mail shafted itself there

Ewan Hoosami- agree with you that shipping costs can be adjusted by the seller, but EBay don't help by charging 10% commission on postage. Add to that PayPal's3.4 % and it is clear that sellers are being screwed as well. I sell a few items on EBay. A small parcel, sent second class signed for costs £3.70 GBP in UK, but if I only charge that, I am selling at aloss.
Overseas delivery is becoming a joke. I recently sent a small packet to France, International signed for was £11.70 GBP, for goods costing less than £30.00 GBP I always ask overseas buyers to check delivery costs with me before bidding, as, more often than not, they will not be willing to pay the postage required.
Using a "not signed" for service is just opening the door to the sort of scumbags who abuse the charge back system.

I had a sneaky $5 USD handling fee add to my latest e-bay order. The note about it was in the page of the sellers rules.

I recently sold a game overseas (via Ebay) and had to send it to a "shipping site" here in the U.S. that then repackages it and sends it overseas. I was scrolling through the shipping notice and saw at the bottom that this place was charging the customer overseas around $25 USD for shipping a book sized game box. You can't tell me that the high shipping costs aren't hurting overseas gaming purchases.

I really hate the ebay shipping calculator.

I have noticed their prices for international costs are way off. So I have anyone who is interested email me and I will check USPS manually. Lookers will see prices in the $40 USD range and I will check and its $20. USD

If I list a bunch of items as COMBINED with USPS Flat Rate, it will multiply the flat rate times the number of items instead of having me say… "I can fit it all in one box" so then I have to manually edit the price.

Nearly 20% of an items sale now goes to ebay. That includes a percentage of the item, a percentage of the shipping and if the buyer uses paypal a percentage of that.

There is no viable alternative so no competition. Use wargames forums to buy and sell stuff save more of the profit for yourself!

@Sevastopol Was it my listings you were looking at?

Problem is Ebay if you add something to the cart all it does is add individual shipping together.

So $3.00 USD shipping per figure times 15 equals $45.00 USD, actual shipping $8.00 USD

Ebay doesn't fix this cause they take 9% of the US shipping costs, so it is not in there best interest to fix it.

Use the Buy it Now button and if it insists on forcing you into the cart contact the seller and ask for a combined listing or some other solution. We can't edit the cart, but can edit items confirmed via BIN if you wait to pay.

@napthyme: no, it wasn't your listings. It's just that recently I've seen shipping costs that were very high for some sellers. A few were still reasonable, but there seems to be quite an increase in shipping costs lately.

eBay has some defaults that are kinda silly, it's up to the seller to set their shipping method so the buyer gets charged appropriately. Some buyers pay that default price so I'm stuck refunding the difference after buying postage for the actual cost.

Looking at a package going to Canada tomorrow; I had charge $10 USD for FCM (First Class mail International), USPS does allow a decent discount through paypal, so actual postage on 15 oz was $8.25 USD; But ebay takes their cut based on my Domestic PH ($3.75/ $.38 USD) plus the Paypal 3.9% ($.39) and by the time I pay for a box and printing, I am nibbling at my gross margin.

Buy only from sellers who know what they are doing! If they are using the ebay defaults, find someone who understands, and break the shipment up into four pound or less FCM shipments.

Clarifying my comments, my understanding is that the requirement for delivery confirmation is for domestic Shipments; The standard is One Business Day turnaround with Delivery confirmation (FCM/priority/Parcel Select) on 95% of your Domestic shipments to qualify as a "Power seller" (8% vs 10% FVF); And you "need" (as a seller) the Delivery Confirmation or ebay will tell you to eat it if you have a bad customer….

It depends on what you are shipping; I'm (Mostly) selling cheap plastic toys and things out of my hoard.

I have mailed $100 USD Magic (MTG) cards FCM (First Class Mail) to Canada and Europe with no confirmation and no problems. (Registered Mail International is over $18 USD). Eventually I am going to eat one, but I usually charge $5 USD for international shipping ($1.10, First Class Mail Flat to Canada on one back in December), vs Free Shipping (Buyers expect it on MTG in the US). $1.93 USD FCM package off the too of my gross on a domestic sale.

I think I will come out at least even if I lose one…

I was eyeing a Russian Language book (from Russia) for the last couple of months, the clueless git insists on shipping registered mail (international) ($13) on a $17 USD sale. What is the Fraud likelihood on weird, Russian Language Military History?