Can someone tell me how postage works on eBay now???

[Bungle73]

Put up an item to sell, and (unlike before) there was absolutely no option to set postage costs. The item sold, but the buyer is saying it's not letting him pay, and postage is coming up as "freight delivery". What am I supposed to do??

 

[AY1975]

That's odd: when I sell an item on eBay it always offers me the option to list the item post-free or set postage costs. It always says buyers are more likely to choose an item that's being offered post-free, but until now I personally have always chosen to set postage costs, as it means you can set the starting price (excluding postage) lower than if you sell the item post-free. That is, unless you are happy to make a loss on that item by selling it for less than it costs to send it.

If you choose to set postage costs, it asks you what size and weight the item is and then works out the postage costs accordingly but it does let you manually set them at a different rate from what it suggests. In some cases postage is slightly cheaper if you use a pre-printed postage label than if you write the recipient's name and address on the package by hand and then take it to the Post Office and pay for it then and there, but where this is the case eBay sometimes automatically sets it at the higher price.

In your case, all I can suggest is that you contact eBay to explain the situation and ask them what you should do. They might say you should contact the buyer and give them your bank account details (account number, sort code and name of account holder) so that they can do an online (BACS) payment if they are registered for online banking, or if not, give them your name and address and ask them to send you a cheque or postal order. But I would contact eBay first to ask them for advice, as I think ordinarily doing either of those things would be regarded as completing the transaction outside of eBay, which is against eBay's rules. EBay also has restrictions on what information sellers and buyers are allowed to give each other via the eBay messaging service to protect sellers' and buyers' privacy.

If you have the eBay app on your phone, tap on the three horizontal bars in the top left-hand corner of your screen, scroll down to Help at the bottom of the menu and see if any of the help articles on there answer your query. If not, scroll down to "Need more help?" and tap on "Contact us", then select "Selling" and then whichever option is the most relevant for you (probably "Getting paid for items you've sold").

If you don't have the eBay app, you will need to log into your eBay account and click on "Help & Contact" near the top left-hand corner of the screen, and then the procedure is exactly the same as above. Alternatively, if you access your eBay account via a PC or laptop, there is also the option to post a query in the online eBay community where eBay users can give each other advice and share their experiences.

Hope this helps!

 

[Bungle73]

That's odd: when I sell an item on eBay it always offers me the option to list the item post-free or set postage costs. It always says buyers are more likely to choose an item that's being offered post-free, but until now I personally have always chosen to set postage costs, as it means you can set the starting price (excluding postage) lower than if you sell the item post-free. That is, unless you are happy to make a loss on that item by selling it for less than it costs to send it.

If you choose to set postage costs, it asks you what size and weight the item is and then works out the postage costs accordingly but it does let you manually set them at a different rate from what it suggests. In some cases postage is slightly cheaper if you use a pre-printed postage label than if you write the recipient's name and address on the package by hand and then take it to the Post Office and pay for it then and there, but where this is the case eBay sometimes automatically sets it at the higher price.

In your case, all I can suggest is that you contact eBay to explain the situation and ask them what you should do. They might say you should contact the buyer and give them your bank account details (account number, sort code and name of account holder) so that they can do an online (BACS) payment if they are registered for online banking, or if not, give them your name and address and ask them to send you a cheque or postal order. But I would contact eBay first to ask them for advice, as I think ordinarily doing either of those things would be regarded as completing the transaction outside of eBay, which is against eBay's rules. EBay also has restrictions on what information sellers and buyers are allowed to give each other via the eBay messaging service to protect sellers' and buyers' privacy.

If you have the eBay app on your phone, tap on the three horizontal bars in the top left-hand corner of your screen, scroll down to Help at the bottom of the menu and see if any of the help articles on there answer your query. If not, scroll down to "Need more help?" and tap on "Contact us", then select "Selling" and then whichever option is the most relevant for you (probably "Getting paid for items you've sold").

If you don't have the eBay app, you will need to log into your eBay account and click on "Help & Contact" near the top left-hand corner of the screen, and then the procedure is exactly the same as above. Alternatively, if you access your eBay account via a PC or laptop, there is also the option to post a query in the online eBay community where eBay users can give each other advice and share their experiences.

Hope this helps!

Thanks. I sent them an invoice to see if that will allow them to pay. When I compiled my listing there was an option to set the size but nothing to set a price.

I've never been quite sure if you get more money if you charge for postage, or more money if you don't.........

 

[Darandio]

I've never been quite sure if you get more money if you charge for postage, or more money if you don't.........

They simply take a cut from both.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

I've never been quite sure if you get more money if you charge for postage, or more money if you don't.........

Good question. Does however sometimes seem slightly sharp practice for a seller to set the postage charge for an item at say £3.95 when it's an item such as a small booklet that doesn't really cost all that much to post.

 

[Darandio]

Good question. Does however sometimes seem slightly sharp practice for a seller to set the postage charge for an item at say £3.95 when it's an item such as a small booklet that doesn't really cost all that much to post.

Well quite, although the larger value they set the postage the larger cut Ebay takes from it.

 

[341o2]

Good question. Does however sometimes seem slightly sharp practice for a seller to set the postage charge for an item at say £3.95 when it's an item such as a small booklet that doesn't really cost all that much to post.

I've heard that some sellers factor in their time to pack the item and take it to the Post Office or parcel collection point

 

[Darandio]

I've heard that some sellers factor in their time to pack the item and take it to the Post Office or parcel collection point

Although some do undoubtedly take liberties to try and artificially inflate their sale price there is this element as well. I've had buyers question when the postage on their envelope/package has been 50p-£1 less than what I charged. Depending on what i've sold the packaging generally isn't free (can be up to 50-70p per item) and although I don't factor in fuel costs to take it to be dispatched that isn't free either. That's without Ebay taking their bit.

 

[AY1975]

I've never been quite sure if you get more money if you charge for postage, or more money if you don't.........

I'd say how much you get depends not so much on that as on how much you set the starting price at. On the one hand, people might prefer to buy an item that's being offered post-free because it means the price you see is the price you pay, with no hidden extras. On the other hand, as I mentioned in entry #2 above, if you do set postage costs on top of the price of the item, it enables you to set the starting price lower without danger of making a loss by selling the item for less than it costs to send it. If an item has a starting price of, say, 99p plus postage, even if the postage is, say, £2.85, to some people that still seems like a lot less than, say, £4 post-free.

Although some do undoubtedly take liberties to try and artificially inflate their sale price there is this element as well. I've had buyers question when the postage on their envelope/package has been 50p-£1 less than what I charged. Depending on what i've sold the packaging generally isn't free (can be up to 50-70p per item) and although I don't factor in fuel costs to take it to be dispatched that isn't free either. That's without Ebay taking their bit.

Yes, and I would guess that if an item is borderline between two different postage rates, some sellers might take the precaution of charging the higher rate (a small parcel rather than a large letter for example) to avoid the risk of the buyer having to pay a handling fee because insufficient postage was paid (and some buyers might leave negative or neutral feedback if that were to happen). I've started a separate thread on sending borderline items at https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...e-between-two-different-postage-rates.242616/

 

[jfollows]

As a buyer from eBay, my approach is that I add the postage cost to the selling price. If I'm prepared to pay £10 for something and the seller lists £2.85 as the postage fee, then I will bid a maximum of £7.15, for example. If the item lists as free postage then I'll bid a maximum of £10. It really makes no difference to me either way.

I'm only normally buying low priced items (around £10) for which the postage cost is a significant percentage of the selling price.

I guess that if eBay take a cut of the selling price but not the postage cost then it makes a difference to the seller. Oh, but I see that Darandio says they take a cut from both, so at least in my case it would appear that it makes no difference to me or to the seller. But of course others make take different approaches to placing their bids based on two separate prices.

 

[zero]

ebay didn't take fees from postage until 2013, so prior to that many sellers (including me) listed things for 1p + £500 postage and only had to pay the paypal fees. I got "warned" by ebay once but nothing further ever came from it.

Since then, for sellers it has been the same regardless of how much of your selling price was apportioned to "postage". I still set a postage charge for some items for the reasons given by AY1975 (it looks better to have cheap items for 1p + £2 postage, I don't want to make a complete "loss" by paying more than I get for postage).

The disadvantage to buyers is that you don't earn nectar points or cashback (from topcashback et al) on the postage charges. But as a buyer, you can ask for "combined" postage on multiple items, and as a seller I am happy to oblige. I will leave negative feedback when sellers refuse and make me "pay" two lots of £2.50 on something they combined and sent for £2.08.

In answer to the OP, I don't use the ebay app but I think it may hide some of the options. If you are using the app, perhaps edit your listings on the website and you should be able to set custom postage charges. I don't bother entering the sizes or weights into ebay. Recently (in the past year) they changed their website and it is now more convoluted requiring several additional clicks to set the postage options, whereas previously it could be done entirely from the keyboard, but it is still possible.

I don't understand why people waste money on packaging, unless they never buy online or are a business. I have sold over 2000 items and have always received enough packaging from my ebay (and other online) purchases that can be reused. In fact I have sold some of my excess packaging (which came from ebay items) on ebay, but I now give it to my friend for free as he buys items at car boot sales to resell on ebay.

 

[tigerroar]

I've heard that some sellers factor in their time to pack the item and take it to the Post Office or parcel collection point

It's literally called postage and packing, not postage, packing and the time it takes me to get to the postbox.

 

[Darandio]

I don't understand why people waste money on packaging, unless they never buy online or are a business. I have sold over 2000 items and have always received enough packaging from my ebay (and other online) purchases that can be reused. In fact I have sold some of my excess packaging (which came from ebay items) on ebay, but I now give it to my friend for free as he buys items at car boot sales to resell on ebay.

It's always going to vary. Whilst I buy a lot and therefore receive a lot of reusable packaging, much of this packaging is completely unsuitable for what I send out.

 

[Bungle73]

They paid using the invoice. The item is with then now.

ebay didn't take fees from postage until 2013, so prior to that many sellers (including me) listed things for 1p + £500 postage and only had to pay the paypal fees. I got "warned" by ebay once but nothing further ever came from it.

Since then, for sellers it has been the same regardless of how much of your selling price was apportioned to "postage". I still set a postage charge for some items for the reasons given by AY1975 (it looks better to have cheap items for 1p + £2 postage, I don't want to make a complete "loss" by paying more than I get for postage).

The disadvantage to buyers is that you don't earn nectar points or cashback (from topcashback et al) on the postage charges. But as a buyer, you can ask for "combined" postage on multiple items, and as a seller I am happy to oblige. I will leave negative feedback when sellers refuse and make me "pay" two lots of £2.50 on something they combined and sent for £2.08.

In answer to the OP, I don't use the ebay app but I think it may hide some of the options. If you are using the app, perhaps edit your listings on the website and you should be able to set custom postage charges. I don't bother entering the sizes or weights into ebay. Recently (in the past year) they changed their website and it is now more convoluted requiring several additional clicks to set the postage options, whereas previously it could be done entirely from the keyboard, but it is still possible.

I don't understand why people waste money on packaging, unless they never buy online or are a business. I have sold over 2000 items and have always received enough packaging from my ebay (and other online) purchases that can be reused. In fact I have sold some of my excess packaging (which came from ebay items) on ebay, but I now give it to my friend for free as he buys items at car boot sales to resell on ebay.

I always list using the website.

 

[Bertie the bus]

I've heard that some sellers factor in their time to pack the item and take it to the Post Office or parcel collection point

Absolutely. Some sellers should be avoided as they are little short of con artists. I once received something I bought on Ebay in a reused A4 envelope, and so cost them nothing, and a 2nd class stamp and they had charged something like £5 P&P and got really quite aggressive when I stated my displeasure on my feedback. They also lectured me on how they were saving the planet by reusing envelopes when my complaint had nothing to do with them reusing an envelope but the fact they had charged me for using a new one.

 

[robbeech]

It's literally called postage and packing, not postage, packing and the time it takes me to get to the postbox.

It’s a service, the price is for the service and process of getting the item sold to the buyer. How sellers calculate it and what costs they include is entirely up to them when they set the postage price in the listing. A buyer can choose to go elsewhere if they deem the postage price to be too high.