I agree with what Craig and others have been saying about pumped-up
"shipping and handling" charges that some sellers implement. But I'd like to
point out a couple of things:
1) This is a common practice for non-eBay mail-order companies and has been
for decades. How many times have you seen the TV ad where they're going to send
you a "$75 dollar value for ONLY $9.95" and you look at the screen and it says
"$9.95 plus shipping & handling" and when you place the order you discover
that shipping and handing is $19.95 or more? Using the shipping and handling
charge as a way to offer absurdly low retail prices and still end up getting
paid closer to a genuine retail price is a common practice,even
with the big brand-name catalogs -- let's not pretend it's just an eBay
issue. It's just that more and more of those sellers who have been doing regular
mail-order and charging excessive shipping charges have now moved
to doing business on eBay and have brought their decades-old techniques with
them.
2) In a way, eBay encourages this kind of thing by prohibiting sellers from
charging users who pay with PayPal or Credit Cards a processing fee. The seller
is charged the processing fee -- it is a cost of doing business --
but they are not allowed to pass it on to the customers, at least not up front
and honestly. They can't add it to the starting bid, because on all this
low-cost stuff that makes their starting bids non-competitive with the 99-cent
starting bids of their rivals on eBay. So, the only place left for them to
recoup genuine cost-of-business expenses is by pumping up the "shipping and
handling" charge. Note the "handling" term attached to "shipping and handling"
-- that very clearly means they are not claiming that all of the
charge will be spent on the actual shipping cost, but some of it is also for
covering "handling" -- a code word for "our cost of doing business and making
the profit we feel we need to make to stay in business."
So, pumped-up shipping and handling charges are nothing new and there's
really nothing that eBay is going to be able to do about it, despite their
public posturing. The only thing a buyer can do is be a smart shopper and check
out various sellers and compare what their "shipping and handling" charges are
-- then do business with the ones who seems to be the most reasonable in this
area. I remember several years ago when Bruce was publicly criticized because he
was charging a flat $8.00 shipping and handling fee on all of his eBay sales --
regardless of how many posters you won, he would combine them into one package
and charge you a flat $8 bucks. At the time some people thought that was kinda
high... particularly if you only won a single poster for $9.95 (in those
days many poster sellers were only charging $3.00 to $5.00 to ship). Now almost
everyone charges $8 bucks or more and Bruce has now gone to actual-cost shipping
plus a flat $2.00 for packaging materials (which makes the most sense, but
is a hassle for his staff and the exact amount the shipping will be
is something the bidder can't know until he's actually won and gets the
invoice -- but it's the only fair way to do it. Those who still charge a flat
fee must either make it high enough to guarantee that they won't lose money on
the packaging and shipping or else take a chance that they will. Given the low
prices so many eBay items go for, most are not willing to take even a small loss
on shipping and handling and I don't blame them).
It's true many more sellers abuse the process... that some insist
on insurance and then don't buy it... or charge you Priority Mail rates and then
ship "Media Mail" or simple First Class in crummy packaging. Those people you
learn to avoid buying from -- and when one of them screws you like this take a
stand and leave negative feedback and explain what they did, so that others are
warned (or maybe the seller is forced to change his ways). But don't expect any
third party like eBay to be able to reign in these abuses, because they are
well-established business-as-usual practices. The best you can do is comparison
shop and leave that all-important negative feedback when you do get
burned.
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
From: Craig Goebel
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 1:03
Subject: Re: [MOPO] EBAY AND EXCESSIVE SHIPPING CHARGES As (mostly) a buyer on ebay and other sites, I have, on many
occasions and more than once on this posting site, decried exactly the same
problems noted by ebay.
Sellers state that shipping and handling costs are the
responsibility of the buyer. I regularly receive parcels on which the postal
cost is much less than I have been charged and the materials are recycled, plus
in the last year or so, many more sellers demand that insurance payment be made
but there is no way to verify that it actually was bought by the seller. I'd bet
many big volume sellers, such as for autographs and dvds, etc., don't buy
insurance and "self-insure" by pocketing the proceeds of $1.30 per $100 over and
over to do so.
Many sellers, mostly those who sell dvds and the like, refuse
to initiate socalled discounts for multiple buys to bolster revenue even though
ALL shipping is based on weight and volume classifications, so several
items can often be shipped in one class - meaning there really is no discount
but properly a number of items can be sent for set prices.
The position I maintain is that these funds are NOT
profit centres for sellers, nor an extra way to defray paypal or any other
payment processing charges; these funds are sent to the seller so the seller can
send the item to me; in effect these funds are held in trust for the buyer for
the purpose of shipping only and they should be accurately estimated. Now
with oil prices being so high, fuel surcharges are made - in Canada they are
about 10% of the postage and couriers charge this too. Since oil is unlikely to
get cheaper, actual costs will only go up. So a buyer doesn't want to pay more
than necessary.
More than an effort to subvert the market place by avoiding
fees and only apparently lowering the "price" of the item, the sellers who
extract extra money are breaking trust with the buyer and should be made
pariahs. Good for ebay, it's about time - whatever the motivation, the
result might be of benefit to buyers.
Craig, Vancouver
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