How do I stop eBay from assigning random shipping cost?

[Chefguy]

This is driving me crazy. Ebay inserts shipping costs for items that is completely unrealistic. Even when I select the “calculate postage” option, they insert a shipping cost that never matches up with reality. Additionally, if I select Priority shipping, they limit the amount to $4.00, regardless of weight. I recently went through this hassle with a buyer who wanted his item sent priority, but eBay wouldn’t allow him to pay more than $4 shipping, even though the priority cost was nearly $18. He ended up having to make two payments.

So:
Is there a way to turn this off?
Why the $4.00 upper limit?

[Blaster_Master]

As I understand, this was done because people were using the extra shipping to circumvent the eBay fees. Let’s say I have an item that I want to sell for $20 and costs $4 to ship, I pay fees on $20. If I can make the shipping whatever I want, I could start the bidding at $15 and charge $9 to ship, so I not only pay less in fees, but also potentially bring in people thinking the item is cheaper than it is.

In short, you get screwed because too many people abused the system.

[Chefguy]

@Blaster_Master

As I understand, this was done because people were using the extra shipping to circumvent the eBay fees. Let’s say I have an item that I want to sell for $20 and costs $4 to ship, I pay fees on $20. If I can make the shipping whatever I want, I could start the bidding at $15 and charge $9 to ship, so I not only pay less in fees, but also potentially bring in people thinking the item is cheaper than it is.

In short, you get screwed because too many people abused the system.

That is some kinda fucked up. How hard could it be to have the weight linked to a postage calculator? I always make sure that my ads state the correct postage and tell buyers to ignore the ebay postage. There’s no way I’m taking $4 for something that ships for $18.

[Apocalypso]

@Chefguy

That is some kinda fucked up. How hard could it be to have the weight linked to a postage calculator? I always make sure that my ads state the correct postage and tell buyers to ignore the ebay postage. There’s no way I’m taking $4 for something that ships for $18.

I’m happy they did this actually. There were a lot of items that were $1.00 buy it now price and $15.00 shipping. When you are searching through items this made it difficult to tell what the actual price was going to be, since not all sellers did this. I also stopped buying stuff that didn’t list a shipping cost after someone charged me $7.00 to ship a cd (no case) stuffed between 2 sheets of cardboard taped together.

I would try contacting ebay and explain the situation. They might have a workaround for you.

[IAmNotSpartacus]

For better or for worse, Ebay is going to start charging final value fees based on item price plus shipping sometime in June, so there theoretically should be no more of these shenanigans. It also means honest sellers that don’t mark up their shipping will have to increase their shipping rates or eat the increase

[Reply]

They should link it to categories (like the Amazon marketplace) or maybe 30-day average shipping prices of similar completed listings. A flat $4 for priority mail is beyond stupid…

[Peremensoe]

It was a mistake to break out shipping separately to begin with. Just list things at a price that covers your shipping cost. That’s what you’re doing now, right? Nobody’s selling anything at a loss.

[Chefguy]

@spark240

It was a mistake to break out shipping separately to begin with. Just list things at a price that covers your shipping cost. That’s what you’re doing now, right? Nobody’s selling anything at a loss.

That doesn’t work for most auctions. In order to get people interested in bidding on an item, the starting price usually has to be fairly low. You could possibly include the shipping cost in with a Buy It Now price, but there’s no guarantee that anybody will choose that option.

[control-z]

Doesn’t seem fair for eBay to charge a percentage of the shipping costs, that is a cost that the seller cannot control (assuming the cost is actual and not inflated.) All that’s going to do is increase the shipping cost for buyers.

I think eBay would be better served by making the sellers stop listing unreasonable shipping costs. It’s pretty obvious that an iPad shouldn’t cost $75 with $300 shipping.

Making the shipping part of the item cost sounds like a good idea, but what if you wanted to sell the item world-wide? Shipping within your own country will certainly be a lot cheaper than shipping to Russia or Japan.

[Chefguy]

@control-z

Doesn’t seem fair for eBay to charge a percentage of the shipping costs, that is a cost that the seller cannot control (assuming the cost is actual and not inflated.) All that’s going to do is increase the shipping cost for buyers.

I think eBay would be better served by making the sellers stop listing unreasonable shipping costs. It’s pretty obvious that an iPad shouldn’t cost $75 with $300 shipping.

Making the shipping part of the item cost sounds like a good idea, but what if you wanted to sell the item world-wide? Shipping within your own country will certainly be a lot cheaper than shipping to Russia or Japan.

Shipping overseas is surprisingly cheap for light-weight items. Ebay has their own little money-making scam going on with shipping: If you create and pay postage for a shipping label from ebay, it’s done in conjunction with the USPS; but eBay charges you for that privilege. I sent one package that way and paid $24 (including insurance). The next time, the package was almost identical in size, weight, and insured value, but I went directly to the postal website and paid $18. So it’s not just sellers who are trying to maximize profits.

[control-z]

@Chefguy

Shipping overseas is surprisingly cheap for light-weight items. Ebay has their own little money-making scam going on with shipping: If you create and pay postage for a shipping label from ebay, it’s done in conjunction with the USPS; but eBay charges you for that privilege. I sent one package that way and paid $24 (including insurance). The next time, the package was almost identical in size, weight, and insured value, but I went directly to the postal website and paid $18. So it’s not just sellers who are trying to maximize profits.

Yeah international shipping is inexpensive up to a certain number of ounces, then it skyrockets. Somewhere before the 1 pound mark IIRC.

So eBay overcharges for shipping and now will charge sellers an additional percentage of the shipping cost? Nice.

[Hairy_Bob]

@Apocalypso

I’m happy they did this actually. There were a lot of items that were $1.00 buy it now price and $15.00 shipping. When you are searching through items this made it difficult to tell what the actual price was going to be, since not all sellers did this.

So sort the listings by the price+p&p, and it shows items in order of the combined cost, in ascending or descending order.