eBay users have long complained of sellers who list items for low prices but then surprise buyers with inflated shipping & handling (S&H) charges. So eBay North America President Bill Cobb got a positive response during his keynote address at the eBay Live conference when he said the auction site would begin clamping down on these policy violators.

Cobb said at the time that a recent study had revealed that the number one reason buyers don't complete a transaction is because of the "nasty little surprise" of excessive shipping charges, and he said such offenders compete unfairly, "game" the search results, and erode buyer trust.

How does eBay determine when a seller is charging a fair S&H fee to buyers? That question came up last week on industry discussion boards as some sellers complained they were victims of over-reaching by eBay Trust & Safety's department who took down their listings for violating policy.

While some cases of shipping gouging are blatantly clear, there's a gray area where sellers recoup costs of packaging material and handling costs. While it's easy to determine the carrier cost, such as USPS priority mail fees, it's impossible for anyone but the seller to know what his or her packaging and handling costs are. Some sellers complained last week that eBay is targeting certain categories, such as cell phone accessories, and they said it is questionable whether some of the targeted sellers' S&H fees are in fact excessive.

eBay spokesperson Catherine England said, "We are removing listings across the site with excessive shipping rates; that said, we are taking a strategic approach to enforcing the policy by focusing our efforts on those categories where we see the highest incidence of excessive shipping abuse."

England said the best thing sellers can do to avoid having their listings pulled for excessive shipping is to "charge actual shipping and actual packaging (plus a reasonable handling fee). Sellers can go to the usps.com website to see what actual shipping rates may be."

One seller wrote on a board that he believes eBay is trying to automate its "high shipping filter" and that they are experimenting on the cell phone categories. When asked about this theory, England said, "We use a variety of automated tools as well as individual listing review by our staff to enforce many of our policies, including the excessive shipping policy."

eBay will score big points with buyers and sellers if they can figure out how to fairly enforce this policy and can do it before the all-important upcoming holiday shopping season. In the meantime, some sellers are left feeling FUD - fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Related Links

Bill Cobb's June announcement about excessive shipping charges
http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/excessiveshipping.html

OTWA Discussion Thread
http://www.otwa.com/community/showthread.php?t=43519

eBay Forum Thread
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000321585