"Ask Nick": Excessive Shipping Charges

Ask Nick · Joined: 15 Feb 2003 Posts: 9

If a seller charges excessive shipping & handling, is it okay for the winning bidder to back out of the transaction?

(See article to be published in the March 9, 2003 issue of AuctionBytes-Update to read more about this issue.)

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m03/abu0090/s06

oafum · Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 23

I am assuming you mean when the seller says on his listing that shipping charges will be "actual" and fails to list the real shipping charge on his auction. If there is a shipping price listed on the auction and you bid on it, there is no "back out". The charges were posted and you accepted the cost when you bid. In the case of the shipping charges provided after the end of auction I would agree that if they are "excessive" and they would have to be grossly so, then it's okay to back out. But this is problematic as the seller would likely neg you on feedback and report you to ebay. The mess of dealing with that is not worth the time. I do not bid on an auction unless I know the shipping charges. If they are not posted, I email the seller asking for a quote. That way if they turn out different than was quoted after I won the auction, I have something concrete to rely on both with the seller and ebay. I think the auctions which don't have posted shipping charges are either lazy or deceitful and something in general to be avoided.

Dave
Genericchipsystems
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kjp55 · Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 1972 Location: East of Rockies

catherine j roy · Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 1161 Location: new york

i sell a lot of china and glassware, do not charge handling fee -and charge only what po says it is....which usually means a trip to weigh there and back later to mail....so if someone buys an item for 1.75 and it costys 3.50 to mail, i can't help that some of these things are heavy....i do not see a reason to bback out of a sale....if the buyer can't figure his item is heavy and that it will cost to get it through po, that's his problem not mine, as a matter of fact, usually I ask a lower price because i know that the item is heavy and want to offset some of the shipping....Many times I end up paying out of my own pocket the extra shippign....just an observation from a small seller......one person i consign for, my extra shipping for her items washed out my commission because she refuses to pay difference....so now I have to prepackage go to po, and then bill buyer....i do object to someone selling a 1$ cheap item and then put 12.50 SH handling fees on it when i know it only costs 2.00 to mail......or when i buy something -pay 5.15 priority insured rate, and it comes in padded envelope for 3.00...that really irks me...

disndat · Joined: 06 Apr 2002 Posts: 7

Catherine,

An inexpensive scale would save you a LOT of time and, I think, would be well worth the cost. A scale would enable you to know the weight of your package so that, using the USPS web site, you could calculate the cost of postage before listing and item. You could then include the cost, an approximate cost or weight in your item description. You would only have to make half the amount of trips to the Post Office (to ship your item not to weigh and ship each item). I've even begun adding a link in my listings so the bidder can calculate the postage himself. This would also allow you to charge an accurate amount for postage so that you would not be losing any money on the sale or consignment commission. If the bidder knows before bidding what the postage cost will be, you don't have to lower the cost due to embarrassment. I think I paid $17.50 for my scale and it has been by far my best eBay investment!

Good luck with your auctions.

oafum · Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 23

Something no one has pointed out or talked about in regards to excessive shipping fees is the Ebay fee avoidance. By listing and selling low, and haveing high shipping fees, sellers are able to list at a lower price and their final value fee at the end of the auction is also lower. Ebay does not charge fees on the cost of shipping an item. I have tried this myself and found that it doesn't work all that well. Folks just inherantly, (myself included) don't like to pay a high shipping charge because of the ideal the seller is unfairly charging to make a high profit. They would rather pay more for the item itself and a reasonable fee for the shipping.
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AlisN1dlan · Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 8 Location: Connecticut

One of my very first E-bay purchases was a saddle that - admittedly - sold really low. It needed to come from New Jersey to Connecticut. No price for s/h listed - just that the Buyer would pay. Thrilled with my "steal" I forked over the $43 the Seller requested - it never even dawned on me that I was being . . .well, bent over in an awkward position. When it arrived it was defective to the point of being dangerous - not even remotely what he described - and I ended up sending it back. Same shipper; same transit time. Different price. $7.76. Resolving the whole mess was like performing dentistry on an alligator, and by the time it was over I was steaming. But I realized that if I left the kind of feedback this philistine deserved, my puny little 1/4 page would look like Christmas at Macy's. So I waited. Until Day #89. And right before E-bay deleted the item, while he was busy bilking other people, I gave him what he so richly deserved.
That was a long time ago. But it taught me that the last thing I want to deal with is someone like me who thinks (rightly OR wrongly) that they are getting hosed on shipping. It's true: people want to know the charges up front. But there's a problem: I know I can send a saddle anywhere in the lower 48 for $25. I also know I can send one to New Jersey for $7.76. I could list the flat $25 and run around like a crazy woman hoping to catch the Buyer in Trenton before s/he pays the ticket - or figures out it really costs $7.76 and fries me on feedback. Or I could delay getting myself paid by not listing shipping. Or - I could put a shipping calculator on the page, which is EXACTLY what I am going to do - as soon as I figure out how

disndat · Joined: 06 Apr 2002 Posts: 7

AlisN1dlan - Below is the link to Free Cut and Paste Shipping Cost Rate Calculators for Online Auction Sellers at auctionSupplies.com. It's the one I use in my descriptions and I am very satisfied with it. I think it is quite easy to place in a description, saves me time answering some questions (although I do still have folks ask how much an item will cost to ship) and looks professional in my eBay auction listing. I searched through quite a few eBay auctions before I found the link to this one. I hope this helps you, too.

disndat · Joined: 06 Apr 2002 Posts: 7

OOPS! Sorry about that.

Here is the link (honest - I'm going to remember it this time - lol):

http://auctionsupplies.com/calculators/

AlisN1dlan · Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 8 Location: Connecticut

for the help - 'preciate it

litlux · Joined: 04 Aug 2001 Posts: 40 Location: North Adams, MA

I think having a power seller give advice to buyers is a mistake. This buyer had a complaint, and without any evidence or proof, the answer heaps shame on the buyer.

The seller is clearly in a fee avoidance situation, and should be chastised, not the bidder.

I would certainly have asked if the TOS included the specific amounts for shipping before jumping the gun and not just added the brief disclaimer at the end of the diatribe.

If this is the quality of advice we are going to get, well, I will seek someone more like Solomon than Judge Judy.

kjp55 · Joined: 18 Aug 2001 Posts: 1972 Location: East of Rockies

dino20001 · Joined: 25 Jan 2003 Posts: 2

Yisgood · Joined: 31 Jul 2001 Posts: 250 Location: New York

It's just amazing how right Barnum was. There is one born every minute. Credit cards charge fees to the merchant but if a seller passes it on to the buyer, it's illegal or immoral. Ebay charges fees to the seller, but if the seller charges it to the buyer in the form of a higher shipping cost, it's fee avoidance. Maybe sellers should just give their stuff away.

I recently bought a RAM module on ebay. The seller charged $8 shipping. He sent it first class for 83 cents. Do I consider this "excessive shipping?" NO! He stated it in his auction and if I didn't like it, I shouldn't have bid. Is it fee avoidance? Again, no! He has to cover his ebay fees and his paypal fees. Since he is not allowed to charge extra for accepting paypal, he chose to do so by raising his shipping cost. ALL of a seller's costs have to be covered by the buyer or the seller is out of business. He started his auction at $1 with no reserve. If I had won it at $1, he would have lost money, even with his higher shipping. As it is, I don't know if he made much, since I got a good deal, even with the higher shipping. By the way, he wanted to send it priority. I told him to send it first class since we lived in the same state and priority would not have gotten there any faster. And I did not ask for a refund of the difference. If I wasn't happy with the cost, I shouldn't have bid.

On my site I charge a flat shipping of $3 to $8 per order (based on the heaviest item) regardless of quantity. Sometimes someone will complain that they paid $5 and the shipping was only $3. I will politely inform them that nothing stopped them from ordering more items and even if the shipping was $10, they would have only paid $5. So my "excessive shipping" on one order covers my loss on another. The customer makes the decision whether the total order is worth it.

If you go to shopping sites where you can compare the price of an item on several sites, you will discover something amazing. The cheapest price is not necessarilly the best deal. I was looking at the Epson 890 printer. One site charged $164 with $25 shipping. Another charged $180 with $5 shipping. I add the cost and the shipping and choose the best deal. That's the bottom line.

Just FYI: I once bought three software packages from Egghead auctions (I bid for 3 at the same auction). Shipping was stated as 9.99. They put all three in the same box, paid about $5 to ship it and charged me 29.97 shipping! Now THAT I consider deceptive. If they have the ability to combine shipping, then they have the ability to combine the charge. If a seller tells me that they won't combine shipping, I will insist that they ship it in separate boxes.
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JC · Joined: 15 Feb 2002 Posts: 217