MMORPG Gamer Community

Moo · 10-21-2009

So the story goes like this. This evening I received two email notifications from eBay telling me that two items I listed about a week ago didn't sell. No problemo. I opted to relist them for another week, only this time, the relisting wouldn't go through and a bold notice at the top of the page alerted me to the reason: I'd charged too much for shipping and handling. So I checked their standards again and was completely shocked at how much they expected me to charge my buyers for shipping: zilch. £0.00 was the maximum price I could set. LOLWUT?

Mmk. Firstly, I'm selling individual CDs here. They're not particularly bulky or heavy items, but they still cost me almost £1 to send off at the post office, not to mention the money I need to pay towards the wrapping/packaging. You'd think, "oh, okay, so they let you charge more if it's something heavy?" Fack, no. The new policy specifies that buyers are now eligible for free shipping on a huge variety of items including books, magazines, videos, games, phones, clothes, and pretty much everything under the bloody sky. Just about the only items with no restrictions are game consoles and whatnot, rofl.

Postage and Packaging policy update

... so let me get this straight. In theory, they expect us to wrap something up, go to the post office and mail it off, and do all that for free? So the FAQ tries to pacify us by reassuring that it's possible and completely reasonable to factor in any necessary shipping costs into the item price itself. Which begs the question: what is the point of restricting shipping costs if there's going to be another way around it? No one in their right mind is going to send off items like that for free. I know it's possible to bump up the item price considering that, but it's not like doing that won't drive off buyers because suddenly your item is a few pounds/dollars more than it would've been had eBay allowed you to charge shipping costs.

In the end, I had to add an extra £1 to all my items ~_~ gg. And that's the ONLY way to fix it. Otherwise, not only am I not making a profit, I have to fork money out of my own wallet to pay for other people's orders o_O That's just not how it's supposed to work.

CursedScar · 10-21-2009

This is sort of stupid on Ebay's part. I mean if you don't make them pay for shipping, they'll just add the price to the item lulz. Fail to logic?

Shirakani · 10-22-2009

Pretty much... It's the same kind of logic that spawned prices like $59.99 rather than just a flat $60.00 pricetag.

People will THINK they're getting a great deal! OO! LEWK! FLEE SHEEPINK! SO CHIP MUT BAI!

But then again, charging shipping was also a bit of a screw in some ways as you get say... videogames listed for $5 buy it now prices, that have a $40 shipping charge. So yeah, in many ways this CAN be seen as a positive thing as it forces ACTUAL prices rather than 'scam' prices.