Question for Ebay Sellers

[ponylady]

I am going to bump this over to Trader Support for you 

In the meantime....

Is Ebay charging a percentage for shipping?  I have a seller, for something non-pony related, saying Ebay charged them a percentage for shipping to justify charging $8.00 for something that actually only was about $5.00 to ship.

Yes, as others have already mentioned eBay does charge you a FVF on shipping costs on top of charging a FVF on the item itself.

Well I could understand if it was a couple of dollars more.  But for them to have told me it would have been $16 to ship in a box, heck flat rate boxes were made for a reason.  I just wanted to make sure their line of 'ebay's charging me for shipping' was true.  I just now know never to buy from this seller again, cause the biggest most breakable item wasn't packaged properly.

If your item was not properly packed then this is a whole different story. What was the item you bought and what approx. did it weigh. If I know this I will be better able to help you on what was a reasonable price for shipping?

[Ringlets]

*nods* - What Ponylady said
(and I loathe the stupid shipping fees from ebay too! I only ever charged the exact price to ship . I still do though it means I have to add extra to the item or do a free shipping offer and add all the shipping on to the item price. Not that that avoids the fees though *sigh* )

[banditpony]

Yea but even with packing materials.  The shipping itself was only about $3.75, materials $1.75.  So maybe $6.00 for shipping rounding again up. 

So shipping was $3.75, and they charged $8?

Or are you saying you should of paid a total of $8 including shipping, when you feel it should of been $5 including shipping?

[pandorarose3]

It was 2 Cherry Merry Muffin dolls, some accessories, and one of their baking buddies, a big huge cake.  They wrapped the dolls and the accessories in 4 pieces of tissue paper but left the cake buddy and one of the hats, all plastic, right above that bundle vulnerable to the USPS unprotected, something she failed to even talk about when I mentioned it to her.  I will take a photo of the envelope later, sorry I knew it came in for $3 something for the shipping price.  The shipping was $3.63 on the envelope itself.  With just the envelope, all of the packing material she included, it weighted just under 1 lb, but in a box it was 1lb on the dot.  See below what she was planning to ship in a box.  From 96706 zip to 60402 zip.

Nope Banditpony the total on the whole thing was $18+. 

As for knowing the shipping I figured it would probably come in a box and such for that amount of stuff nicely packaged which was why I wasn't worried about paying that much for shipping, there was breakable plastic items, but when it came in a way to small bubble envelope I wasn't happy.  I will take some photo's if that would help to understand how it came.

As I originally said I just wanted to know if the whole thing about Ebay charging extra was true, but since it was only 10% shipping should have been way less if she was shipping via bubble envelope, she even claimed it would be twice if she would have shipped it via a box.  Which is something I am going to check into.  Got plenty of boxes that would fit this item. 

Last thing said, I know I will NEVER deal with this seller again if they jack up their prices like this.

[banditpony]

So they charged $8 when it had only cost $3.63? I'm trying to understand how much you were over charged.

And it is true when you are over 13oz, shipping jumps in price because you can no longer ship first class. A normal size box usually weighs 4-5 oz... Packaging also can weigh a bit. It sounds like lack of packaging was sacrificed to get it below 13oz.

It also wouldn't of cost $16 to ship a box. However if they didn't have a box, those can be a few dollars. :/

Either way, yeah, don't buy from them again as they obviously do not take care in safely packaging their item.

[ClosetAvalanche]

The lack of packaging sucks, but were the items damaged?

[pandorarose3]

I was lucky the breakable parts weren't damaged, and they were on the side of the envelope that was more mangled up.

[ClosetAvalanche]

I was lucky the breakable parts weren't damaged, and they were on the side of the envelope that was more mangled up.

Happy for you nothing was damaged. With that, the seller shouldn't suffer for 'what-ifs'.