Ebay, eh? Well last week I decided to finally sell the annoying 3G Android tablet I had. So I listed it on Ebay... It sold. However, something went wrong Ebay's end and the payment went to a closed Paypal address I removed over a year ago and thus, bounced. So now I'm trying to figure out what went wrong with an already irate buyer (after not even an hour) saying that he was going to cancel and buy elsewhere. I finally get it sorted out and receive my payment of £85 + £7.99 shipping. Then I find out that Ebay are taking £9.29. Which is odd, given I thought they weren't allowed to take money from shipping? then Paypal take a further £4 or so, then Parcelfarce charge me £11 to send my tablet A. Uninsured (well, insurance value £0) unless I pay a further £4.79+ VAT for £100 insurance. B. 48 hour service that makes me have to drop it at the post office (they want £3 more to collect it here) So I ended up with about £70. Never, ever again. The next time I try and order a gadget like that I will have my lady chop my hands off. But what about postage now? it's freaking insane. I've no idea how small businesses and Ebay sellers are going to stay afloat with RM and the rest committing sodomy on people.
They don't take a percentage of the postage cost. Did you have a reserve price on it? They take 3% of that price. Shipping costs, I know it sounds harsh, but should have checked and made 100% sure of the cost before listing. I got stung when items I presumed would go large letter with RM didn't fit and had to go small parcel, at an increase of £2.10 per package, lost me nearly all my profit. Agree with RM postage charges, just gone stupid now with the changes, small items seemed to have gotten even more expensive along with larger items, and the only stuff that seems to have benefited is items that are at the max limits for the different services. Luckily I've not had any major problems yet with ebay sales. Did get an annoying one the other week, after sending an item out, to get an "item not as described" message, turned out a small piece was missing (warhammer model). I think I must have missed it and left it on another piece of sprue which got put in with another lot. Refunded the guy straight away, and he still left me neutral feedback. Luckily it was only about £3 in total, so no big loss and at least I didn't get neg feedback.
That's how ebay roll now - I sold my camera for £410 inc postage and got £345 cash in hand from that sale. If buyers knew where so much of their money was going, I think they'd be more willing to come to an agreement and go forward with a private transaction (as so many of my buyers have, most recently my GTX480). Postage is also ridiculous; you just have to make sure the buyer pays for it!
