I finally caught ebay screwing people over on shipping costs

[mmcmdl]

I had a surface plate listed on the bay with local pick up only . I had added 15% to the bay listed price . I had this listed on CL as well as FMP also for cheaper . Had a guy make an offer and told him I wouldn't sell it for that on the bay . I told him it's listed elsewhere . No numbers mentioned thru the Email . He found it and bought it off of Craigslist .

 

[alloy]

I’m getting $48.42 to CT.

I was curious how much cheaper the the Ebay rates are compared to retail rates, so I calculated a shipment on the UPS site of your listing to me here in CT and got $84.08. Even though you had the discounted rates selected, it looks like they charged the customer standard rates. That is strange since it seems to be working properly for us now.

I just wonder if my call to ebay caught them with their pants down and they made some changes. If they did it's probably only to my account and not across the board. It's too much money at stake to change everyone. Possibly the squeaky wheel got the grease.

I'm now wondering how many sales I lost because of this.

 

[a smile]

I am also a victim of EBAY, I upgraded the enterprise user last year, after I just finished the tedious filing and registration, the account was inexplicably blocked, gave me the reason: violation. In the process of my complaint, I was not given any explanation, and there was no artificial channel for complaint. It does not consider the feelings of the seller or the buyer, it acts in its own interests first. So I think the decline of EBAY is a reasonable trend.

 

[Ischgl99]

I just wonder if my call to ebay caught them with their pants down and they made some changes. If they did it's probably only to my account and not across the board. It's too much money at stake to change everyone. Possibly the squeaky wheel got the grease.

I'm now wondering how many sales I lost because of this.

I'm thinking it is more likely a glitch in the listing. Ebay switched to showing the negotiated rate a couple months back, before that it was the standard rates. It looks like they switched everyone over to defaulting to the negotiated rates unless they opted out to remain on the standard rates. Since your listing predated the changes, I'm thinking there might be a problem with some listings that are showing the old rates. If this was a conscious effort by ebay to increase the fees, I think we would have heard about it already from others. I think in your case they went into the listing and fixed the glitch and why it is showing correct now.

 

[vtcnc]

There are many ways to keep your fees at a minimum. The surest ways to maximize eBays fees are to do two things:

1) Do an auction at a high starting bid price, reserve and Buy It Now option,
2) Allow for auto calculated shipping at checkout,

#2 is certainly what happened for the shipping cost your buyer experienced. You have to really, really pay attention to your listing before you post.

To counter the two extortion tactics above, start your auctions at $1.00 and do NO RESERVE. I only do this if I KNOW the item will get bid up to an acceptable market price. Your fees are kept to eBay's minimum charges when you do that.

Goto USPS and look at their flat rate UPS priority or USPS Ground Advantage pricing, determine your package size and weight and look it up on their table. Then setup the shipping options based on a fixed price at checkout.

 

[alloy]

I'm thinking it is more likely a glitch in the listing. Ebay switched to showing the negotiated rate a couple months back, before that it was the standard rates. It looks like they switched everyone over to defaulting to the negotiated rates unless they opted out to remain on the standard rates. Since your listing predated the changes, I'm thinking there might be a problem with some listings that are showing the old rates. If this was a conscious effort by ebay to increase the fees, I think we would have heard about it already from others. I think in your case they went into the listing and fixed the glitch and why it is showing correct now.

You may be right. One of my listings date back to 2011 as I recall. I wanted to add options that buyers had to choose to buy one of my parts so I didn't have to chase them down and beg for the information I need.. I need information to set my housings up, (gear ratio, tire size) or shaft diameter on my gear adapter but was told my listings are too old to do that. My only option was to cancel all my ads and post new ones and with literally thousands of watchers I'm not wiling to do that. And when you see I've sold over 200 or my gear adapters and hundreds od $400 tail housings an have good feedback it looks like I know what I'm doing with them.

There are many ways to keep your fees at a minimum. The surest ways to maximize eBays fees are to do two things:

1) Do an auction at a high starting bid price, reserve and Buy It Now option,
2) Allow for auto calculated shipping at checkout,

#2 is certainly what happened for the shipping cost your buyer experienced. You have to really, really pay attention to your listing before you post.

To counter the two extortion tactics above, start your auctions at $1.00 and do NO RESERVE. I only do this if I KNOW the item will get bid up to an acceptable market price. Your fees are kept to eBay's minimum charges when you do that.

Goto USPS and look at their flat rate UPS priority or USPS Ground Advantage pricing, determine your package size and weight and look it up on their table. Then setup the shipping options based on a fixed price at checkout.

I don't have any actual auctions, they are all buy it now. On a couple parts I have fixed price shipping but on others I don't. The parts I sell some you do a buy it now and send your transmission housing it to be modified. The problem with that is people grab the first box they find to send me their parts. Then I'm stuck using their box to send it back in. The boxes they use a lot of times are huge and the bigger the box. the more the shipping cost.

It is what it is, I make a few bucks on them. Gives this old man a reason to b*tch about something and gives me something to do and allows me to buy big boy toys now and then. I count myself lucky in that my hobby more than supports itself.

 

[extropic]

No not possible for 3 day shipping. Here is the listing, and it gave me a shipping cost to myself. Curious what others see as their shipping cost.

T5 S10 Mechanical Cable drive Speedometer Conversions For Your Housing | eBay

On the VSS style main shaft you slide the new drive gear in place of the rotor and use the spring clip to hold it in place. All housings are bead blasted unless otherwise requested. We also do T56 cable conversions.

www.ebay.com

$28.46 to Los Angeles.

 

[Ischgl99]

I wouldn't want to give up that history either! It might be prudent to go through all of your listings and see what they charge for shipping in case others have the same glitch.

 

[alloy]

I wouldn't want to give up that history either! It might be prudent to go through all of your listings and see what they charge for shipping in case others have the same glitch.

After this debacle I'm going to keep a much closer watch on them.