Archive for the ‘Shipping’ Category

Dear eBay Queen:

What is the deal with people these days?  In the last three weeks I have had offers on my items that were simply unnecessary! One of those customers offers a super low offer, and I am like, ok I’ll take that, accept offer.  I send them an invoice, and I get the following message.

I love this item, but your shipping is ridiculously high.  I don’t understand why you can’t throw it in a bag and just send it for a couple of bucks. Why do sellers like you need to make money on the item and the shipping?

Why do buyers thing this way?  What can I do to make this situation better? This is an item with shape that would be ruined if crushed if I sent it this way. I thought maybe I should send them a copy of the USPS shipping rate chart, or maybe I could just cancel the sale.   What do you think I should do?

Yesterday I went to the post office and saw something unusual.  I paid for four First Class Parcels at the post office. I didn’t add Delivery Confirmation to any of them (I know, I should have, but I didn’t have time to make the labels). The system generated a small, bar-code sticker that says “tracking” on it. The clerk didn’t know exactly what these new stickers were for — some sort of “internal tracking system,” he thought. I reached for one of the packages still lying on the counter, saying I would write down the number and see if it was trackable. The clerk — a sweet guy who’s been there for years — actually swept it up out of my reach and said customers were not allowed to do that.  I emailed my customers asking them  to make a note of the numbers and email them to me so I can see if they are trackable in the usual way. Do you know anything about this?

Courtney

Dear Courtney:

I have also fell victim to the buyer that refuses to pay shipping.  One way to get around this is to offer free shipping.  I started doing offering free shipping 3 years ago, and have found buyers complain less about the cost of shipping.  In this particular situation I would email them back, and let them know what exact shipping is on the item.  Let them know you cannot ship this in a bag because you are pretty sure it will arrive broken.  I’m sorry you have to deal with this.

I have never heard of the post office doing that. I will do a little checking, with my post office friends and see if they can shed some light on this issue.

Dear eBay Queen:

I met you a few weeks ago and asked you a bunch of eBay questions. I forgot one.  This one has to do with shipping charges.  So, now that eBay is charging fees for shipping, are the fees based on the shipping stated in listing or the actually amount the buyer pays? I ask this because I just sent a combine shipping invoice to a buyer and I would like to know if I’m being charged for the shipping discount.

I’ve taken your advice and I am going to start listing all my items with free shipping starting August 12^th. I figure after that date I won’t need to worry about combine shipping discounts.

Thanks for looking into this for me, and for chatting with me a few weeks ago.

Ann C.

Dear Ann:

The fee is based on the shipping price you have listed and NOT the actual shipping. One of my GTC listings rolled over after 30 days and now there are two separate charges when the item sells. One line shows the FVF for the price of the item. The next line states shipping for that item and it’s FVF. For me, it’s 11%.

eBay has this really cool thing called a fee calculator.  You can enter all the information in for a sale and it will list the fees out for you.  You can check out the fee calculator here: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/Feecalculator.html   Let me know how your new venture in free shipping goes.

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Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul. Do you have a question for the eBay Queen? Email: questions@asktheebayqueen.com

Dear eBay Queen:

I’m mostly a buyer on eBay, I have never had a single problem with anything I’ve purchased, and I’ve had over 400 transactions, but  I’m a little worried about my current purchase.  I really want a new Wii game console for when my grandchildren move in with me this school year.  I did my research, and found one that I thought would be good and came with a bunch of games.  I bid and won the console and games.  I paid with PayPal yesterday, and now I’m a little worried. I checked out the sellers feedback, I thought that if someone had over 2,000 auctions at 99.4% that it would be okay to win. Well, I should have looked at the feedback before I bid.  They have a lot negatives and some of them state that seller never replied, seller never sent.

When I clicked on the link, for the tracking, it doesn’t give me any information. So now what do I do?  How long do I wait before I can request my money back? I used PayPal.

Thank you,
Sue

Dear Sue:

You can ask for a refund anytime after you’ve “won” an item. I have had a buyer ask me for a refund within an hour of purchasing and paying for an item from my store. They basically wanted to cancel the transaction and get a refund because they either changed their mind or misread the listing, etc.

Why do you want a refund?  If you just paid for the item yesterday, I would at least give the seller a chance to do the right thing with this transaction. I would check the sellers handing time to see when they should send it by.  Watch for the delivery confirmation number to be emailed to you and or posted on the transaction.  I would give them at least 7 days after they ship it.  If you don’t receive the item email the seller and wait at least 24 hours for their response.  If they don’t contact you, then I would file a claim with PayPal.

2000 positive feedback with a 99.4% is still a very good rating. I would give the seller a chance to make good, before asking for a refund.

Dear eBay Queen:

I read your article from a previous week where “Steven” didn’t think he was responsible for his product once it was shipped.  I would like to address this.  While I believe you handled it correctly, I wanted to add to it.

I wonder what would happen if the opposite occurred? What if the buyer says they sent payment but the payment didn’t make it to you?  The buyer blames the carrier transferring the money (post office for a money order, PayPal, banks, etc). Do you accept their word and ship the item anyway, or do you wait until payment arrives (and clears if applicable)? In this same situation you would tell the buyer they need to get the payment to you, because it was their responsibility.  What if they demanded that you send the item because they sent their payment?  After all, it’s not their fault it didn’t arrive, is it?

In the same instance, if you ordered a pizza to have it delivered and the pizza arrived upside down and soaking wet, would you accept the store’s word that “it was in good condition when it left the store” and just eat whatever you got, or would you expect the store to make good on it?

I’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of treatment.  I paid 324.00 + shipping for a set of dishes that my favorite aunt had. When they arrived, they looked like they had been run over by a bulldozer.  The seller refused to refund my money or help me with the insurance process.  I was out the money and the items, and I REALLY wanted those dishes.

I really believe you have to treat people the way you would like to be treated in all aspects of life, not just eBay.  I believe attitudes like “Steven’s” can be changed.  I hope he reads my comments and that they help him realize that the buyer deserves what they pay for.

Lisa; Williamsburg, KS

Dear Lisa:

Thank you for giving your side of the story. I’m sure that this will help others.

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ed Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul. Do you have a question for the eBay Queen? Email: questions@asktheebayqueen.com

Dear eBay Queen:

I just bought an item from a seller that was listed with Free Shipping. When I got the invoice, there was a $.70 charge added at the bottom. I thought that eBay or the seller were trying to charge me tax, so wrote him and asked him what the .70 was for. Here’s the answer he gave me:

“Hello, first of all, congratulations on winning this auction. As to the .70 charge, it is for the delivery confirmation tracking number that we purchase through the post office and that we provide you with to track your package while it is in transit. As sellers, eBay has made it clear in the past that we are NOT to include ANY pricing fees in the description area of the auction. All shipping charges are to be placed in the appropriate area of the auction (under shipping tab) and not in the actual description. To be in compliance with eBay’s policy, we have done just that and try to the best of our ability to give accurate description in all areas of the auction. Thank you for your patience and your understanding. Hope to do business with you again. Please refer us to others. Have a wonderful day.”

What is this guy talking about?  I don’t think this is eBay legal is it? I think charging for delivery confirmation is charging for a fee related to shipping. What do you think?  How should I handle this?

Elaine C.
Dear Elaine:

I did not find anything within the eBay shipping guidelines about charging for delivery confirmations. http://pages.ebay.com/help/pay/shipping-delivery-options.html  It really isn’t “free shipping” if he is charging for part of the shipping, is it?

If this were my transaction, I would pay for the item, and wait to see what kind of label was on the package. If I received a green delivery confirmation label, he really paid .70 for it.  If I received the package with a white and black bar coded label he only paid .19 for it.  Either way, I would contact eBay and let them know what he was doing.  To do this go here: http://contact.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ContactCS

You could refuse to pay until the shipping is really free and possibly get in an email argument with him, but it most likely won’t get him to do the right thing.  In this particular situation following up with eBay is the best solution.

Dear eBay Queen:

An eBayer, with private, feedback won an auction of mine last night.  I don’t understand why anyone would have private feedback and most importantly why would eBay allow them too? The only reason I can think of is to hide the feedback they leave.

It took me quite a bit of time, but I did some back tracking and did a search of the buyer’s winning auctions from June to July.   He won 19 auctions.  Out of those 19 auctions the buyer left 3 positives, 4 neutrals and 3 negatives.

I went to “Buyers Requirements” trying to find a way to block bidders with private feedback, but there was nothing!  UGH! Is there any way to avoid doing business with this buyer? If I can’t get out of this transaction now, what about in the future?

Private Seller
Dear Private Seller:

I’m not sure why anyone would want to make their feedback private.  The only reason I could think of is if you didn’t want people to see what you buy; but anyone with a little bit of eBay knowledge knows that you can see what a person has bought by checking out the advance search.  According to eBay if you make your Feedback profile private, “your Feedback comments will be hidden, but members will still be able to see the number of positive, neutral, and negative Feedback ratings you’ve received and you won’t be able to sell items on eBay.”

I don’t think there is anything you can do right now with this buyer.  Just send the item quickly and safely and hope they like it. Is there something in the feedback they left that makes you think they are not going to be happy with your item?  If so you could address it now.  I wouldn’t say that you looked at their previous feedback when addressing this though.  If for some reason the buyer leaves you an unwarranted negative, I would contact eBay and let them know that this buyer is a serial negative feedback giver.  Hopefully they will review their account and take action.   You can also block the bidder by adding them to your “block buyer list”.  To do this, go here. http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklog .  Let me know how this turns out for you.

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Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul. Do you have a question for the eBay Queen? Email: questions@asktheebayqueen.com