has anyone else noticed ebay is currently insisting Spectrum items are to be listed with free p&p? what do they expect, sale items sent without the envelope? :roll:
Yeah, I had that. Listed a whole load of games and I got a message saying, 'You are not allowed to add P&P to this item.' It was 30+ games! Silly buggers.
Isn't this just part of an initative to stop people having really low bids but with ridiculously high postage charges? So that if people want to charge a minimum amount they have to do so legitimately rather than underhanded manipulation of postage costs.
nah, I'd rather boycott ebay. the postage is where I get half my income!!! (more than that if Spanish folk buy off me!)
So you overcharge on postage, add a tax for being foreign and then wonder why Ebay clamps down. Sounds like you are the cause of your own problem and have made it harder for honest vendors as a consequence.
most of my tapes sell for 99p...I used to charge ?1.25 for post & packing. what's the problem?
Are you asking me, or just WoSsers in general?
Seeing as I stupidly enough decided to point out what appears to be obvious in your statement above(earlier), I think the question floating in the air still remains :
"What do you mean when you say that you make your profit off of post and packing? Does the post office ask you for less than 1.25GBP?"
Sorry for me being a tw*t ... I just noticed the train of thought appearing above.
If I only get one bid per tape, and I sell 8 tapes to 8 buyers, I'll get more money for charging postage than I will for the auction itself...you see?
don't worry about not following the train of thought...it's a common problem :) :-o
But if you then spend that money on doing the posting, it's not 'profit' is it? You said it was 'profit', suggesting you're pocketing a cut from what you charge for postage, so it's quite understandable that no-one follows your meaning.
I think the change has badly promoted for sellers - much like the inability to leave negative feedback on sales was - but is in the interest of the purchaser as long as they understand that a ?2.99 start price is the same as the old 99p bargain with ?2.00 post on top, and are not put off by the seemingly higher price.
There were a shocking amount of people who must have been making a killing through excess p&p charges - you'd see CD's with a ?4 charge within the UK on them, when you can get them to Australia airmail for ?2.40 and UK second class is under ?1 in many cases - and whilst I chose simply not to buy from these people I guess newbies to eBay must get caught out (although 'caveat emptor' or whatever the phrase!) so to try to stop that problem is not a bad idea.
Trouble is it will probably just mean a continuation to the current state that eBay is driving away the casual / small sellers who will be put off by this apparently illogical change to free postage (and let's be honest, the small sellers made eBay what it is and often have the more interesting things for sale) and will leave just the mass-market companies and sellers that all have the same crap for high prices.
I shall start using Discogs and Gemm for CD sales at this rate, I think....particularly with eBay's other random factor: the removal of random CDs in the black metal genre for allegedly inciting hate crimes, & other such nonsense!
huh? It costs four euros to send a tape to Spain. how is that an unreasonable charge?
The confusion started with your use of 'income', normally a reference to earnings/profits. I now think what you meant to say was that the actual postal costs are higher than the value of the actual item sold. That is a restraint of trade, making your sales to Spain virtually impossible, and of course I'd be sympathetic with you in that situation.
1) free p&p needs only to be offered on domestic sales, you can still add p&p to overseas.
2) If you selling big & heavy lots you can use the frieght option and mention the price in the auction listing rather than the p&p section.
its not just sinclair stuff is it i think its everything in the video games category,but yeah dosent make sense to me,except it will be more money in ebays pocket because youll have to increase the price you sell at and ebay get a percentage cut of that where as they cant touch p+p.
I think the wording of it is problematic too, if it were stated as 'domestic P&P included in auction price' rather than 'free shipping' then I can see that being easier to understand by both seller & buyer, although having reread that, I guess the way it's worded may count as a legal distinction, in essence it's not postage included (which eBay do not get a cut of), but free shipping means that the total an item gets in an auction is a purchase price of the item and technically the buyer is not paying anything toward the item's shipping, even though of course the reality is that the P&P price will be a percentage of the final total of an item.
I still think that it is a bit of a cynical ploy by eBay to cream more off the top of sellers though, when all is said and done. I can't see eBay going broke with the situation what it was before and I think it could backfire on them, however, being that eBay is virtually monopolising the online auction space this may not be a problem for them as sellers know which site to go for to get the best potential buying audience..
Comments
So you overcharge on postage, add a tax for being foreign and then wonder why Ebay clamps down. Sounds like you are the cause of your own problem and have made it harder for honest vendors as a consequence.
I think that you are being question on this statement which leads one to believe that you UP your P/H charges to make a bit of extra moolah:
edit: ok so I sell rarities too, and I often get good bidding going on them, but usually this isn't the case, so my statement is accurate for those.
Are you asking me, or just WoSsers in general?
Seeing as I stupidly enough decided to point out what appears to be obvious in your statement above(earlier), I think the question floating in the air still remains :
"What do you mean when you say that you make your profit off of post and packing? Does the post office ask you for less than 1.25GBP?"
Sorry for me being a tw*t ... I just noticed the train of thought appearing above.
don't worry about not following the train of thought...it's a common problem :) :-o
I know ... it's a very common issue on my end :grin:
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
They said that ?4.00 was too much. List this, 'postage free.'
No Bloomin' way, ebay weirdos!
There were a shocking amount of people who must have been making a killing through excess p&p charges - you'd see CD's with a ?4 charge within the UK on them, when you can get them to Australia airmail for ?2.40 and UK second class is under ?1 in many cases - and whilst I chose simply not to buy from these people I guess newbies to eBay must get caught out (although 'caveat emptor' or whatever the phrase!) so to try to stop that problem is not a bad idea.
Trouble is it will probably just mean a continuation to the current state that eBay is driving away the casual / small sellers who will be put off by this apparently illogical change to free postage (and let's be honest, the small sellers made eBay what it is and often have the more interesting things for sale) and will leave just the mass-market companies and sellers that all have the same crap for high prices.
I shall start using Discogs and Gemm for CD sales at this rate, I think....particularly with eBay's other random factor: the removal of random CDs in the black metal genre for allegedly inciting hate crimes, & other such nonsense!
The confusion started with your use of 'income', normally a reference to earnings/profits. I now think what you meant to say was that the actual postal costs are higher than the value of the actual item sold. That is a restraint of trade, making your sales to Spain virtually impossible, and of course I'd be sympathetic with you in that situation.
2) If you selling big & heavy lots you can use the frieght option and mention the price in the auction listing rather than the p&p section.
I still think that it is a bit of a cynical ploy by eBay to cream more off the top of sellers though, when all is said and done. I can't see eBay going broke with the situation what it was before and I think it could backfire on them, however, being that eBay is virtually monopolising the online auction space this may not be a problem for them as sellers know which site to go for to get the best potential buying audience..
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/sell/basics/pandp.html
It seems a bit off to then force sellers to offer free P&P.