I think eBay in this instance is very much in the wrong, if people keep the reciepts for the postage and send them on to eBay they should be able to be reimbursed for the difference, its a bit disgusting that eBay dont allow you to put the real price of postage and have to lose even more money when all we’re trying to do is make money. I’ll be seeing if i can claim the £15 back from them somehow, but probably to no avail!

Ebay have a massive amount of data to work out the average postage charge in each category, just have that as a max price, it will still be far higher than the real Royal Mail price.

personally I charge the royal mail price and not a penny more, its cheaper than any carrier for under 2kg and the postage label shows the buyer you have been transparent with the postage costs. I know I am far cheaper on postage than my competitors so any limit is no threat to me.

The royal mail is very limited in its weights and most regular sellers can already obtain rates from other nationals that are much lower than RM’s like for like.
I would love to just use RM’s rates to my customers but if I said it was delivery £9.00 / 4kg they just woudn’t pay it and would probably complain to ebay!

the Royal Mails are already in place and available

Consequently ebay has a vested interest in lowering P&P to get more revenue from sellers. Why not admit this is the reason for trying to lower P&P?

Most buyers factor P&P into any purchasing decision and look at overall cost. It is patently obvious ebay factor in their own interest when it comes to deciding what puts buyers off returning to the site and on this occasion it is said to be P&P charges.

What next?

So result is collect 17.5% for the tax man and nothing to recoup because you didn’t pay any VAT on the service in the first place to offset on your VAT return.

Im a bit rusty on the current VAT rules, but surely Royal Mail services are Zero rated, and thus, should be charged at that throughout there life. ie; #92 should be charging Zero rated VAT on the postal cost part of his P&P.

Having said this, I saw a well known online stationary retailer selling books of stamps & they appear to charge VAT as usual.
BUT if I go to a local shop (non PO) & buy stamps, they only charge the face value of the stamps, even though they are VAT registered.

This all appears quiet confusing??

I have to accept your experiences & see further down other ebay sellers appear to support what you say.
I have not had to claim for over a year now, so maybe it has change since then?.

I have just looked at the P58 claim form & it does now have an ebay tick box, somthing I do not recall previously. However it still refers to what is required to claim for an ebay item ( at the foot of the 2nd page) it says what you have to submit with the claim. These are the same items I produced &they paid what the listing said.

PO form P58;

ftp://ftp.royalmail.com/Downloads/public/ctf/rm/Inland_(2006current_version).pdf

It also says 2006 current version!!!.

#94 Jimbo.

I only read this forum posted by Chris Dawson today 5th August 2008, see it here;

http://www.tamebay.com/2008/08/how-royal-mail-changes-benefit-ebay-sellers.html

# 95 Josordoni

Bit confuse with what you say. Auctioneers comission?, are you referring to FVF or is that a seperate non ebay auction. Usually when you buy at an ‘ordinary’ auction you receive a bill for the lot #, commision & VAT. So the item cost you what it says at the bottom of the bill. In this case royal mail might argue that that price is not the value, but the price you paid for bid for the item is what it is worth.

I suppose what is the diffrence between ebay, amazon, ebid or any other mail order Co (distant seller organisation). Will the post office amend the claim form to state these other selling venues. I suppose currently if you sell on ebid/amazon, then NO special restictions apply if an item is lost or damaged by the PO.

Of course I’m joking but that solution is as good eBay’s.

Buyers think P&P is high, but are they willing to give up their great eBay deals for lower P&P? Not likely.

If your VAT registered, you have to charge VAT on uk posting.

Won’t affect many of you I guess, but I HAVE to charge 17.5% on first class postage rates. If I’m competing with someone who is not VAT registered, they can charge the exact post office price whilst my price has to include VAT and hence be slightly uncompetitive…

Hope ebay remember this one when drawing comparisons between postage rates

I read this as ebay want a % of postage. I charge everyone postage 100% of the time on my websites. None of the big players in any mail order industry (as far as I know) offer free postage, its nonsense and hoop jumping again. Its ebay wanting to reposition itself as amazonbay.

Ps. two dolphins currently dead, warning issued on third. One of the two dead dolphins is lined up to receive a good seller discount according to the dashboard for being a power seller and meeting all 4 DSRs. The insanity of ebays system galls me. Ebays “cut and paste” customer services are a total waste of time with the situation, we get nowhere with them, despite splashing over £10k of fees a month. They won’t even call us back!

The management are also nuts, they had a site full of golden geese, that laid lots of lovely golden eggs, and they’re feeding them differently, changing the temperature, prodding them, poking them, constantly moving them around, and kicking hundreds out. Not the best way to maximise golden egg production.

Tip:-
LOOK AFTER THE GEESE.

As said we have received the items ‘value’ and that’s what the PO claim (P58) says.

But, usually we don’t bother for items of a £ or so, far to much time needed to fill in forms etc & as said above, Just deliver on the promise, put it in the box & forget it.

It is about time they started saying to the buyer, don’t forget that the postage label on the envelope will always be less than the amount you’ve paid for for shipping as we’ve (paypal) already taken an average of 3% out of it.

And as pointed out already, the reason buyers were leaving was for retaliatory negs but now it suits ebay to claim it is high postage.

I’ve never found buyers claim this is a big issue, even with ebay/paypal banging on about it all the time. The only person that has a real issue with it is ebay.

Excellent word I thought

No wonder they lost.