Re: eBay Seller shipping policies

On Dec 22, 8:48 am, Mr. Mike <m...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 01:11:38 -0500, Steve de Mena

<st...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In October eBay U.S. instituted a policy that CD sellers can charge no
more than $3.00 maximum for shipping, for their lowest cost shipping
option. (They can offer higher options).

I bid on three CDs from a seller in South Korea. I won the auctions,
three CDs at $9.99 each. I went to PayPal and it filled in $9.00 for
shipping and I submitted payment.

You have not specified if this seller is listing his items on the US
Ebay site. I assume this is so?

If you are a "foreign" seller and you list your items on some other
site such as ebay.ca or ebay.co.uk, you do not have to follow this
"maximum postage" rule for the cheapest shipping option (so far).

For example, some Canadian LP record dealer that I know was listing on
ebay.com, and when this new rule came into effect, he switched
everything to ebay.ca (shipping rates for LPs from Canada are VERY
high compared to the States). ebay.ca still appears in searches on
ebay.com, unlike some other "foreign" Ebay sites.

I have exchanged a few emails with the seller who claims not to know
of the policy. I sent him the URL with the policy and said I would not
send more than $3 shipping for each CD.

That is plainly the seller's problem, not yours.

My tendency
now is to submit negative feedback on him and put in a complaint to
eBay (I think this is called a "NPS"...non-performing seller,
something like that).

Am I being too harsh?

Not at all. He has had lots of time to get used to this policy, and I
am surprised that no one else has ever brought it up, assuming he is
an active seller.

The major problem here is -- how badly do you want those CDs?

One related item, if you [pay] by PayPal for an item, you should never
pay for optional "insurance". That is the seller's responsibility.
If the package doesn't arrive, even if by USPS with no tracing, and
the seller can't provide proof of delivery, the seller has to refund
your money.

Is this an Ebay rule? If so, what is the URL to it?

I thought this would fall under the category of "good customer
service," rather than an Ebay rule.

I have sold some CDs on Ebay, as well as bought some. This policy is
completely unreasonable. When I sold CDs to a Korean buyer my cost for
insured shipping from the US was $55. If loaded into the cost of the
item, which Ebay would prefer and apparently Mr deMena would too,
there would be a 15%+ Ebay commission on it, as well as a paypal
commission. As to insurance being required to protect the seller, I
have seen no such notice from paypal, but that would naturally add to
the commissioned 'sale' value. If I loaded the maximium possible
postage cost into the minimum asking price for every item (since you
don't know where the eventual buyer might be) it would generate wholly
undeserved listing fees for Ebay whether it sold or not.
As for good customer service, this might be a consideration if the
seller is a business, but clearly is not is it is an individual
clearing out CDs. Ebay's requirement to use paypal and these other new
policies make it clear that they only want volume sellers for US
domestic sales. As such selling CDs on Amazon makes more sense.
If you want the CDs I'd send the requested postage.
Richard
.

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