A moment to rant on Ebay sellers and their rediculous shipping amounts....

D

darin

CAG Veteran
Hi all is it just me or does it seem that the only good deals on ebay for video games is for the person selling them. Here is an example I wanted to buy Armed and Dangerous for the Xbox and they are selling for various prices but the low ones piqued my interest. Up until the money for shipping came up and bit me on the ass like a pit bull. They wanted 8 bucks to ship this teeny tiny little package and then they have the gall to say they wont combine shipping on other products you but meaning you get to pay another beefy chunk for each additional thing.

This is by no means the worse, which would be 12 bucks for shipping I saw one time.

I've sold on ebay and only charged the shipping. How in the hell can these people charge this much. Apparently they think that everyone who buys from them is a mental pygmy. I know what they are doing is compensating for fees and so forth which is illegal on ebay. When is ebay going to get off their corporate butts and do something about this. I get better bargains in the long run from stores like GS, EB etc.

Anyway feel free to post your rants about this giant steaming pile of selling practice.

By the way anyone know where I can get that game for a cheap price and not feel like I got a colonoscopy done with a garden hose.
 
it pisses me off too, as well as everybody else in the world....but what can you do? the only thing that i wish you could do is maybe sort by shipping price or display the shipping price on the results page....
 
[quote name='darin']Hi all is it just me or does it seem that the only good deals on ebay for video games is for the person selling them. Here is an example I wanted to buy Armed and Dangerous for the Xbox and they are selling for various prices but the low ones piqued my interest. Up until the money for shipping came up and bit me on the ass like a pit bull. They wanted 8 bucks to ship this teeny tiny little package and then they have the gall to say they wont combine shipping on other products you but meaning you get to pay another beefy chunk for each additional thing.

This is by no means the worse, which would be 12 bucks for shipping I saw one time.

I've sold on ebay and only charged the shipping. How in the hell can these people charge this much. Apparently they think that everyone who buys from them is a mental pygmy. I know what they are doing is compensating for fees and so forth which is illegal on ebay. When is ebay going to get off their corporate butts and do something about this. I get better bargains in the long run from stores like GS, EB etc.

Anyway feel free to post your rants about this giant steaming pile of selling practice.

By the way anyone know where I can get that game for a cheap price and not feel like I got a colonoscopy done with a garden hose.[/quote]

Yeah - it's deceptive advertising. The problem is, which state is going to go after Ebay, since Ebay lives in the virtual world.

It's reasons like this that I shop at www.half.com

Ebay wanted to get rid of their half.com site but ppl made sure they knew there would be a mass exodus if this happened. I believe it's because of reasons like the one you mention above.
 
[quote name='The Successful Dropout'] the only thing that i wish you could do is maybe sort by shipping price or display the shipping price on the results page....[/quote]

you can most definately do that, lol I've been using it for the damned ebay treasure hunt. If you can't figure out how to do let me know and I'll look and tell you how to do it


EDIT: Since every fucking clue is solved at the moment, here's how to do it:

1. go to advanced search

2. click on customize search options

3. click on customize display

4. add shipping cost to the right hand side labled, Columns to Display

5. now you can see shipping costs in the results for searches you run
 
I had heard of it but never checked it out I already found some good prices that are great.

One thing I would recommend though is for everyone who reads this email ebay and let them know you disgust it might not mean anything but who knows if CAG's all over do this maybe something will come out of it.
 
[quote name='darin']I had heard of it but never checked it out I already found some good prices that are great.

One thing I would recommend though is for everyone who reads this email ebay and let them know you disgust it might not mean anything but who knows if CAG's all over do this maybe something will come out of it.[/quote]

you can also report sellers for violating ebays excessive shipping and handling policy. I hate to be a tattle, but goddamn it high shipping on ebay is one of my big pet peeves so I report any really bad ones I see.

here is the link to that: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-shipping.html
 
Reporting high shipping charges does little good if they can explain it to Ebay as shipping and "handling" charges and if it is clearly listed in their auctions.

I had a guy try to charge me $50 to ship ten 50 cent comic books I won from in seperate auctions. He was about a 3 hour drive from my house, so I asked if he was planning to hand deliver them. He replied that he listed them to make money and not lose it so he was trying to recoup it on the backside through shipping and handling. No where did he state whether he combined shipping or not so Ebay sided with him and I took the non-paying bidder mark. I sent Ebay the emails he sent me saying shipping would only cost him $5 but they were too much of a pain to deal with. Everytime I would send them info, they would start my case again with a new person so it never got resolved. So just a word of warning, always ask for exact shipping and handling costs if not listed or if you plan to buy multiple items from a seller. Ebay has far to many people scamming extra cash wherever they can, and the high Paypal and Ebay fees probably have something to do with it.
 
Its not just shipping, its shipping and handling. Not only do they charge the price of physically moving the item through a courrier, but they also charge for things like the boxes and packaging materials and driving time. Sometimes it takes up to an hour or better to mail something from the post office. I think its pretty fair if they add 3-4 dollars for all thier effort. Also, you have to consider that with all the fees associated with ebay and pay pal, they don't make much per sale.

Its a pretty dumb way to do business, but what ever.

(No, I'm not an ebay seller)
 
jimbo beat me to it. Adding the S+H cost to your search results is a HUGE time saver. I generally don't bother clicking on a listing that doesn't have a flat S+H entered or a link for the calculator.

That would mean they either buried the S+H charge in their listing or don't mention what S+H would be. I don't have time for either of those games.

Personally I just add the cost of S+H to the bid and deal with it. Although I did get a bit annoyed at a seller charging $8 for 'standard delivery service' or you could add $3 for faster delivery. I asked him if it would ship first class mail or better (i.e. no media mail) and he replied it would be shipping media mail, but for an extra $3 he'd send it 1st class. Sheesh! First class mail for a single game is sometimes less than media mail.
 
Where insurance is perhaps the biggest scam in the real world, shipping/handling is probably the biggest scam in the world of virtual shopping. The seller can always rape you on s/h regardless of what kind of deal you got on the actual item purchased. :(
 
[quote name='Kayden']Its not just shipping, its shipping and handling. Not only do they charge the price of physically moving the item through a courrier, but they also charge for things like the boxes and packaging materials and driving time. Sometimes it takes up to an hour or better to mail something from the post office. I think its pretty fair if they add 3-4 dollars for all thier effort. Also, you have to consider that with all the fees associated with ebay and pay pal, they don't make much per sale.

Its a pretty dumb way to do business, but what ever.

(No, I'm not an ebay seller)[/quote]

I'll have to agree with this. I don't mind paying for reasonable shipping which is what I'd call actual post office cost + packaging + time. When I'm selling something I always put the shipping price out in the open where everyone can see it and if you don't like it don't bid.
 
i charge around 6 bucks for shipping unless they want to go cheaper

6 bucks includes my time, my gas, First class shipping with Sig delivery and insurance. usually i dont make a penny off it (sometimes might make up to a buck but usually i break even)

now i go less if they dont want sig delivery but i refuse to ship a package without insurance cause i dont want some 13 kid trying to return me his broken PS2 from the working ps2 i sold them
 
You know it really doesn't bother me, the second I see over 4 dollars to ship one game/dvd I simply click back on my browser. People can overcharge on shipping all they want, doesn't mean i'm going to buy a thing from them.
 
I've found I can make a lot more by only charging $3 for shipping.

I can ship most anywhere with media mail and dc for that $3.

The auctions with high shipping costs just don't get very high.

If it's anything but a game, I'll use the calculator with a $2 handling fee to cover my materials and time etc.
 
six or one half a dozen...

it's all the same. most intelligent bidders will factor shipping into their bidding. therefore if you see doom 3 for xbox going for $2 and shipping is $50 don't bid unless you are willing and able to pay the $52.

sellers like running their auctions different ways. i usually offer free shipping because i've found out on most items the total comes out the same...sometime the free shipping gets the higher bid because the ebayers are like, "ooh free shipping bid now."
 
I wish that Ebay would go after some of the people who try to rip people off with shipping, but I don't know if they can do that.
 
[quote name='Kaijufan']I wish that Ebay would go after some of the people who try to rip people off with shipping, but I don't know if they can do that.[/quote]

They can but it's got ot be really outragious. To keep the small buisnesses happy ebay allows shipping fees to include time spent. It ticks me off a bit but I've noticed that the worse the shipping is the less people bid so I think the worst fo the sellers don't sell as much because of it.
 
It is poor when someone has to make all their money on shipping/handeling...I sell scrimshaw zippo's on ebay, I ship via priority mail with delivery confirmation...I charge $4.85 for the first lighter and $1 for each additional lighter...It costs me $3.85, so I am making a dollar per shipping. I get my paper from my office for free...and the shipping labels I print with come from ups for free...the only thing I pay for is bubble rap and my time
 
High shipping charge often means the actual amount of the auction could end lower, to offset the cost. So if a game listed requires $10 for shipping, and the auction ends at $5, then you are getting the game for $15. Or if the shipping is $3, and the auction ends at $12, you'll still pay $15. You can see that a lot of ppl bid lower on auctions with higher shipping cost than auctions with regular shipping cost. But for those Buy It Now auctions, nothing you can do but to report, although that probably wont do you or the ebay community much good.
 
[quote name='jimbodan'][quote name='darin']I had heard of it but never checked it out I already found some good prices that are great.

One thing I would recommend though is for everyone who reads this email ebay and let them know you disgust it might not mean anything but who knows if CAG's all over do this maybe something will come out of it.[/quote]

you can also report sellers for violating ebays excessive shipping and handling policy. I hate to be a tattle, but goddamn it high shipping on ebay is one of my big pet peeves so I report any really bad ones I see.

here is the link to that: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-shipping.html[/quote]

I've used it before but eBay does not do anything. Their canned reply basically tells you "we can't verify/prove the actual cost of S/H so we are not going to do anything about it."
 
I didn't know that there was that much hatred out there for high shipping charges. I mean it is an auction, so you have the choice of whether to bid or not. You also have the option of controlling you total purchase price based on the shipping charge. Most are right Ebay isn't going to do sheeite. What you should do as a bidder is move on to the next item once the total (price + shipping) goes beyond what you are willing to pay. Personally I don't mind paying high shipping as long as the price is low just like I don't mind paying a high price when the shipping is low. In the end, your total out of pocket should be what matters.

What is the big deal with sellers that choose to offset their costs through high shipping costs anyways? There is plenty of competition out there just go buy from someone else.
 
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