I had seen this several years back, but thought eBay had put a stop to it. I recently saw it again, so wanted to make sure y'all were aware. There are some sellers who will list their items very cheaply, but with high shipping, so they can make money on the shipping, I guess thinking that they can get out of paying the eBay fees on that extra money earned. Apparently they aren't aware that eBay now charges a final value fee not only on the item price, but also on shipping costs. I thought the issue had been resolved, so when I was looking at something recently, and didn't pay much attention to the shipping costs, since it was a very small item. When I glanced at the total in my shopping cart, I got a surprise, since the shipping cost was exorbitant. Of course, I quickly removed the item and blocked that seller, so I don't make that mistake again, but I know some may not pay as much attention to those things before clicking to go through with the purchase.
I've seen this happen before, and more surprisingly it was for the new released home consoles PS4 and Xbox one when they first came out. I was confused and thought that the sellers might have made a mistake so I quickly trid to get the opinion of my friends who were thankfully quick to point out that the seller was using this tactic. I suppose the biggest red flag was that the ad was still up and no one had purchased the item despite it being ten times lower than the original retail price despite it being newly released.
I am very aware of shipping prices when I order an item, if the shipping is too high I will not complete the purchase, in fact I try not to pay for shipping when I purchase something online. It often seems to me to not be worth it if I can get the item locally and not have the additional charge of shipping.
I always do the automatic shipping calculation when I sell an item on eBay so that I know that I am charging the buyer the right amount for shipping. I do not do a lot of shipping and so it can be very hard to determine what to charge people. Some eBay sellers do charge a ton of money for shipping, and I just won't buy the item if the shipping price is too high. I have purhcased enough items before to know ball park what my shipping charge should be. It is really annoying when people try to work the system like that.
I think this is probably why eBay now charges a final value fee on shipping, as well as the item price. As far as I know, they didn't do that before. If they did, it wasn't very transparent, or I'm sure I would have noticed. Back when I had my shop on there, I asked a fellow seller about using this tactic, and he was thrilled to talk about it, as if he had invented a cure for cancer. He said it pulled in a lot of viewers and also buyers, but I'm willing to bet that his feedback went into the toilet. I don't like deceptive tactics. If you're selling something worthwhile, you shouldn't need to resort to cheap tricks. I'd rather eBay take care of the people doing this, rather than imposing final value fees on shipping, which isn't fair to sellers.
I thought it had been 'banned' as in you can report someone that charges excessive shipping fees. Basically if it is a heavy item it will cost more and a listing should state how much it weighs so people can judge whether or not it is worth paying for shipping. Those who do charge too much will get caught out, but the price of a padded envelope is cheap these days ( in the dollar store) but postage costs are rising and if they want signed for services, then it costs.
I have noticed many ebay sellers charger high shipping fees and I always wondered about that. I figured that they wanted to make a little extra on the shipping, since they have to put in the effort to package and ship the product. However, I had no idea that they were trying to save on ebay fees that were possibly not applied to the shipping. If ebay now applies fees to the overall sale, then these people probably need to be reeducated on their accounts.
Any buyer on eBay that doesn't notice the full value of what they're paying for, item cost and shipping costs included, deserves to get screwed over with such purchases. It makes no sense, as a consumer, to buy something and not know exactly what you're paying for and exactly what you're actually buying. This practice doesn't help sellers earn more money like it used to, but it does help them get one over on inattentive buyers, but it's something that no buyer should fall for.
I've seen that too. I don't know if they have a policy against it, but I waists search for items based on price plus shipping. I think it is very poor business to overcharge shipping. You will very easily get a lot of unhappy customers and probably lose business very quickly.
As a consumer, you can adjust the search filters to sort by price plus shipping. That way you aren't getting misled by a seemingly low price only to discover the shipping is jacked up to compensate for it. I almost always filter by price plus shipping whenever I am shopping on there. To be honest, I am still not entirely sure how sellers account for shipping costs on there. When I sold some items on there a few months ago, eBay automatically calculated the estimated shipping costs for me via USPS. But I couldn't figure out how to get the USPS shipping option off of my listing in case perhaps I wanted to use FedEx instead. The USPS amount they were suggesting was not enough at all, and I had to purchase even more postage at the post office and eat the costs.
There's always someone trying to make fast cash off anyone they can not just on Ebay. There are some people who when shopping online take a look at the price of an item, think they are getting a good deal and don't bother pay attention to anything else. Some domain registrars [don't hesitate to] rip off such people. Whilst paying for a $10 for domain registration you could find out later that you'd paid $60 for a "few extras" you don't really need. Be more cautious . . .
@ohiotom76 I know what you mean, because I struggled with that myself when I was listing a few items recently. Their shipping calculator directly on the listing is a newish feature, and I don't care for it. There is a way to get around it, because somehow I did it. I think I selected flat rate shipping and something like 'standard delivery', and then what I usually do is put the item in the shipping container and weigh it, adding a little extra, because it always costs more once I've packaged it up and sealed it. I've yet to overcharge for shipping. I don't keep flat rate boxes on hand, because most of what I sell is small and fairly lightweight, but I did order some free flat rate envelopes that the USPS dropped off for me. If you're planning to sell larger or heavier items, it might be worth it to explore the sizes and costs of flat rate shipping boxes and have some delivered to you.
This used to happen a lot before. I was almost caught out once by it. A game for 10 euro, but shipping came to 30. It was crazy. I'm glad to hear that something is being done about it though.
Thanks for the heads up, DianeLane! eBay has become something else! I have also heard of this happening, and if I were you, i would've done exactly what you did! They think they're so clever, but trip themselves up so easily. I'm finding eBay less and less appealing by the day. It just seems like the scammer can get away with so much these days. I very rarely go on there now.
I've seen this before on eBay. I really watch the shipping prices closely to make sure this doesn't happen when I'm buying things on eBay. It's a real rip off when you look at the crazy shipping prices some people are offering. The more people that are aware of this the better. Maybe if people don't buy these seller's items they will realize they scam people with exorbitant shipping costs.
I had that happen to me once! I bought some computer parts from this guy and he's really nice and the prices are insanely cheap so I bought from him thinking that I'm getting a steal for this particular item. As I was paying I noticed the ridiculous shipping cost and at first I thought it was just normal because the item is coming from overseas, later I realized I paid three times the amount of shipping.
