eBay

procms · ‎01-29-2014

Recently I have had several American buyers contact me in regards to an item that I have for sale and their problem is either they cannot buy it or they are unable to get a quote on shipping meaning that I am losing potential sales. I contacted eBay twice about this concern and on both occasions I was told to take the items in question to the post office and get a price on shipping. If this is how eBay wants members who want to sell outside their home area then why offer a shipping calculator when it is of absolutely no use.

Anonymous · ‎01-30-2014

I don't use the shipping calculator as I don't trust it. You need do your homework, weight, dimension, etc., and have good qualtiy postal scale (if you have lots to sell), worth investments, check PayPal Shipping for postage information and then use those information on your listings.

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-30-2014

I checked a few of your listings and as you said, they don't show a shipping cost for the U.S. It is usually fairly easy to fix that. If you are using calculated shipping could you give one example of the weight,measurements and shipping service that you have stated you are using in the shipping calculator?

pjcdn2005 · ‎01-30-2014

I don't use the shipping calculator as I don't trust it.

Really? It has always worked fine for me. The only problem I've ever noticed is if the measurements don't match that particular shipping service as the calculator doesn't tell you that there is a problem.

twicereadbooks · ‎02-01-2014

I also have not had a problem with calculated shipping. I package, weigh and measure the item, and enter those values on the listing form. eBay now calculates the discounts for expedited and tracked package, which they did not do previously. I run regular checks on the Canada Post site, and eBay is accurate the vast majority of the time. If there is any difference it is very small, and usually associated with the CP fuel surcharge, which changes all the time.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-01-2014

@canadareads wrote:
I also have not had a problem with calculated shipping. I package, weigh and measure the item, and enter those values on the listing form. eBay now calculates the discounts for expedited and tracked package, which they did not do previously. I run regular checks on the Canada Post site, and eBay is accurate the vast majority of the time. If there is any difference it is very small, and usually associated with the CP fuel surcharge, which changes all the time.

Perhaps I am misunderstand you but are you saying that the ebay shipping calculator figures out the rate that we get when using Paypal shipping? If so, do you have an example? I don't believe that it does that and it shouldn't as not everyone uses Paypal shipping. You can enter your own discount under shipping preferences but if you do not enter a percentage than there is no discount. I'm curious as I don't see it doing that but if it does..it's important that people know that.

twicereadbooks · ‎02-02-2014

Hi pj - I must have had a "senior moment". I realized after I posted, and tried to edit, but couldn't figure out how. Thanks for catching it, and please omit the third sentence from my previous post.

One thing that is a problem with certain types of calculated shipping is that PayPal now shows the (discounted) price paid in Cdn$ on some labels. This can lead to dissatisfaction and low DSRs from certain customers who feel they were overcharged.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-02-2014

I wish that we had the option of showing or not showing the postage cost. I do have a small discount set up for calculated Canadian shipping so they end up paying about the same amount as what the label says. I don't use calculated shipping for international and often charge less than actual shipping so it isn't a problem for me right now, but I do think that we should have the option.

twicereadbooks · ‎02-02-2014

I had a look at your listing. It appears you do not have your shipping options set up correctly. You state you ship to 4 countries, but only 3 show in the drop-down menu. USA and Australia say you have not specified shipping options. Check to see if the size of box fits the standards for the other countries. Check your listing tool to make sure you have filled out and checked off all the required areas. You don't appear to have set up calculated shipping for anywhere but Canada.