shipping charges per item?

[mel2djl2]

Well it is finally here, gone are the days when it use to be free shipping on items. I do small repairs at home for my electronic friends, when i needed small amounts of electronic components they would be sent to me in small mailers. Not any more those items that were less than 5 bucks are costing another 5 bucks per item to be shipped. Although i had a personal agreement from the supplier to consolidate my order of 25 small 3$ to 5$ items. the order came back as 100 dollars for shipping costs and 120 dollars for the items.  Be aware before you hit the payment button.

[femmefan1946]

There is no such thing as Free Shipping.

It just means that the seller has included his costs for shipping (postage, taxes, packaging) in his asking price for the item.

It may be useful to play with these websites:

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

https://postcalc.usps.com/?country=10440

to see how much of your purchase price was that 'free' shipping.

BTW, thanks to the work of the Universal Postal Union, China Post has finally agreed that they are no longer a developing nation and, since 2016 , have been slowly increasing the cost of international shipping from sellers there. While shipping from China will still be cheaper than from the USA or Germany (eg), we are already seeing Chinese sellers moving to more expensive but tracked e-packet services.

agreement from the supplier to consolidate my order .... 100 dollars for shipping costs and 120 dollars for the items. 

Personally, I would contact the seller noting that I was  a longtime buyer and asking if a rebate on shipping would be possible.

With 'free' shipping, multiple orders cannot easily be discounted for combined shipping.

The seller can however use Paypal's Send Money service to give an unhappy customer a refund of a postage overpayment.

One advantage of postage calculated separately is that it can fairly easily be discounted to adjust to the real costs (which are still higher than the actual postage, of course).

Be aware before you hit the payment button.

Absolutely.

[sabinahorton]

I would think you can probably get your discounted shipping price just by contacting the seller. They probably sent you the 100$ shipping amount automatically or accidentally. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

This is very true about watching before you either hit the pay button or considering bidding. Was dealing with a local seller buying several items at a time at reasonable prices. Because they were local, I was able to pick up when I was done bidding with no additional fee other than GST(1 Payment). Suddenly, without warning, they added a $5.00 per item pick up fee that was NOT on the main page of the listing. It just stated pickup is available. I really had no reason to check this, because it was not like that for my 4 previous pickups. NOW when you click on shipping charges(Default is the shipping rate) PU is noted with the 5.00 charge. You would also see when you were ready to pay. So 5 items won....$25.00 for me to drive across town and pick up(Value of items purchased 19.00). After follow-up, this new charge is still not visible on the main item page. How about a flat fee per pickup. I could deal with that. So have filed this piece of information away for future reference and now am no longer purchasing from this seller or sellers with similar pickup policies.

Caveat Emptor 'Let the buyer beware!

-CM

[femmefan1946]

I'm a little surprised at that charge.
I can understand it, I think pickups are a pain, but surely it should be shown on the Shipping Page?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

I was very surprised and they agreed that it should show on the front page but no sign of that update in sight. They called it a storage fee. More like a very excessing hidden charge for the paperwork attached to a transaction or a way to make up any losses when an item sells less than they anticipate. Last time I checked it was being applied to BIN items.

-CM

[femmefan1946]

@happy_pigeon

Could you weigh in on this?

If the $5 mentioned is a handling fees (which is usually folded into shipping charges-- but which is 'eBay legal') shouldn't it show as a shipping charge even on Pickup ?

I realize that calling it a shipping charge in a Pickup would confuse some people.

[happy_pigeon]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

@happy_pigeon

Could you weigh in on this?

If the $5 mentioned is a handling fees (which is usually folded into shipping charges-- but which is 'eBay legal') shouldn't it show as a shipping charge even on Pickup ?

I realize that calling it a shipping charge in a Pickup would confuse some people.

---

I'm a little confused. OP, did you try asking for a combined invoice prior to making the purchase? If the seller doesn't have automatic combined shipping rules set, you may need to do this so that shipping charges are not added one on top of the other.

[momcqueen]

No no, when a seller specifies they will accept Local Pickup for their items, there is a section on the listing form somewhere that says you can change a [  ] fee per item for pickup. That's not to say the seller in question was honest about this, they might have just tacked it on to their Combined Invoice to be a jerk. I offer Local Pickup but I've never charged it. However, when I've seen it done by other sellers, there is always mention in the Item Description somewhere that this is their practise. Having not ever offered the fee for pickup myself, I cannot tell you whether it appears on the page where you view the item and/or shipping costs. I assume it does because it should.

[momcqueen]

I had to do some searching to find it. The option to do this is only apparent as part of a Bulk Edit and it's not under Payments but Shipping. 

I suspect the seller in question was being sneaky because I saw cost for pickup in my preview, however, the preview is our old page view so maybe it didn't carry over to the new page layouts. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

It appeared as a surprise when I went to pay for 5 items. Was never there in the past, so had no reason to look for it. When I tried to message the seller, was advised that they do not combine on "shipping" and that there was no way to message the seller for that topic. If it was on the front page of the listing....Yes, we do allow pickups, and there was a 5.00 per item charge I would most definitely reconsidered bidding.

-Lotz

Past purchases from this seller were all done by pick up with no additional fee other than taxes.