Shipping

[sweetkicker1]

Thank you for your help.  I was wondering why sellers charge very little for an expensive item, and then charge astronomical fees for shipping?.  For example I was looking at an ebike today and the price was 29.00  but shipping was 599.00  It wasnt just a matter of putting the price of the item and shipping backwards by mistake as I see this hundreds of times on items.  I presume it might be to cheat Ebay out of their selling fees but was wondering if it is for some other reason?

[reallynicestamps · Accepted solution]

Once upon a time, eBay charged a percentage of selling price as their fee, but did not charge any fee on shipping, which is basically out of the seller's control.

However, some sellers began doing exactly what you have found, cheating the site out of their fees.

So eBay started doing what Amazon does, charging a percentage of both selling and shipping price.

Your seller is either:

• a longtime seller who has not kept up with this change which happened about a decade ago
• an occasional seller who has not kept up with this change which happened about a decade ago
• a new seller who is following the advice of some sketchey YouTube video which has not kept up with this change which happened about a decade ago
• a dumb seller who thinks his customers are dumber than he is (the Dunning-Kruger Effect)

Unless you cannot find anything similar and really need it, it is best to avoid uninformed, sketchey or stupid sellers.  The transaction is not going to go well.

[pjcdn2005]

eBay charges a final value fee on the total sale which includes shipping so charging more for shipping doesn't benefit the seller in that way.  I really have no idea why a seller would set a listing up that way and to be honest, I haven't noticed that happening in the listings that I look at. Perhaps if it is international sellers they simply don't want to sell to Canada and don't bother to block it but just charge an outrageous amount for shipping???

[reallynicestamps]

EBikes are popular in my neighbourhood, and sell for over $3000. So even the total price points to a scam based on price alone.