E-bay Seller asking me to pay extra for signed for shipping

I'm kind of irritated as I bid for and won a rare album on e-bay from an international seller. The original listing had basic shipping as the default. I paid it and now the seller wants me to pay him an extra 5 pounds for signed for shipping. The total including the original basic shipping was about 275 US dollars. At that price, I would think the seller would eat the extra shipping. I know I would. I told him if he was serious to send me an invoice. Should I be annoyed?

 

If it's nowhere in the listing, you should not have to pay that.

 

Sounds like the seller didn't set up the shipping option properly or failed to account for the extra costs. If he intended to charge extra on top of the basic costs he should've mentioned it in the write up.

Some sellers will only use signed for options for higher value items. Maybe that's what he was intending. Either way it should've been mentioned.

Did he mention anything in his request other than you having to pay extra?

I think, technically, in this case you don't have to pay it. If I was the seller I'd chalk it down to a mistake on my end and just eat the cost.

 

As others have noted, you pay what the seller indicated for shipping. And if the item costs $275, even if the seller screwed up on shipping charges in the listing, they can eat it. That's what I would do (and have done). But more importantly, them's the rules.

Oh, and responsibility for the item being delivered, as described, and without damage, is on the shoulders of the seller. If they say something like "if you don't pay the extra fee, then I can't guarantee it will get to you" just ignore it and have them ship. If it doesn't get to you (or it's damaged/lost) you will get your money back through eBay/PayPal 100% of the time.

 

I no longer sell anything via Ebay, but when I would ship out guitars and such, I always took the thing to the shipping store I used and had the thing weighed, measured, and estimates given to me for shipping in the U.S. I would also figure in the cost of insuring it and having a buyer sign for receiving a large item. I made a mistake once in a listing for a Phantom Guitar Works instrument, and just ended up eating the cost of the extras (insurance and signing) because it wasn't the buyer's fault that I had neglected to include those in my listing. That should apply in your case also - the seller should just accept that he didn't cover his bases and that loss is a cost of making this particular transaction.

 

I had a similar issue on an international transaction. The seller sent me a message after the fact requesting more money for registered postage or he would not be responsible for potential issues with shipping. I complained that there was no such disclaimer within his item description or shipping information.

 

Seller agreed to pick up the extra cost for signed-for shipping.

 

EBay really needs to do something about the $4 max charge for shipping vinyl. Sellers are just hiding the shipping prices in the listing.
"Shipping is $12, not $4 as the auction indicates."
EBay needs to figure out their shipping rates. 50% of the vinyl auctions have a different shipping price that was is indicated.

 

It is against eBay rules to override the shipping fields with text in the listing.

If you win, you can refuse to pay anything but the field-based shipping. The seller can get banned from eBay for doing that.

 

It's literally on half the record auctions on eBay.
Why don't they put a stop to it?
I know if I put a stipulation in the text such as "Do not bid if you are outside USA" (people still do it) eBay gives me a message about not including such things in the auction.

 

eBay is very poor about prospective policing. But if you win such an auction, pay the shipping in the shipping field, and the seller refuses to ship or else tells you you need to pay more per the text of the auction, you can then open a case with eBay and they will in 100% of cases either:

1) Tell the seller they must honor the shipping
2) Remove the listing, refund your money, give the seller a serious strike.

If they receive several strikes, their account is permanently closed.

 

Ebay probably don't really care until someone complains. They're still getting their cut of the sale, sellers are happy, buyers are happy. So until someone complaints about it, they won't bother to deal with it. It's not really worth their time is it?

 

They don't even do much about complaints until/unless you're the buyer/seller and the sale has closed. The exception is complaints through the VERO system, but those are a pain to file and don't address issues such as shipping costs in the text.

 

The shipping cost limit is stupid anyway. I can no longer list on ebay.ca in USD (which I do because most of my buyers are US based and it makes selling easier for me and my items more attractive to US buyers). To get around that I can list on .com in USD. But they limit shipping from Canada to the US at $13 USD max which means I'd have to eat some of the cost as it would cost me more to send a record to the US. Of course I could do it for $13ish but I couldn't send it with tracking thereby eliminating any protection.

Ebay has a nice little blurb about the max shipping cost. Apparently buyers don't like high shipping costs. Really? Never would've guessed. But it's not my fault the post office charges what it does. So they expect us to eat the cost and make less money. The only other option is to raise the price which would negate the savings anyway but likely cause more problems for the seller because people maybe less willing to buy.

I have some high value items I want to list and I was going to offer free shipping anyway, but for the lower value ones I'll have to try out discogs.

 

I don't see the big deal, and I'm an eBay seller. Raise the price of the item to cover actual shipping if necessary. You are charged the same eBay commission on both sales price and shipping, so it doesn't really matter from the seller's standpoint. You will make the same no matter how you break it down.

 

Is it a big deal? No it isn't. My pension situation; that's a big deal! This is just an annoyance.

But if it isn't a big deal then why does ebay care? Maybe people are more likely to spend $25 if they know the product costs $15 and the shipping is $10 rather than $10 and the shipping is $15? Or maybe they know that overall, sellers will eat the cost which results in overall lower prices but leads to more overall sales & hence commission to ebay. I have no idea. But I bet ebay does.

If I had to guess, I bet ebay has worked out that this policy results in base prices remaining the same and most sellers eat the cost. But I'm just guessing.

 

The shipping price limits were set years ago, when eBay did not charge commission on shipping charges. At that time, sellers would try to weight cost toward shipping to avoid commissions. As a result, eBay eventually adopted a policy where the same commission was charged on the sale price and the shipping (which sucks, of course, if you don't inflate your shipping charges). When they did that, it no longer made a difference how the base cost and shipping were broken up. But they never changed the limits/rules for listings.

 

How do you sell? I'm sick of ebay's exorbitant cut.

 

I wish I had a good option to recommend. I'm not doing selling at the moment. I just don't have the volume to make it a profitable venture.

 

Yeah I remember those days. $5 for the item $30 for shipping. I always found it funny. Shame ebay didn't and changed how they apply commission!

 

I always avoided buying from those sellers. Just seemed shady right from the start.

 

The OP does not address the shipping cost in original post, and only gives the item + shipping total. Why not address that right from the start?

There is a glitch in the shipping rates on some international ebay sites. Japan is one I am sure of, and there are others. The shipping box is stuck at $4.00 for the LP. So sellers state "please wait for invoice after sale before paying". And they go on the list the true cost of their shipping and h. I see no problem with this handling of the glitch. And with international shipping costs what they are today, these sellers could not stay in business selling records with that kind of shipping loss for every international sale. That is the seller's situation.

If the seller forgot to get these additional terms into listing I would still note (as I am browsing the listing) that $4.00 does not cut it. And not be surprised if seller came back with additional shipping funds request. I would offer seller exact cost over $4.00 already paid for standard first class mail. Let them deal with sig. or registered mail costs, but I would not refuse to chip in so seller is not being driven out of business by ebay's horrible shipping glitch.

I've been buying and selling for many years online. I appreciate everyone being very cooperative in a transaction, and making it work. Stiffing a seller in a difficult situation that is not entirely his fault, just because you can, does not seem fair in the big picture, or my big picture anyway..

 

I'm the OP. The cost of basic shipping was 11 dollars.

 

This must be settled by now?

 

It is. I received the item today.