Ebay prices crack me up!

[Enoch Root]

Thanks. If they don't use that, or a flat fee, then no way.

er

[Enoch Root]

Yes, but at least I can see what I'm going to pay...

OT: The marvel of the ebay system is that what I end up paying is determined by what someone else decides he or she wants to pay, modulo what I will pay.

er

[Enoch Root]

It must be a numbers game, because when I'm scanning my search results I don't look for the cheapest, I look at them all... *except* the ones that've already exceeded what I'm willing to spend. That is, I cull on the high side rather than selecting from the low side. That's somewhat different, I think.

er

[Charles Self]

Before Christmas, I was hoping to buy my wife a new computer chair. I checked Staples, Office Max and local stores, and found a couple that looked good, and were low cost. For giggles, I checked EBay. Yeah, right. Same chairs, 1/3 the price, and the shipping charge was almost exactly what Staples et. al. charge for the chair itself.

I didn't see any bids on that one, and I sure didn't make a bid.

[Brian Elfert]

In the state of Minnesota, sales tax is not charged on shipping costs if it is listed strictly as shipping charges. If it is listed as shipping and handling then tax applies on the S&H charges.

Vehicles have special sales tax provisions and you probably couldn't avoid sales tax by claiming a really high shipping charge.

Brian Elfert

[Joe Barta]

And no reasonable person would dispute this. But reasonable charge is not what this thread is about.

[Brian Henderson]

The handling fee should be part of the purchase price. You don't go to a store and get charged a handling fee, do you? After all, they have to pay someone to put the product on the shelf, don't they? They have to pay someone to ring up your purchase and put it in the bag? Should they charge you a packaging fee too?

[Brian Henderson]

I didn't say sales tax. I said tax, which in this analogy would be a lot closer to income tax.

You have to remember this is just an analogy. eBay charges "taxes" on the sales portion of the auction. By playing creative bookkeeping, some eBay sellers are screwing eBay out of their "taxes" by shifting the real cost of the item over to the shipping side and selling their products for a penny. eBay, of course, who is paying for the whole auction system, has every right to stomp on this practice, and they should do so. There is a cost to using the eBay auction site and being dishonest to make an additional profit that you are not entitled to should not be permitted.

[TBone]

[Joe Barta]

Someone mentioned that there is no way ebay could keep an eye on all it's auctions to prevent such a thing from occuring. But it seems to me that it should be fairly simple to automate and report such things on their end.

Many of these sellers have multiple items and do this over and over. One would think it would be a simple matter to find auctions where there is a suspicious ratio between the sale price and the shipping charge. It could even be done while the auction is running if the seller has a buy it now price.

Once such auctions/sellers are flagged, ebay can manually take a closer look. I can't help but wonder why they don't watch this a little closer... seeing as it appears to cost them money. Or maybe it's a practice they tolerate because they want as many sellers as possible so that when people go looking for "it", there are plenty to choose from... even if they are cheated out of a little revenue.

At any rate, I still have a problem with such tactics on principle and avoid such sellers like the plague.

Joe Barta

[Oleg Lego]

The Brian Henderson entity posted thusly:

A few years back, I bid successfully on a tele-extender for a camera. The bidding started at $1.00, with free shipping. I bid $15, but since nobody else bid, I got it for $1.00.

Well, I felt a bit bad about it, as the fellow had obviously thought it was going to go high enough to pay for his free shipping. I ended up sending him $10.00

My point in this is that there really are a few ways to do it.

1. bidding starts at , shipping set at , handling set at
2. bidding starts at , shipping set at , no handling charge
3. bidding starts at , no shipping charge, no handling charge

Is there any difference to the buyer here? #1 ensures the seller will recoup his expenses, without having to set a reserve. I look at the entire package when I decide what to bid, and I don't much care whether the cost is listed in column A or column B.

I tend not to bid on items that have all the cost in the shipping and handling, but that's because it usually means that the overall price is too high. To me, that's a regular sale, not an auction, and I resent paying more for it than the current market stipulates through the bidding process.

[todd]

Would you feel better if it was buried in the price of the part? Does that make you think you aren't paying it? I really don't see the problem as long as a) it isn't excessive and b) it's fully disclosed. Most people with a high school education should be able to do the math. Do you believe mail order places should not charge for shipping? After all, when you go to Best Buy and purchase a television, they don't add a shipping charge, do they? Yet the television had to be shipped there, so Amazon is cheating people by charging shipping, right?

todd

[Brian Elfert]

Unless a mail order company drop ships from the manufacturer, they had to pay shipping to a warehouse somewhere somehow. This is no different than a retail store paying to have stock shipped to them.

Brian Elfert

[todd]

So you agree that Amazon, Dell, etc. are dishonest because they break out a shipping charge when B&M stores absorb it in the product cost? Heck, I bet even Lee Valley charges shipping.

todd

[Brian Henderson]

That was actually me who said that. :)

And there are many items that legitimately have a high shipping cost, so just killing all auctions with a high cost doesn't make much sense. Does eBay require people to disclose shipping costs up front? I know most people list them, but is it a hard rule?

[Brian Henderson]

Oftentimes, it is excessive. Last night, for example, my wife was looking for a USB cable for her cell phone. Lots of people are selling them, most starting around $20 with shipping around $4. But there are a couple people who are selling them for $4 with shipping at $25. All of those are "BUY IT NOW" prices. Certainly it doesn't cost

*ANYONE* $25 to ship a USB cable, they are just making extra money off the buyer ($5 additional over other sellers) and extra money off eBay. In short, they're ripping everyone off.

It's called having character. Too bad so many people have none.

[Unquestionably Confused]

on 1/10/2006 6:45 PM Brian Henderson said the following:

AFAIK, there is no such rule. If there is, it certainly has not been enforced.

I certainly can see there being a measure of ambiguity with regard to shipping costs when you're talking about selling off a 45 lb widget. I cannot see it when you're talking about a DVD set, or something which is fairly light and "standard."

A wise buyer will simply ignore an offering in the latter category and not bid on it. In those cases, I think the presumption is you're going to take it in the butt in shipping charges.

For those goods in the former category or an item that's one of a kind, the buyer will inquire and get a somewhat firm committment regarding shipping costs before bidding. If he/she doesn't, they probably aren't bright enough to realize they've been had when they get that poke in the rear.

[John T]

When I was looking for windows XP to upgrade one of my PC's, The best price (on ebay) I found was like 69.00 plus $15.00 shipping. The guy was upfront about making his profit from the shipping. Remember, Ebay takes a cut from the selling price, but not the shipping. This was for a full version, intended for OEM.

John

[John B]

And therein lies the catch. I have E bay sellers with items listed as $1.00 buy it now, but postage and handling is $25.00. E bay collects on the $1.00 and the seller makes

100% of the postage and handling, less the postage. BTW these items on another site had postage at $3.75 US. regards John

[bridgerfafc]

there's also the bit about return policy. I bought an external drive case- couple of bucks, 15 or so shipping. I thought, sleazy, but it adds up to the right amount, so I bought it. when it came, the case was badly sub-par quality. wouldn't recognize. the vendor's return policy was sale price refund only, and I have to pay shipping return. so I'd be paying $3 shipping to get a $2 refund.

lesson learned.