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Anyone having trouble with ebay shipping options?


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When I set up my auctions it forces me to enter a value of $4.00 for shipping. I tried to put a flat rate service in ($9.99) but it will not allow me. I fought with the system over and over but it kept reverting back to $4.00.

I can't ship kits anywhere in the world for $4.00. I read through the ebay information pages and it appears others have been having this trouble. Ebay has picked rates for sellers and is not deviating. The $4.00 sounds like their ebays set value.

I sell from Canada, I always ship at a slight loss so I can attract bids. It works for me. I list on ebay.com. I do not list on ebay.ca, I know people do not look at the International Sellers, don't ask me why, bit people do not bid much on items listed as being from International Sellers. It is best to be listed on ebay.com. Plus ebay.com is where I started with ebay. The .ca site didn't exist when I joined. Plus if I listed on ebay.ca it would force me to enter the Canada Post calculator and if people see those shipping rates it would kill my auctions.

I have other ways to save with Canada Post that does not show on the shipping calculator.

So I listed my last set of auctions despite not being able to get rid of the bogus $4.00 shipping. There was no way around it. I listed the correct shipping values in the listing (which I always do). But once I listed it the $4.00 rate was gone, the $9.99 international shipping I added was in all my listings. But with one caveat, there were people who could see the $4.00 shipping although they could also see the $9.99. I could not see the $4.00 shipping in any of my listings no matter how I viewed the auction (I did searches in different manners).

Ebay ticks me off but I do well on it. But over the years they have entered some very frustrating changes in the listing tools. I prefer to have more flexibility in how i list my shipping auctions. I want to put a visible shipping charge so I can attract bids. But I do not want to put in a forced value set by ebay.

What I use to do is put in a flat rate for Canada and the US. I would then put in a second flat rate for the rest of the world. It is very important to me to accept international bids, as this option increases the bids on my auctions. The people who put US only are foolish, it costs them bids. Most of my shipping is to the US, but the worldwide shipping vastly increases the bidding wars on my auctions. I can't go without it.

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It has been a while since I listed, but last time I did, it let me put the shipping charge in for models. It did not, however, let me put it in for DVD's that I sold. Same thing as you were mentioning. They had a max, set amount that I could charge no matter what (I think it was three dollars) and I lost money on it because, of course, the winning bidder was half way across the world! So, if there is a way to contact E-bay, I'd try and go that route and see if they can correct it for you.

The thing that ticks me off is how they charge seller fees on shipping now. I understand that some (many?) people were ripping E-bay off by charging inflated shipping costs to get out of paying fees, but it hurts those of us who charge honest, exact shipping. Personally I think that E-bay should require you to use a shipping calculator, and you can only charge exactly what the calculator says to charge. That way, everyone pays the same for shipping and no one gets hit with extra fees.

Aaron

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I listed some records before I put up the models for sale. I think the $4.00 charge stuck with me on the models.

I hear you on the shipping calculator and the BS by ebay charging fees on shipping charges. There are far more honest people on ebay than dishonest. It is a matter of ebay not wanting to enforce the rules on those who break them. It takes too much time and effort. Ebay is a very lazy company when it comes to investigations, they create blanket rules with zero flexibility.

I reported one person in Hong Kong for attempting to circumvent the seller fees several years ago. I won an auction with him for $1.99. He then sent me a $100.00 shipping charge (which was not listed in the auction). I refused and reported him to ebay. The end result was I received negative feedback and a non-paying strike from ebay.

But the shipping calculator would kill me. For example, I sent a shipping amount to a person in Argentina two days ago. When I plugged in the values for the two kits he wanted the shipping amount came to $83.00. But if I split the two kits in two, and shipped them as two packages I could ship them for a combined total of $20.00 (airmail). Canada Post has screwy issues to with their shipping that I know ways to get around the issues.

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The shipping restrictions are category specific. I sell a lot of video games and they have the 4.00 restriction. If you want to work around it then you have to find a different category to list the item in. I think it's total BS too and hardly use ebay anymore for selling unless it's video games. At least with media mail I can get away with shipping it for that cost. Ebay caters to the ebay business now that know how to do everything and have the tools to do it. A normal person shipping from their home is getting screwed.

I don't ever see models with a 4.00 shipping charge so I'm thinking you accidentally had the wrong category listed.

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I don't ever see models with a 4.00 shipping charge so I'm thinking you accidentally had the wrong category listed.

Nope, I have them all listed in models.

But I did list a bunch of LPs before I listed the models. I think the listing restrictions carried over to the models.

Now it looks like everyone in the US gets the $4.00 shipping amount and International gets the $9.99. I can only see $9.99 as I am in Canada.

But the people in the US that click on my shipping info see the correct amount there. It is only in the listings of the category.

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I list on ebay.com. I do not list on ebay.ca, I know people do not look at the International Sellers, don't ask me why, bit people do not bid much on items listed as being from International Sellers. It is best to be listed on ebay.com. Plus ebay.com is where I started with ebay. The .ca site didn't exist when I joined. Plus if I listed on ebay.ca it would force me to enter the Canada Post calculator and if people see those shipping rates it would kill my auctions.

I'm not a big fan of ebay anymore but could it be cause ebay.com thinks you're an American and plugs in rates for US sellers?

Ebay is a very lazy company when it comes to investigations, they create blanket rules with zero flexibility.

I reported one person in Hong Kong for attempting to circumvent the seller fees several years ago. I won an auction with him for $1.99. He then sent me a $100.00 shipping charge (which was not listed in the auction). I refused and reported him to ebay. The end result was I received negative feedback and a non-paying strike from ebay.

But the shipping calculator would kill me. For example, I sent a shipping amount to a person in Argentina two days ago. When I plugged in the values for the two kits he wanted the shipping amount came to $83.00. But if I split the two kits in two, and shipped them as two packages I could ship them for a combined total of $20.00 (airmail). Canada Post has screwy issues to with their shipping that I know ways to get around the issues.

I think there is a high volume of investigations and power sellers get more of a look while low level ones are pushed aside and closed quickly.

That's the reason why I'm not a big fan of ebay. They probably told you that you should have confirmed shipping costs with the seller before bidding. It's their way of saying it's not our problem but your's.

Ebay sees a lot of multiple kits auction as just one big box to ship and that's what their shipping calculator would reflect. It's quick and easy for them. Unlike an online shop who would do the work to figure out the most cost effective way, like yourself, to mail the lot.

Now it looks like everyone in the US gets the $4.00 shipping amount and International gets the $9.99. I can only see $9.99 as I am in Canada.

But the people in the US that click on my shipping info see the correct amount there. It is only in the listings of the category.

Sorry to hear that but you might have to take a loss on it unless you can get ebay to correct it for you or hope for high bidders to offset it. Remember it is an auction and it could go up or down. Either case, I hope it all works out for you in the end.

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I'm not a big fan of ebay anymore but could it be cause ebay.com thinks you're an American and plugs in rates for US sellers?

Nope, right at the top of my auction it says item is located in Canada.

I see and end to ebay at some point, they have upset so many sellers and their customer service is horrid. Once a competitor steps up they are gonzo. Some people only use them as there are no other options.

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I always list my items on Ebay.ca, if I log on to ebay .com and search for my item (a c-130 kit) it shows up like all others, even if it was listed on Ebay.ca. It does not put your listing in a special section of international sellers or anything like that. It does not force you to use the Canada Post calculator, you have to choose a Canada Post service, but you can charge whatever you want. I have been doing this for 7 years now, no problems ! I have a rate for Canada, one for the US and one for The rest of the World.

Maybe you should give Ebay.ca another try ??

Yves F. (yvesff24 on Ebay)

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I always list my items on Ebay.ca, if I log on to ebay .com and search for my item (a c-130 kit) it shows up like all others, even if it was listed on Ebay.ca. It does not put your listing in a special section of international sellers or anything like that. It does not force you to use the Canada Post calculator, you have to choose a Canada Post service, but you can charge whatever you want. I have been doing this for 7 years now, no problems ! I have a rate for Canada, one for the US and one for The rest of the World.

Maybe you should give Ebay.ca another try ??

Yves F. (yvesff24 on Ebay)

Thanks for the info, I thought when you listed on ebay.ca it put you at the bottom of the list.

I will give it a try. I like the option of having one shipping amount for Canada, one for the US, and a third for the rest of the world.

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if you do an advanced search there use to be an option of non-international results but I'm not sure if it's there anymore. I havn't listed in a while so I cant say if your problem is common here in the states but ebay does play around with the calculators too much. Sometimes they don't work at all, sometimes they list too high and sometimes they don't list all the options available from the post office.

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The easiest way around all this is to simply include the actual shipping rates in the item description (I ship from Israel and usually quote 4 prices: USA, Europe, Australia, South America) and add a note to the bidders to ignore eBays standard shipping as it appears in the listing under the "Payment and Shipping" tab.

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eBay is doing what Amazon does in terms of fixing the max shipping costs for different categories. Amazon has a max of $3.99 for CD's and DVD's also.

eBay is moving away from being a market place where the little guy could clear out his garage or basement and becoming more of an Amazon type place catered to the bigger, established sellers. I stopped selling on eBay back in 2008 myself. The hassle just isn't worth it to me anymore. Especially after they got all the listing, final value and PayPal fees out of me. I did the math back when I sold my last round and between all the PayPal and eBay fees they were ending up with almost 10% of my money on each sale.

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