posted on January 9, 2001 12:06:40 AM new
This postal rate change has really thrown me for a loop. I guess I didn't change my ads in time to allow for checks to clear, but I just accepted that I'd have to eat the $.75-1.20 difference in the new rates for some of my auctions that didn't get changed in time. (I didn't want to change the shipping and end up overcharging people that used Paypal).
My situation is this: I emailed the winners that hadn't paid yet, politely asking them to pay the new rates. I made it clear that this matter was open for discussion, since it wasn't stated in my ad, but that I thought it was fair since it was clear in my ad that I only charge real shipping costs, and do not charge a s/h charge like other sellers. This was Friday, and they had to opportunity to pay by an online payment service to keep the lower shipping rate.
All but one of the buyers responded that this is fair, and are paying the current rate. Some even sent the new rate even though I didn't ask for it. But one buyer whined that it wasn't fair. This buyer's auction closed 12/27, sent her first response on 1/4 (8 days, even though I ask for a response within 3 days), and still hasn't mailed payment on 1/8 (which was expected after 7 days).
Don't I have the right to not even sell it to her, since I don't have payment after 12 days? I normally would never do this, I have accepted payments that were 5 weeks after the auction closes. But the fact that she doesn't think it's fair to pay the actual shipping just burns me up.
What would you do? I can easily relist the item and sell it for just as much.
posted on January 9, 2001 06:40:03 AM new
This topic has been beat to death here with other posts lately...
In summary: You CANNOT force the buyers to pay anything more than what was agreed upon by your TOS in the auction text or the first agreed upon terms in an EOA notice email exchange. It doesn't matter if you said "Actual Postage"---as soon as you agreed upon an actual price, that is the amount.
Changing these terms is a violation of eBay rules and the buyer has the right to report you and possibly get you suspended from eBay for this violation. (And if it was significant enough could even land you in court if the buyer wanted to force you that far on it to get thier item at the price they agreed on)
You can however, follow all other rules that are allowed to you as a seller by eBay. You can, as you mentioned, refuse to ship the item if their payment doesn't get sent within a set/reasonable period of time, depending what your TOS/EOA stated, etc.. You CAN politely ask your buyers if they want to cover the additional amount, but understand that you cannot get upset if they choose not to (and still pay immediately)
I guess I have to say this.. If you've previously let non-communication issues and slow payment issues slide, you probably just have to suck this up as a learning experience, and not specifically punnish THIS slow payer just because of the other issue.
If however you had a set rule for handing the slow payers and etc... then it would be more okay not to accept the payment, but understand, if it's a money order then you're going to have to pay 34 cents to send it back to them.... ~25% of the maximum amount you've already stated you'd be "eating" due to the increased shipping amount.
I guess I'd have to ask myself.... "Is it worth all this hassle and emails and worries just to save a maximum of 90 cents? (assuming you'd have to send back payment if it's late)" "Is it worth a negative to deal with this?"
My thoughts:
Yes.. negatives are "worth it" to deal with deadbeats.. if honest sellers arn't honest with deadbeats and leave appropriate feedback it hurts all sellers. It sucks, but it's a fact of doing business. BUT --- It is NOT worth a negative because you were stingy on a buck or less of postage!!!!
No... it's not worth the extra email sending and response time to get an extra $.75 to $1.20?.. It sucks, but it's a fact of doing business. How much do you average in profit per hour selling on eBay? If it's $5, then then the 4 minutes it takes to write the email and 2 minutes to read the reply back cost you 50 cents of your time. If you make more, then you have exceeded the amount you are looking to recover.
Next time try to increase your rates BEFORE the postal rates increase, and if you do accept insta-payments, then state in your TOS/EOA notice that buyers receive a $x.xx discount for paying before mm-dd-yyyy via epayment instead of sending check/mo.
[ edited by mrlatenite on Jan 9, 2001 06:45 AM ]
