mustpar65
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posted on May 30, 2001 09:02:55 PM new
I recently sold 4 videos on half.com to one buyer who bought them all in the same transaction. My shipping reimbursement for the 4 videos was $3.49. Had 4 different people bought the videos my total reimbursement would have been $7.00. Now it's reasonable to discount the shipping reimbursement since the videos all went to one address. But what really chaps my hide is that half.com charged the customer FULL POP shipping for each and every video $2.25 each - No Discount. So they can rationalize
discounting my shipping reimbursement but no mercy is shown to the customers. Yeah, yeah, it's a business and they have a right to have whatever policy they want. But it sucks. Nine dollars to ship 4 videos! And that's Media Mail Sheesh!
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ashlandtrader
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posted on May 30, 2001 09:23:58 PM new
This is one of the reasons why I have stayed far away from them. I think it stinks too!
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escandyo
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posted on May 30, 2001 10:08:26 PM new
Works the same way for books. I emailed and asked why they take a portion of the shipping charges. They say for returns. I agree, it stinks. I wonder how they hide this unearned income from the IRS.
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Zazzie
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posted on May 30, 2001 10:33:29 PM new
Whenever I've ordered more than one thing from anyone on Half.com---I've purchased them seperately---so they get the FULL shipping amounts......I figure I'm paying the amount anyways so as much of it as possible might as well go to the seller and not to Half.com's piggy bank
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escandyo
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posted on May 30, 2001 10:40:09 PM new
Good point Zazzie. I'd be willing to refund a portion of shipping to the buyer if I could ship together, and get near the actual cost. Course, I suppose we'd really get in trouble for mentioning that procedure on our page at Ebay!
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mustpar65
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posted on May 30, 2001 11:27:48 PM new
escandyo
I bet eBay doesn't have a specific policy against offering a kickback for separate orders on half.com but you can be certain they'd get one real quick if people started doing that. Ever wonder why half.com doesn't have "about me" pages for their sellers? Or at least they could let us link to our eBay about me page. I think the reason they don't do either is that we'd reveal this heinous shipping policy of theirs.
I don't begrudge half.com making a commission off of a sale. But the buyers are thinking that they're doing me a favor by buying multiple items from me on a single order. In reality they're doing just the opposite.
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rowane
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posted on May 31, 2001 05:54:57 AM new
I have a return buyer on half.com that purchases every item separately. When I have a shipment of two or more items going out the same day, I combine them into one shipment and refund the buyer the difference in cash right in the package.
This strategy has worked wonderfully, and increased my sales dramatically to the buyer.
The key, as Zazzie says, is to order the items separately. I'm not sure how you could let new bidders know this, though. Sigh
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kudzurose
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posted on May 31, 2001 09:17:55 AM new
On the few occasions I've ordered more than one book from a seller there, I've placed separate orders. But as Rowane points out, there is no way to alert buyers to do that. I'm sure most buyers there are not aware of how much of the shipping cost H.c keeps on a single purchase, much less a multiple buy!
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mustpar65
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posted on May 31, 2001 09:30:16 AM new
I've thought a lot about how to inform buyers of half.com's policy. I don't see how eBay could forbid sellers from placing a factual explanation of the policy on their "About Me" page. The problem is how to get buyers over to the "About Me" page. Maybe in the comment field example:
Tape is new in shrinkwrap - see aboutme on eBay to save $
Then on the About Me page there would be an
offer to rebate for multiple orders.
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Zazzie
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posted on May 31, 2001 10:25:24 AM new
I just order it that way out of spite---what the seller does with the extra money is their business. They can keep it, give me some back, upgrade me to priority-----no matter.
But how to make other buyers do the same??---no can do
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escandyo
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posted on May 31, 2001 01:49:37 PM new
Ebay seems to forbid anything that will cut into their profits. Since I've place a link to my inventory at Half on my page at Ebay, my sales there have went up dramatically. So, I must assume a large portion of the buyers I am now getting are finding my page and linking thus. Stands to reason, Ebay won't allow offering discounts of any sort by asking for separate purchases...I imagine they would call it fee avoidance, no? Or, at least pass the page to the ruling party at Half to suspend the seller.
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