I am a power seller retailing large items that are expensive to post. I keep the charge down to a bare minimum but some customers just don’t appreciate the true cost. This was fine up until recently (if you like the price, you buy the goods; simple supply and demand) but the new DSR system means that, although perfectly happy to pay the price, some customers decide to give a lower P&P score simple because they can and, in an ideal world, would have liked to have paid a little less (even though I am one of, if not THE, cheapest).

Customers don’t realise the consequences of their casual judgement: my P&P score is now 4.3 and my listings are not visible unless users change the default search settings (highly unlikely) – rather than selling 4 items a day, I have sold 1 in the past 3 days. All this for a score which is deemed, by ebay, as being higher than ‘satisfactory’.

I have built my business up over the past 18 months and left a well paid job because of it, yet, in one ill-conceieved fell swoop, Ebay have completely destroyed me. I am now in a situation where I cannot sell a thing and am unable to rectify the situation for the next month (when my 30-day average will be reset due my having less than 10 feebacks in that period).

Thanks, Ebay, I’ll try and explain to the kids why I’ll struggle to feed them this month.

Ebay doesn’t get a cut of the shipping charges, so by forcing the sellers to reduce their shipping & handling fees, the buyer will pay more for the item, and higher item prices translate into greater FVF’s – Final Value Fees – to Ebay. As there is a total $ amount a buyer is willing to pay. As far as the buyer is concerned if an item is worth $100 bucks to them; they don’t care if they pay $99 bucks for shipping, and a Dollar for the item it’s all the same to them. EBAY does care, as it is the difference to the of pocketing a FVF of .0525 cents or $3.64! For each 1% they can get sellers to reduce their shipping & handling could in theory push an additional $37,400,000 to their bottom line per quarter!! Hugh payoffs if it works!

But, infact it is not! Sellers are disenchanted; and don’t care about that aspect of the DSR, and buyers don’t for that matter either! Ebay is all about buying an item at what you are willing to pay – atotal package so to speak. The cost of the actual item, and what it cost to get it to you – is what you paid! The biggest concern on Ebay is just getting what you paid for! Physically having it land on your doorstep or in your mailbox! That is all buyers care about!

So sellers – start putting a part of your items value into the shipping and handling you charge. Sure the buyer will pay a few dollars less, but in turn you will pay less fees!

Also, when I see the perfect little seller – charging exactly what the shipping charges are, then look at their DSR and see all the perfect little rows of stars; all having their 5 little arms remaining; I feel for them! I prefer the look of mine – the look of a COSMIC TRAIN WRECK! only in the shipping & handling row – of course!

Back to the perfect seller; they don’t realize that although they charge the exact shipping – they loose money, as they don’t get charged on the Ebay side for the S&H, but regardless of the item price; the full amount is slammed wit a fee if the buyer pays with PayPal! So, if shipping 1 pound priority & 5.25 w/ delivery confirm – you are paying out of your pocket a minimum of .50 cents to ship the buyers item! Paypal gets a fee off of the entire amount! Shipping & handling, not excluded!