Power Seller Jenny.z has an interesting twist on how to maintain a high eBay Shipping & Handling Charges Detailed Seller Rating (DSR). She maintains that selling items under $10.00 is a bad idea:
It sounds like a great idea – after all, everyone likes a bargain don’t they? But items that sell for under $10 have one big problem: Shipping. It’s quite likely that the shipping for the item will cost more than the item itself and this can be very off-putting to buyers. For example, if the item costs $4.50 and shipping costs $6, the total cost for the item is $10.50. If the buyer can purchase the item at their local store for $8, then this suddenly becomes a much better deal. For small items and accessories, the way to get around this problem is by grouping the items together, such as sets of 6 golf-balls or 5 tea towels.
Obviously, if what you are selling is lightweight and can be mailed inexpensively, this isn’t a factor sellers need be concerned with. However, as the writer points out, if the shipping and handling costs more than the item, alarm bells should be sounding in your head as you are posting your auction. I would suggest an even more modest ratio of shipping costs being no more than half of the item’s cost.
Just because the buyer should be aware of the shipping and handling fees and tacitly agrees to them when they place their bid, doesn’t mean they are happy with them. The shipping and handling charge DSR allows bidders a new outlet to express their dissatisfaction. The fact that this particular metric has the lowest aggregate average across eBay among the four DSR scores, indicates that many bidders are quick to mark sellers down on this criterion.
Why should you care? Because Best Match has changed things. Sellers that maintain a 4.7 average or above in the four DSR ratings will receive improved visibility in eBay’s search results. Improved visibility means more click-throughs and more sales.
In my next post, I discuss how I improved my shipping and handling fee DSR from my lowest DSR to my second highest.
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