How to deal with eBay and spiteful buyers?

[orb85750]

If I were you, I would try experimenting with FREE shipping on some of your auctions.  You might find that it attracts more bidders and higher bids.  And your ratings will become stellar!

[orb85750]

Plaz wrote:

If I were you, I would try experimenting with FREE shipping on some of your auctions.

That depends on the margin you're making on an item. Here's a very crude, but not unrealistic example. What if I or Red spend $100 on a item. We then turn and sell it for $185. We have to also factor in shipping supplies, shipping cost, ebay fees, paypal fees, maybe insurance and additional options like delivery confirmation or signature deliveries. Now the item has cost us $100 plus maybe another $30 for all those other items (especially if it weighs more than a few pounds when boxed) leaving a margin of $50. Now add in the fact it took a few hours to test the item, clean it up, take photos, arange the ebay listing, pack the item well, and deliver it to a shipper. Now what's your hourly pay rate going to be minus your rent and taxes if you're self employed? $12-15 dollars an hour? A smaller but respectable wage in the US.

If your margin is small, and mine normally is on old equipment, giving away $10-$20 in shipping will drop the gain to below my trouble to deal with it.  My last auction on ebay just 2 weeks ago was like this. My cost was about $14, it then took about 2 hours clean test and pack the item. I sold it for $37 and the shipping cost came to about $16. The buyer complained about shipping cost and wanted me to ship for free. That would have payed me a whopping $3.50 an hour to sell this item. I might as well throw it in the bin and spend my time on some thing else. In the end I found a cheaper shipping option for $11, the buyer paid and all was well, sort of. The buyer then complained the cheaper shipping option was taking to long to arrive and wanted his money back if it didn't arrive by the end of the week. It did, and all was well. I have 4 more or these items, they're going in the bin and ebay can bite me.

Plaz

Set your minimum bid at the true minimum you're willing to accept (or use a reserve, but I personally hate reserve auctions).  The listing fees are not that much higher.  Again, this free shipping idea is an experiment.  It may or may not work out, but you won't know until you try.  You'll get a five-star shipping rating, or something very close.