P&P charges on Ebay etc.

[flobadob]

Why don't Ebay promote cheaper carriers for goods sold there. I'm from Ireland and every time I buy something the P&P is usually as much if not more than the item I'm buying. It's almost always Royal Mail that is used. Surely there are cheaper options people could use. I think it would encourage more use of Ebay as the P&P prices frequently put me off even bidding for an item?

[mollykins]

Mum uses R.M. as it's the simplist and often the cheapest especially with books that can be quite heavy and big. I think some people 'sell' things for 99p to make you think it's a bargain but make money on the P&P and sometime a warantee for the item which they might make you get aswell . . .

[Old_Geezer]

eBay doesn't have a say surely ? You are dealing with individual sellers who are merely using eBay. And who are tempted to lower the asking price and bump up the p&p to reduce costs.

[mrs.chappie]

I always look at it as a whole, p & p included. I don't like it when sellers bump up the postage charges.

[trt]

If I see something Im interested in, I always send a message to the seller that his/her P/P is to high and a lot of them bring it down, especially if they havent had many bids.

[mollykins]

That's also a good point geezer, ebay can't really do much about it.

[Old_Geezer]

If they think the seller is 'trying it on' they can have a word with them and threaten to bar them. After all it works out a smaller take for eBay. But I suspect that's about it.

[TonyV]

as an ebayer seller - I just add the cost of postage and packing - p&p is not just the price of the stamp

[AlBags]

Check out Parcels2Go.
I use them.

[wilkesneil]

people have to charge what the postal services will charge them to send the item.
i've sold over 2000 items on there and try to keep postage costs down a smuch as possible but its hard sometimes when the postal services charge set prices.
i'd love to be able to give everyone free postage but when the post office allow it i will.
also if you're from ireland then you'll find everything gets bumped up due to needing airmail (unless northern ireland).

[mollykins]

Plus there's the packaging part of the P&P like tony says. And my mum buys jiffy bags from poundland, but they're making the size of the bags smaller and smaller so mums having to put the price up a bit, especially if they can't make the bags any smaller so put less in each bundle.

[wilkesneil]

i slao use these, sometimes works out cheaper than parcel2go plus you just print label and drop off at a local shop.
http://www.collectplus.co.uk

[flobadob]

The reason I think Royal Mail is favoured by Ebay is that when I clicked onto the Sell Items link there was another link for postage which took you to the Royal Mail site or An Post for Ireland. But I looked up a site like Albags mentioned and they had much cheaper quotes than Royal Mail.

My point being that a casual infrequent seller, just selling things they want rid of but which may still be of use to others, they will most likely use the Royal Mail link provided rather than look around, as they are not professional sellers.

[flobadob]

Interesting Eddie. I suppose I could do the Norn Iron thing as I'm close to the border. But Eddie I was chatting to a guy who said Hermes did P&P very cheaply to Ireland. He reckoned a Master System would be £5.

[joko]

it could also just be easier...if i was to send a parcel tomorrow there are lots of local places i cou;ld take it to send royal mail...i would even know where any other place was or how they work...do they collect your package? do you have to go to them? can you phone them?

its convenient and free to walk round the corner to the PO... rather than adding petrol costs or bus fares too

[boxtops]

Hi flobadob, I sell a lot on eBay and I admit that unless they are "collect only" items, I always use RM - as joko says, it's simple for us to go to the Post Office to send, although I know we can use DHL from our stationers, I don't see the need. I charge a little extra for a box, brown paper, tape, and for me to get to the PO - for instance something today was a 99p purchase but the p&p on the sale was £2.50 - actual postage was £1.72 plus approx 50p for the packaging and petrol etc. I do refund postage if I have overcharged by a fair bit (and sometimes I've overcalculated, I do weigh everything and assume a box weight - cat food boxes are brilliant for packing!) and as I too object to paying over the top for P&P, it's not unknown for me to refund 75p-£1 if it's warranted.
There is no relationship between the cost of the item (which could be as little as 1p) and the cost of getting it to you. Royal Mail is - for general items - our cheapest and easiest option.

[alavahalf]

If it's the corner shop option you want try, have a look at .. http://www.collectplus.co.uk/
Just type your postcode in and see which local shop is an agent ... !

[boxtops]

That's useful, alavahalf, there's one not far from me - parcels start at £3.49