Ebay hikes postage cost above what couriers charge
Summary: stuff4utoday expressed concerns about significant increases in eBay's postage costs since September, noting they exceed direct booking prices from couriers like Royal Mail and Evri. This has led to frustration as eBay's rates, despite their large-scale contracts, seem disproportionately high compared to available alternatives. c_of_e84 and sml192 discussed the potential justification for these costs, highlighting the insurance coverage and risk factors eBay handles. your-outlet-store shared similar experiences regarding international delivery charges being higher than other platforms. Participants debated eBay’s pricing strategy versus its logistical benefits and protections.
I have noticed since the 1st of September that Ebay has more than doubled its postage cost for no apparent reason.
It seems to me that is now cheaper to book something through Royal Mail's website direct without having an account compared to sending something via Ebay's shipping program.
We have a contract at work with Evri and they charge us something in the region of less than £3 per parcel. For something similar Ebay charges currently £10! Also Royal Mail fora medium parcel Ebay charges £12.36!
Ebay is a massive company in the UK and it has contracts with Royal Mail , Evri, DHL and other companies. The prices that EBAY is given by these companies are much lower than any individual can get by booking items from the courier's website. This is due to the volume of parcels that EBAY can give to these shipping carriers.
Now, I do not see this being fair EBAY charging much more the sellers while not allowing sellers to use their own couriers.
It is a monopoly that needs to be addressed. Also it is just driven by profit greed but it frustrates and annoys sellers on EBAY.
EBAY needs to know that we pay 20% tax on top of what we make as profit so hiking up the postage for no apparent reason is a day light robbery.
Can you pls discuss?
your-outlet-store
·3 weeks agoEbay postal charges are a rip of for international deliveries. I sell a lot abroad and ebay postage is far more expensive than Royal Mail postage when bought direct, and far more expensvie than etsy when selling the same item. This is especially the case now after the new EU import duties. For the same item bought on ebay and sent to Germany it costs £8.65, but both etsy and RM charge £7.26. Interestingly the same item sold to France, Spain and other EU counrties the shipping charge changes (France £8.72, Spain £8.80). This chanes is not an accurate relexation of the true costs. I've pointed this out to ebay, and the fact that they will lose sales revenve, but to no avail. That's because they dont really care what sellers think as along as they rip off everyone so that they can pay their ceo $28 million.
sml192
·3 weeks agoThe postage prices for the new eIS are supposed to be up to 30% cheaper than the existing GSP. The customs charges are also calculated accurately with eIS whereas GSP just added an arbitrary amount to cover them.
onedaylikethis15
·3 weeks agoThey have adjusted the prices, a small Evri parcel used to be £2.94 (which it still is on a personal account), now it is £3.10 on my business account.
sml192
·3 weeks agoThe contracts for Simple Delivery and Custom Postage are completely separate plus with Custom Postage it is Packlink that has the contract with Evri, not eBay.
stuff4utoday
OPSep 7, 2026 at 9:25 AMI just sold a cd player to a guy in Italy. I guess if Ebay keeps its word and handle all returns and I do not get the item back but end up with full pay no matter what then perhaps the new pricing might be worth while if it opens me up new avenues of sale and i get no return in case of a fault.
papso22
·3 weeks ago · EditedEbay has never said they will handle all returns. Simple delivery covers you for lost in transit, or damaged in transit claims, only. Cover for international sales depends on whether you used global shipping, but you are always responsible for not as described claims, other than damaged in transit ones.
jonatjonatjonat
·3 weeks agofor ebay International Shipping (unclear which service is being used here) they do state they will handle ALL international returns.
16. What about fraudulent returns – where a buyer claims a return just to get a refund?
eBay manages all return claims on your behalf. You keep your payout regardless of the buyer's reason for returning.
papso22
·3 weeks agoThat sounds like an extraordinary promise by ebay!
techkris
·Sep 7, 2026 at 7:00 AMI've just noticed that too, what a greedy bustards. they tell me to pay £12.36 for medium parcel up to 10kg when RM charges £7.35 and EVRI £5.87! Item weight is like 4kg.
papso22
·Sep 7, 2026 at 7:25 AMThen do buyer pays instead and don't exclude carriers.
sml192
·Sep 7, 2026 at 11:59 AMYou are not comparing like with like though. The Royal Mail and Evri prices that you have quoted are for their standard Tracked services (Evri appears to be £6.59 though for 2-5Kg home delivery) which provide cover up to £75 and £20 respectively. Simple Delivery on the other hand provides cover for the full sales value.
To get the same protection with Royal Mail you would need to use Special Delivery, which for a 4Kg item would cost £21.95. With Evri you would need to purchase enhanced insurance (assuming it's one of the few items they will actually insure), which for a 4Kg item with a value of £170 would take the cost to around £14. The Simple Delivery prices are still, therefore, pretty competitive by comparison.
stuff4utoday
OP3 weeks ago · EditedEbay has huge contracts and you cannot compare what you can get as an individual compared to a massive corporation. We have a contract at work with my other business ( outside Ebay ) with Evri via Landmark Global and we pay £2.75 per parcel up to 10KG for anywhere in the UK. Similarly with Royal Mail we have a business account that the prices are much cheaper than what you get if you book things online via their website. What I am saying EBAY is making a massive markup with their shipping cost.
cheekychippy210
·1 month agodo you pay to list?
stuff4utoday
OP1 month agoNo
cheekychippy210
·1 month agoso where do ebay get the money to run a global platform? There are no visible sold items to see under your name so I guess another account. I haven't seen an increase in my simple delivery posting prices!
sml192
·1 month agoFor items over £75 you would need to be using Royal Mail Special Delivery (prices for which start at around £10) in order to get the same level of protection that Simple Delivery provides, so the Simple Delivery prices are still competitive. Ebay has now also added a signature requirement for some items sent with Simple Delivery (no details yet but presumably will be added automatically to higher value items) so the recent price increase for items over £75 will be in part to cover that.
If you are paying tax on your sales then it sounds as though you are buying items to sell for a profit, rather than selling unwanted personal possessions, in which case you should be using a Business Seller account and you would then be able to use whatever postage you want.
c_of_e84
·1 month agoTrue but do they actually do a deal with couriers, like true negotiation, the other thing is the risk factor, with ebay as long as you buy there shipping and the item gets scanned as dispatched that’s it, if it doesn’t get delivered its ebays problem whereas if you buy postage offline its down to the seller to sort it out, maybe its possible to read into the price difference the percentage of loss there actually is of non delivery and theft in the postal system that may yield a clue as to the price difference, on my business account I buy my postage direct and understand its my problem if things get lost, I also understand that even if I do bother to claim I will never get paid out the value of the items and the time it takes to do would result in an hourly rate about 20% of the national minimum wage.
stuff4utoday
OP1 month agoSure but we used to pay £6 via Royal mail 48 and now it is over £12 per parcel!
c_of_e84
·Sep 6, 2026 at 8:47 AMSo in the great scheme of things and with all the data we create from loading tracking info into ebay it kinda looks like ebay has done the sums and figured out about 50% of items sent by royal mail will get delayed, lost, stolen or broken, seems pretty accurate to me.