Shipping costs

[timcarr1]

Hello, I used to be able to dictate my own shipping costs so I could cover the cost of packaging and getting to the post office. Since eBay introduced simple shipping, I can no longer do this and I’m losing money as their labels aren’t sufficient to cover the costs of some of the items. Is there a way to specify my shipping costs or is this now impossible? This is for items I’ve been trying to sell for a while and before they introduced the new system. It seems I can specify shipping for brand new listings but I can’t adjust my existing listings to my preferred shipping cost unless I start again from scratch? I hope someone can help me. Thank you

[**peaseblossom** · Accepted solution]

No, ebay's Simple Delivery offers postage only and sellers are expected to add any packaging costs to the item price.  

If you are buying items with the purpose of reselling then you should register as a business seller on ebay.   That way you won't have to use SD and can set your own postage again.

[timcarr1]

Thank you. It’s all very strange though as I was able to dictate my postage costs for 2 items that went live on Sunday. 

[ebony2330]

So actually the seller comes off worse. The shipping cost also has eBay seller fees deducted from it as in the past, but now you are paying the actual delivery cost and losing money to eBay too. Not only that, for items that have low value adding a packaging costs built into the item is pointless as it makes them look expensive. Nice move - not!

[sandyt2123]

I think eBay are milking both ends of the candle just now with buyer protection and their promotion fees. For example I just sold one of items where the buyer paid postage. So the buyer got charged a "protection fee" and then eBay charged me the promotion fee. OK I agreed to the 12% promotion fee, but why is that fee applied to the postage which the buyer has paid for? OK - it's only 40p - but it all adds up. And then on top of that VAT is applied at 20%. 

So, the item I sold for £33 + £4 postage.  The 12% promotion fee was charged on this, which was then charged at 20% VAT. So the total fee was £5.33.  As they charged a fee for the postage (is this really legal?) they garner 40p and then the VAT man gets another 8p on top! 

I genuinely don't understand how this is legal?