Buyer selected a different (more expensive!) shipping options

[blunakat2]

I sold a very inexpensive item. I set the shipping option.

They buyer paid the tiny bid amount and the shipping option I selected. But they were able to select a DIFFERENT shipping option which costs more -- so now if I ship I'm actually out of pocket 2 quid?!

Can they do that? Is that an option -- the buyer can change the shipping method and eBay doesn't add it to the price??? I am seriously FUMING

[xyz307xyz]

Thanks - I thought that was true for standard and signed for postage - I didn't know about tracked nor special delivery etc. @trace-ken can you explain a bit more about "After a bit of investigation I found out that it was because the buyer lives in the hard to reach outskirts of Scotland. ... Royal Mail automatically bump up the cost when they have the address."

? thanks

[zoomingmouse]

If you wanted to, you can exclude buyers from certain areas of the UK until you get to the bottom of the problem.

Under your name, top left, Hello ..... scroll down to account settings.

Then choose 'postage preferences' & then as below 'exclude postal locations' & click 'edit' which will take you to the 2nd screenshot where you can choose if you want to exclude any of the locations.

[trace-ken]

My buyer lived in an area that cost far more to send than the cost I had originally offered. At my end it stated that the buyer had selected another postal service.I looked at the address and it was very remote so the postage I had offered with Yodel was replaced with Royal Mail and the charge had bumped up to over £5. Now whilst Royal Mail do not charge extra to deliver in the U.K., they are often the most expensive and the difference in cost was much higher. As it was so remote, other couriers would not deliver there. So I had no choice if I wanted to send it and would be out of pocket ( I am a private seller, just trying to make some money from my personal items to help pay the bills so it was something I could not afford to absorb). Someone on the forum told me that remote areas were more expensive. I even changed my settings so it would not offer Royal Mail so it doesn’t happen again. I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong as I’m still finding my feet around eBay, especially with all the changes. My understanding is that it can be more expensive to send a parcel to Northern Ireland with Royal Mail (it was 6 months ago and it may have been Northern Ireland and not the highlands). I am just very wary now and feel the buyer should be warned if postage will cost more and  pay for any extra postage costs. I also find that simple delivery is always more expensive than what I am offered in custom delivery.

[trace-ken]

Yes, you are correct, but Royal Mail charges more than most other options on eBay for parcels. Other couriers don’t offer services to some areas and the only option left is to pay a higher amount with Royal Mail.

[oliviaowen77]

Thankyou for taking the time to reply - I can confirm that Royal Mail has
taken the item at their standard price - however the extra amount has come
out of my pocket ! If this wasn’t bad enough it doesn’t look good for e-bay
in terms of a promise to escalate immediately & get back to me - which they
haven’t done ! Also their advisors on the phone don’t seem to have a clue
as different areas was never mentioned- I had to spend hours extra trying
to figure it out myself ! Putting it simply eBay were useless - my seller
rating has gone down also due to having to cancel & relist the item twice
as I honestly couldn’t work out what the problem was - I also am fully
aware that eBay intend to do simple delivery only in the near future &
again it was one of reasons I’d adjusted my original postage & to also
encourage buyers with cheaper post on cheaper items yet the hours it has
taken to figure out for myself the drop in seller ratings - the packaging &
the fuel cost to go to post office & all the extra grief doesn’t come close
to a good reason for being out of pocket ! EBay seems to be trying to hard
& failing to keep up with other seller platforms - I’m seriously thinking
of just using one if them
ThAnkyou for your time
Many thanks
O Owen

[chery-lambe]

I am in the same boat!! I sold an item tonight which was advertised with my own postage which was £4.95. It seems the buyer has been forced to use simple delivery at checkout at a cost of £9 !! plus £1.80 VAT so thats £10.80 for a standard tracked service when mine is next day delivery!! It just doesnt make any sense at all??Basically this is hijacking and extortion ebay are treating buyers and sellers as fools which we are clearly not!!

[edwardian-dreams]

That’s the price for 10-20 kg parcel according to eBay 

*bleep* is going on 

[oliviaowen77]

Sorry to hear this as it’s beyond frustrating and there’s not much you can
do about it as it also affect your celebrating. It’s just another way for
them to get more money out of people as they’re trying to keep up with
other selling forums and it’s just not working

[trace-ken]

The only options I can think you could do are
1. Explain to the customer by message that you can send the item but they will need to give you the address and you will need to send it yourself outside eBay then mark as received and paid (having never done this I don’t know what happens to the postage as it should come to you)
2. Cancel the order but best practice is that you message them to let them know. Be apologetic as they can still leave a review.
3. Relist the item at the price you have sold it for and custom the delivery (you need to go in the weights box and at the bottom of the list is a tab to customise the postage you wish to send it by. I thought it was hard to find when I wanted to custom) Cancel the original order and ask the customer to purchase the new listing (buy it now) again, but if their refund is not immediate they will probably ask to wait until they receive it.
But yes, it is a huge shock and one that taught me to custom the postage. I cancelled the order when it happened to me as it would have left me out of pocket.

[oliviaowen77]

Just to confirm, this was with custom postage, apparently yodel and all the
others charge more for certain rival areas of which I don’t know which ones
they are and of course until the buyer purchases. No one knows whether it
will be over area so you quote the standard, £2,69 price. Which is what it
would and should be yet. It charges you £6 something when you okay button
for the postage label I thought it was a mistake and upon first read and it
says the bias selected it. Luckily she was very amicable 3 relisting by it
so now’s later and it became apparent that she wasn’t selecting anything
other than the standard postage. I then spent hours on the phone to eBay
and they didn’t even hint along the lines of this! In fact, they kept
telling me to relist and to charge more postage, and I explained to him
that the items was a cheap item. He told me he was going to escalate it
this weeks ago and I’ve not heard from them since. So basically I was using
second-class Royal mail for £3.90 on items that were less so I thought I
was doing good by changing them to £2.69 via yodel and as the result did
sell the item yet I then had to out of my own pocket. Send it Royal mail
which covers all areas, regardless if it’s revolved or not and you can’t
even rectify on the system because it’s only when the person purchases the
item. It’s obvious where they live. You also don’t get to look up which are
rural so you’ve no way of knowing and you innocently pressed the button to
purchase the label and before you know it you’ve spent a fortune on a label
is no use to you because you don’t want to pay three times the amount to
send the item then you have to go back to the drawing board and purchase
the Royal mail one by the time I’ve done this you’ve paid for your item
double and that’s what I had to do, but it’s not like you can go through
your items and suss out which ones like I say, as you don’t know the area
think you can do is maintain the Royal mail postage which is a locked and
people don’t want to pay that on items that are less

[trace-ken]

I completely agree, the new smart postage is not seller friendly. You can go into you settings and block certain areas in the U.K. I ended up doing that because Northern Ireland, although part of the U.K. seemed to be more expensive also. Royal Mail is the only service that charges the same wherever it sends to in the U.K. (according to Google but I never use them due to the price) but they are so much pricier. I learnt the lesson myself but as many of my items are just £2.50 I decided it wouldnt happen again. I’m not sure if it is on this thread but someone else posted the page you can do this but as far advisor can remember it was in settings then postage settings) . EBay used to be so much easier to sell on before these changes IMO.

[oliviaowen77]

You’re right, I did read that you could change the postage settings in
settings, and when I attempted to, I couldn’t find anything on it I even
tried to go through to help Paige. I thought the advisor on the phone line
would help me, but he was completely unaware, and my knowledge has not
escalated the issue, like he told me in fact they’ve not contacted me about
it since !

[brainuk]

If you click on your username in top left corner, go to account settings. The in new window you will see Postage preferences about halfway down. Click on EDIT along that line and you can toggle RM on/off and EVRI on/off. If you have at least one braincell, you will toggle EVRI to off and they are as much use as a chocolate ironing board.

[bluebellfressia]

If you click on your username in top left corner, go to account settings. Then in the new window you will see Postage preferences about halfway down.  As @brainuk  said above.  

Then Exclude Postage Locations.

I have excluded all these ......

Channel Islands

Isle of Wight

Isle of Man

Scilly Isles

Scottish Highlands

Scottish Islands

Northern Ireland

As these are the areas that requires extra postage.  With certain couriers.

Unless someone can tell me different.  I would be interested to know.

When this happened before Simple Delivery was brought in.  I was able to change the postage to a different courier than what was in my listing, to make it cheaper. 

[oliviaowen77]

😂😂👍

[jhothersall2003]

You can change it back to your choice, I don't remember how but I did
manage it,
kind regards Jess

[sooze5123]

i had something similar recently: the Buyer appeared to dictate which courier would be used; Evri in this case; I live in rural Wales and would have to make a 50+ mile trip to drop off the parcel.

I had made it clear in my listing the the postage would be 7.00 (first royal mail medium parcel and could send second classes for less).

Why do Ebay/Buyers appear to dictate the postage charges without knowing the actual costs involved??

[xyz307xyz]

Have you turned Evri off? https://www.ebay.co.uk/ship/prf/simpledelivery as it seems to have been there on the kettle you just sold.

Buyers don't choose Evri or RM in Simple Delivery. Ebay does.

And in Simple Delivery ebay states the postage charge and provides a label for you to use accordingly. 

[bingopy]

Best solution would be to take away the option for Evri. I personally detest them as they are one of if not the shoddiest excuse for a delivery company that employs any joe public to deliver the items sent through them.

A high percentage of items that I sent via them didn't turn up and when you've got a courier who just can't be bothered to deliver will mark it as delivery attempted and more than likely no re-delivery attempt will be made... it just goes straight to their auction house for sale!

Shock horror you may think but it's been widely reported. The last straw for me was not receiving a £300 item from a seller but the tracking showed it at a hub which was literally around the corner from where I worked so I went there and the first thing that struck me as incredulous were the number of cars in the parking area with people sorting packages off the tarmac and then throwing them into their vehicles.

If a package sent via this company has even the smallest of tears in the packaging they reject it and stick it into a cage for returns but they don't get returned... do they! but you can buy it back at auction! yay!