Thank you for your reply.
Yes, combined postage is a hot potato. From what I can gather from reading the forums, SD does a sort of halfway job of combining postage, but only of course if the buyer adds multiple items to their cart before paying.
As you can tell from my posts, I can go on a bit. And, when listing on eBay, my natural inclination is to provide as much 'meta-sale' information as possible (i.e. not just information relating to the item listed) in order to try and avoid potential issues further down the line.
Thankfully, I manage to keep my descriptions fairly lean - plenty of details and photos of the item, but not much beyond that. That's because I know that large chunks of text in a listing explaining how I go about this or that, or asking the buyer to ensure they do x, y and z, will likely be not read, read but ignored, or will put buyers off.
I feel a strong urge to explain/state certain things in my listings, since buyers vary greatly in their knowledge of, and interest in, how things work on eBay, but at the same time I realize that doing so would probably be pointless at best, and counter-productive at worst.
I want to explain in my listings that the BPF is not applied as a result of my choice. I want to explain that SD - where applicable - is down to eBay, not me. I want to point out to the buyer that if they wish to buy two or more of my items at the same time, and have them posted together, then they must add them to their cart and purchase them as one order, but that I have no control over whatever combined postage charge eBay comes up with. I want to let buyers know that eBay may override their or my choice of courier. And so on.
You get my drift. There are so many aspects that I feel I need to explain in case a less clued-up buyer thinks that I am overcharging on posting, or that I am adding this BPF onto my sale price, that I have sent something via RM when they chose Evri, etc. Basically, to say "Don't blame me, these things are down to eBay, and there's nothing I can do about them, as much as I'd like to."
I don't. I resist the desire to overload my listings in a vain attempt at controlling every aspect of the sale (in anticipation of eBay failing in their tight control of things). Instead, I hope and trust that a buyer of one of my items already 'knows the score' (perhaps due to also being a seller themselves), or at least will be reasonable should a problem occur.
For somebody with my mindset, it is very hard to avoid that desire to try and anticipate every possible outcome, and to try to head off negative outcomes by providing information which, if followed, should prevent them from occurring in the first place. It's also difficult to refrain from trying to make potential buyers aware beyond any doubt that certain elements of the sales and despatch processes are not my doing, but eBay's, and that I would love to do things differently, but cannot.
Even before the BPF and SD, I felt that every time I did a listing, eBay was putting me between a rock and a hard place. Now that I'm intending to resume selling (well, listing, anyway), I just know that I'm going to feel even more resentful about it. It's akin to anxiety dreams I've had in which I was telling the truth about something, but absolutely everybody else thought I was lying, no matter how sincere and consistent I was in my efforts to show otherwise (result: utter despair and anguish!). And in those dreams I could perfectly understand why everyone else would think that I was being dishonest, so I couldn't even be angry with them. With eBay, it's a case of wanting to make the buyer aware that certain things are enforced by eBay, but simultaneously realizing that any serious attempt to do so would result in it looking like I had something to hide, which I was trying to cover up with a load of explanations and suggestions. Or looking like I was the world's biggest control freak!
No wonder I'm so tense when I tie myself up in knots like this! I no longer feel like a 'partner' of eBay, that both parties are in a mutually beneficial relationship. I now feel more like a disposal, easily replaceable employee. I know that, whatever I get out of them, they are getting even more out of me. That sense of balance (even if was largely an illusion) has disappeared. I used to enjoy the fact that, largely because I was new to selling, eBay was keeping me on my toes to some degree - I was, and still am, too wet behind the ears to become lazy and complacent in my selling activity. However, that 'being kept on my toes' has taken a sinister turn; I now view eBay with suspicion and mistrust, and that is the main reason I feel the need to watch my footing very carefully. And I worry that even openly criticising them might lead to unfortunate repurcussions, anything from a post being moderated/removed to facing a permanent selling ban.
