sundhinedior67 wrote: Postage isn't just tracking it's all the other things
required like packaging, printing, paper, fuel.
Yes they're all items the seller is aware of and must factor in to the cost of selling But though "packaging, printing, paper, fuel" might form part of "postage" in a seller's mind, they aren't.
According to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), you can charge for the actual uninflated cost of postage, but not charge for packing or packagng (unless you state "...and packing", which eBay does not) nor handling nor admin costs which includes fuel and transport - basically nothing beyond the true cost of the actual postage.
But, and it's a big but!, those are ASA guidelines, not a legal requirement; and not enforceable in general practice, only in serious individual cases such as persistent blatant overcharging.
Like many things in commerce or industry it's done by guidance-led convention. So when certain sellers push the boundaries, either by mistake (believing it's natural to add handling/fuel into postage and still call it just "postage") or deliberately (to see if they can get away with it) it can often raise more consumer indignation than you'd think justified because it's against convention, yet their behaviour is legal. Confusing!
Specifically re sellers' fuel costs the ASA annoyingly doesn't explicitly state these can be ADDED as separate charges (but as above, definitely not INCORPORATED into the postage charge). Instead, these factors are, by convention, incorporated elsewhere usually in an item's price. That's what consumers have come to expect, so they don't expect a charge called postage to be anything other than the true cost of postage.
The ASA's focus isn't apparently on regulating details nor enforcing general practices. Instead it seems to work by producing guidelines and using influence to ensure transparency and prevent misleading pricing practices. It only takes action in serious individual cases. So my take from the ASA is that if you want to charge a buyer outside an item's price, for printing, packaging, fuel etc, then you should ADD a charge for that.
Many professional firms do just that (add a charge) e.g. solicitors, insurers, conveyancers, accountants. Cannily it's an "admin" fee, and can be upwards of £50, charged to every client for what the fee used to be called: "photocopying, telephone and postage". The amount of those costs would vary between clients so it's just a levy. When I first worked for solicitors it was called a fee for "photocopying, telephone costs and postage" and seeing it itemised like that led some clients to question it hoping for a reduction e.g. "but you only photocopied 3 pages".
