I am going to be selling on eBay soon. First time in 20 plus years. If something I sell priority mail is lost by the post office and a claim is filed. The item is covered up to $100 automatically. If the item is never recovered who gets refunded by the post office ? Buyer or seller?
Ebay will figure out some way to rip off the seller even if you give the product away for free. Nothing like the way it used to be.
If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity,
nothing else matters.
This. I have an item that I have been trying to sell local for $75. Not much interest. This item pretty consistently sells for $100+ on eBay. However I’m hesitant to list because not only the fees are way up from what they use to be but ebay is very much pro buyer these days and from what I hear some have started to take advantage of that. Although that bucket might be small in the grand scheme of how many probably use eBay.Originally Posted by CatFan
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yeah, not trying to derail your thread op but I've completely stopped selling on Ebay. I do WAY better on Facebook marketplace now. Ebay has completely abandoned small sellers.
onus is always on the shipper
One other thing, you insure for 100.00 you will need proof of that by having a receipt available. I was told that from the post office management. If the item is lost or shipped to a different address, shipper is responsible for either replacement or refund.
I’ve been selling on eBay for more than 20 years
Under the scenario you have laid out
If you ship it w/tracking and insurance via USPS and it goes missing
(Good chance of that these days)
It is up to the buyer to file a claim stating they have not received the package
I have seen buyers file the day it was scheduled to be there and I’ve seen other file a week or two later
Once a claim is filed as long as you continue to communicate with the buyer via the open claim process it with continue to remain open until the buyer asks ebay to step in and resolve the issue (I seen this go on for days or sometimes weeks)
Once a buyer requests eBay to step in they will refund the buyer their full payment and the case is closed
As for the insurance you are the one that purchased the insurance so you are the one that receives the payment
Unfortunately the USPS insurance process can take far longer than you would like and the USPS will try its best to get you to wait weeks or more just to see if it shows up
Here is the big problem:
If you have refunded the buyer and the package finally gets to the buyer before the USPS issues you an insurance payment ebay will do nothing more than send a message to the buyer requesting them to return the item
It is a roll of the dice if the buyer is a decent person and either pay for it or return it
Your best options are
Ship via Priority mail it gets lost a lot less than first class packages
Ship via UPS they have a better record and insurance claims are handled quicker
I’ve seen first class packages take up to 5 or 6 weeks to get to its destination so if this happens try your best to keep the buyer talking and reassure them it will work out
Last edited by MichAngler; 10-26-2020 at 08:59 AM.
"The handicapped angler"
It's 50 or 100, from their site. Good luck getting them to pay the claim. Almost impossible. Something is always your fault. I sell a ton of stuff. Part of the game. Also, they reimburse the buyer right away (debit your paypal), then it will take weeks for you to get your money. 6-8
Funny story we had a post office sub in for our regular driver, he backed into our building causing signifigant cosmetic damage to the siding etc. he offered to pay for damage however we choose the proper route and we called the post office to report incident they sent out the local postmaster to take pics and file the claim, claim was filed and submitted.. called every month for about a year to our local postmaster who said hadnt heard anything and the government works very slow... this went on for 12 months then postmaster called me one day maybe 14th month and told me post office was denying the claim as too much time had past.. LOL they took pics and filed claim same day as I received the claim # from postmaster.. so basically they rode a year out then said claim expired due to how much time passed. so your right good luck getting them to admit wrongdoing and pay any sort of $$ out. On a side note our local postmaster offered to pay it out of her own pocket, We told her not going to take her money as it is the Postal service that owes me the money not her. ( nice of her to try and step up however and told her we appreciated it.)
Last edited by KandKKustomz; 10-26-2020 at 09:08 AM.
I dont get all the people complaining about ebay fees. They charge 10% and if you use paypal then they charge 3%. Perfectly reasonable when you don't have to meet up with random folks (like if you use craigslist of facebook marketplace) and you reach an insane amount of people that want to buy your stuf. I sell a lot on ebay and I will gladly pay the 10% they charge if I don't have to take time out of my day for tire kickers and meeting random folks and putting up with their crap. One trip a week to the post office is much easier even if it costs me 13% of my sale!!
Fixed that for you.
The Post Office refunds the person who paid for the postage. Why would they give the money to someone who has fiscally given USPS nothing?
Note on this
The USPS does not have insurance
A side effect of the post office getting the exemption to not register their vehicles (No license plate) it also allowed them to not insure the vehicles
So they pay all claims out of the general postal fund and do anything and everything they can to avoid paying claims letting them get away with crap like this
Also they have a policy and part of the contract with employees that if they are involved in an accident or accidents within a set period of time they can be fired so she was trying to avoid having that on her record
"The handicapped angler"
I have pretty much stopped using paypal, for selling items. It offers NO seller protection from someone that will simply lie and say they never got it. Paypal will swipe your money. This page requires it, so to comply I clearly state a cash price and a paypal price, which is higher to cover the additional insurance and fees.
UPS is doing flat rate now so making things easier to ship,, and as mentioned their insurance is better.
Some items you do have to put on ebay if you want to move them, like higher end saddles,, but the fees are quite extreme, and IIRC they also require paypal.
I have cruised facebook market place and it worked for me selling big items I would never ship, but buying I find the search engine blows. I am trying to buy alfalfa... I search "alfalfa" select a radius,, and get a gazzillion generic hay adds that arnt alfalfa.
I disagree a bit Here. If you’ve had a ton on transactions with them, they will factor that in. I had it happen personally. Was accused of something, I didn’t do. It was totally nothing I had done before. They sided with me.
As things are now I refuse to use USPS for any shipping. USPS has massive problems right now priority, mail is not even making it on time can take 2 weeks.
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We personally or business have has zero delays with any shipping. USPS, UPs or FedX. We don't use e-bay so can't comment. We are in TN and receive a lot of mail from Texas and California.
I sold over a 100 items on eBay over past year or two - only one was lost. now I only get insurance if it is an expensive item and send everything USPS
Sold an Item on Ebay right when COVID was slowing the post office down to super slow speeds in May, sent the item. A week after it was supposed to be there the seller requested a refund. I sent him refund for $100 knowing I only had insurance for $50 but after 31 days the package started moving and finally made it to the sellers house. He was a great guy and sent me a venmo for $100.
You're forgetting the listing fees for small sellers. And in order to sell, you'll likely have to offer free shipping whcih is another 5-10%. On competitive items, you can't just raise your price to cover the costs either.
In the end, sell it locally if you can. If not, list it and take the hit. I find my fees to be around 20% when the smoke clears.
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