eBay fun

I mentioned eBay the other week, but I thought I'd do a separate blood about their latest scam - the racket that is e-bay appears to have come up with yet another way to rip everyone off.

They've now started charging for postage.  Yes, that's right, if you enter the correct amount of postage on your item, you're now going to be 10% worse off.  Well done you cunts.

They've stated some bullshit about this being to "encourage people to offer free postage" and to "provide better value for buyers".

Now don't get me wrong - there is a giant loophole in the system as was.  If you selected "other courier" then it allows you to enter whatever value you want.  And of course, auctions up to 99p are free, so by putting 99p and then, say, £30 for postage, you could sell quite expensive items and not pay e-bay a penny.

Of course, this is playing the system, and it was something I never engaged in.  Indeed, until Royal Mails more recent price hikes, I was relatively happy to charge less for postage than it actually cost me.

For cheaper items (genuine 99p, not worth much, just want to get rid of it but don't want to throw it away type ones) I would try to get roughly the right postage, but didn't factor in cost of envelope and all that.  I didn't mind too much as 99p auctions are free to list (well, you can do 100 a month free) and then they charge 10% (10p) at the end and PayPal take 4%+20p (25p-ish), so the postage was made up by what was left.

But now let's look at the economics.  The 35p it costs on the item is still the same, but you now pay 10% of postage.  Well, for one of the White Dwarf magazines I've been selling recently, for example, the postage is a staggering £1.40.  So if you put £1.40, you're now effectively being charged 50p total, and suddenly the economics don't make a lot of sense.

But if you increase the cost of the item about 99p you're suddenly going to start being charged the insertion fee, which for a magazine is 10p.

So if you raise the initial price to £1.15 cover the additional fee, now you're being charged 10p to post the auction, and of course the end fees rise a bit too! It's the classic vicious circle that means you end up having to post the thing at £2 to make your money back, but then of course nobody wants to bid!

So why not add the extra on to the postage? Well technically it says that you're not allowed to raise your postage cost to cover this fee!

And what about offering free postage? Have they looked at the cost of postage nowadays? It costs 60 p just to send a letter.  Well if you add 60p to the 35p of charges, that's 95p of a 99p auction!

Oh, and another thing that amused me (if you didn't laugh you'd have to kill somebody) - e-bay now trumpets that they offer a money back guarantee if you're not happy with the item.  Yes, that's right; e-bay offers a money back guarantee on your item.  You've got no say in the matter...