Saturday, July 22, 2006

and ebay finish what royal mail started...

I havent added a new entry in over a week which is terrible but its just been too hot, hayfever has been too bad and i've not really had anything to say...

Next month Royal Mails Pricing in Proportion comes into effect, which, in theory, is a great idea - the theory was that it was costing RM more to deliver a large box which was the same weight as a letter so they were going to charge more for size as well as weight...

BUT..

as with all things, they have gone to extremes - their ideas of 'bigger' are very strange -

  • <=C5 and <=5mm thick is a letter
  • between 5mm-25mm and/or <=C4 is a large letter
  • >C4 or >25mm is a packet and will cost £1 to post up to 100g.

I have no idea how it costs them more to deliver things with these differences.. its a joke! Then to cap it all, Ebay have had the brilliant idea of increasing their shop inventory listing fees by 300% & FVF's to 10% for up to £4.99 and cutting visibility and changing it so cheapest items show up first in shop searches... so i'm shutting my ebay shop - its hardly cost effective at the moment but brings in new customers so was handy but now it would actually be running at a loss so its not worth it any more.

A lot of ebay shop owners are really upset at this and lots of them have already shut their shops... the ones that are left are planning a one day listing strike, if there is a whole day where no-one lists anything that will show ebay exactly who they make their money from and may teach them better customer relations. Small business dont treat their customers shabbily cos they cant afford to but for big businesses it seems to be mandatory!

posted by Anita @ 10:21 AM

2 Comments:

At 9:06 PM, Blogger Debbie @ The Shabby Bungalow said...

I was really shocked at the new Ebay prices too Anita - thought it was bad enough that the prices were going up. I've got an Ebay shop too and I don't know what to to do anymore as I have always kept my postage really low and I sometimes send 5 things in an envelope and charge only 70p p and p - won't be able to do that any more. How people can make a proper living out of selling on Ebay is beyond me :-(

 
At 9:40 PM, Blogger Paula said...

I'm shutting my shop in 3 weeks time as well *humph*

Like you say, lucky if you make a profit on a good day, but never again springs to mind!

 

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