Random Thoughts – Randocity!

This one will be quick. Today is the day I decided to do a little shopping and hopefully find a bargain online. Once again, foiled. Why? Let’s explore.

Bargain Shopping

I open a browser and go to eBay. I go there because I typically expect to find reasonable prices on most things. Sometimes I can find item prices at substantially reduced prices from Amazon. However, today wasn’t one of those days. I began searching for a specific item and I actually found it. In fact, I found the item at a very reasonable price. I even found the same item on Etsy with this very same listing problem. The problem wasn’t the price for the item, but it was in the shipping costs. I’ll skip mentioning this specific item because it’s not really relevant to the article. I’ve seen this problem on and off for many different items over the years. I’ve finally decided to rant about this problem.

While I can find the item I want at $5.99, I see that the shipping fee is $18.00 (or sometimes higher). What ridiculousness is this? Why am I expected to pay 3x the price of the item in shipping fees? No, I just won’t do that.

Stop These Listings

I don’t know what goes into that $18 cost, but many times I see the item is shipping within the US to a US address. Yes, I realize that FedEx and UPS and even the USPS (to an extent) aren’t always inexpensive for shipping. But, who in their right mind would pay $18 to ship an item that costs $5.99 or less? Not me.

It’s time that Amazon, eBay and Etsy stopped these listings. There is no reason to force would-be buyers to weed through useless listings like these to find someone who’s willing to offer a much more reasonable shipping fee. It would be a simple matter for these sites to decline to list items whose shipping fee exceeds 1x the cost of the item. When it gets to 3x the cost of the item’s price, it’s way too high and a waste of a listing. How many people would really pay that?

Maybe there are some people out there desperate enough to pay that high a cost for shipping, but I’m not one of them. I firmly believe that to be any kind of a deal, the shipping fee should be equal to or lower than the cost of item being listed. If shipping costs exceed the price by more than 1x the item’s price, the listing should be refused. Or, alternatively, make the default search filter remove listings with unnecessarily high shipping fees. For the people really interested in paying high shipping costs for an item, then click a checkbox to enable searching these. Yes, it is time to penalize sellers trying to price gouge through shipping fees.

Shipping Scam and Advice

I do realize that for a time there was a scam going around that sellers would back load the cost of the item into the shipping costs. So, instead of listing the item at a reasonable price, they would list the item for $.99 and then back load the item’s cost into the shipping and handling fee at something like $19.99 or similar. The reason for this is that it makes your product seem low priced until people looked at the shipping costs. It was simply a way to game the search listing sort engine. I’m sure that the seller thought they could trick someone into thinking they’re paying $.99 by not looking at the shipping fee. That’s a very old trick. A trick, in fact, that eBay is so well aware of, all of their listings now tell you shipping costs up front right in the search listing page. As a seller, it does you no good to try and trick the system using such tactics. Instead, it only makes you, as a seller, look like you’re trying to pull a fast one.

If you have something to sell, be honest with your prices and your shipping costs. People prefer honesty over trickery. If you know your shipping and handling is going to end up at $40 for a $5 item, don’t even bother to list the item in that way. It’s not worth it. This also makes you look inept. It would be better to front load your costs into the item itself and then reduce your shipping costs. In fact, you might as well just include the cost for the item plus the shipping costs together and state that it’s free shipping. You’re likely to attract more buyers this way than attempting to back load your costs into the shipping and handling fees.

Ridiculousness Abounds

Over the last several years, I’ve seen more and more of these kinds of shipping ripoff listings. These sites need to crack down on the listings with overpriced shipping and stop them (or, at least, filter them out by default). When I go shopping, I’m always looking for a deal. If as a seller, you can’t provide me with a deal at least as good as stores in my local retail area, then don’t show me those listings at all. Few people would want to pay 3x or higher in shipping costs for a seemingly low priced item. It’s just not a sustainable product offering.

If you have put items up on eBay or Etsy and sold them with a shipping cost 3x higher than the price of the item, sound off in the comments below. I’d like to know if you were able to sell that item or if the listing expired. My guess is that the listing expired. If you did sell the item, I’d like to know if your buyer was satisfied or dissatisfied with what they spent on shipping fees. I’d also like to know how many people returned the item once they found out the actual shipping costs.