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As a collectibles seller, often times I’m buying the very same sort of items on eBay that I also sell. It’s like flipping houses except that the house was originally listed as a car. (Collectibles sellers know what I mean. ;-))
But one of my biggest pet peeves as a buyer is when I get something from a seller that is shipped, well, stupidly.
I’m not just talking about items that arrived poorly packaged or damaged. I’m talking about the person who goes to the post office and buys a Ready Post box that is the same size as the free Priority Mail box… and then ships it Priority Mail anyway. The person who takes an item that weights 3 ounces and ships it in a Medium Flat Rate box so that you’re paying $10 of shipping when you should only be paying under $3. I’m talking about the person who ships the item in a box 5 times too large for the item increasing the weight by unnecessary pounds.
In other words, I’m talking about when a seller does something stupid about how they ship the item that ends up making it cost more than it should… because, as the buyer, I’m the one paying for their mistake. When I ship the very same action figure it always ships for around $5 so it steams me to have to pay $15 for you to ship it to me. Especially when I know that, even with lots of padding and packing for shipping, it only weights 14 ounces.
From a DSR standpoint, this sort of situation leaves me torn. Because they shipped it the way they did, shipping was much higher than usual. But with that extra heavy box, that cost ineffective Flat Rate box, etc that is literally what they paid… they aren’t trying to pull anything or make extra profit. But, as the buyer, I’m still annoyed. I paid much more than I should have on shipping and, when it boils down to it, it was the seller’s fault. But is it fair to ding their shipping cost stars because of stupidity or, to put it a little more nicely, their shipping inexperience?
Granted, this may only bother me because I’m a seller and I know more than is normal about shipping. But it still irks me to have to pay extra for someone else’s mistakes.
What do you think?
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I don’t know how to remedy it, but I’ve been in the same situation. I don’t know if it would be worth it to try to educate the seller and possibly help them with future sales or whether they would take it the wrong way and get upset. At any rate, it’s a crummy situation to be in as a buyer.
When I was a seller I had shipping efficiently down to a science. I know how annoying it is to receive an package that was shipped for more than necessary so I made sure none of my buyers ever had to worry about that.
One time I had to ship something to Argentina and found myself about 1.5 ounces into the next pound of weight. I was able to make small cuts in the box flaps until I got the weight down to exactly the pound. Saved several dollars.
I will freely cop to doing the same thing! I have trimmed many a box just to get myself under a certain weight! 🙂
Glad I’m not the only one who does this 🙂
Glad I’m not the only one who does this 🙂 I once peeled and trimmed packing tape with a pair of nail clippers at the post office (not my regular one) when the counter guy insisted my package was 0.1 ounces over the one-pound limit and thus required the whole next pound’s worth of postage.