Free Postage Or Paid Postage
Over the past year I have been moving my eBay listings to a free postage format within the Uk – at the moment I cannot do this for overseas, but always charge the lowest possible amount. And when I do any consulting with a client I show them all the plus side of why you should do free shipping and then how to do it on eBay. The same goes when I sign up a new Trading Assistant Client. I spend some time explaining the free shipping method and how it can help increase sales for them and how buyers love the free shipping method.
Anyway the other week, I signed up a new client and having gone through the paper work and looked at the items (The had over 400 items they want me to sell), I explained the free shipping method, and you could just feel the tension rise. They did not want this, like this and could not see the benefit to them as a seller. Anyway I took half the items and they were bringing round the rest a few days later as there was a load of boxes.
Next day I was at a conference so did not have time to start my research on Terapeak, but got home to another email from the couple saying how they had gone onto the forums and people were saying free shipping was bad, I sent a quick email back saying I will do my research and get back to them etc.
Anyway fired up eBay and Terapeak and I was shocked, everyone of the items the category I would be selling in had a shipping charge (apart from 3 that did not sell). There was hundreds of them, I flipped to the next category and the same thing happened again. It seems that buyers in the Die Cast Models and Sindy Dolls want to pay shipping charges.
Now do I make a stand and stay with the free shipping on eBay or should I go with the flow ? ……………………………………………Comments please below, but for now I think I will just go with the flow and if the buyers want the shipping as a separate item on the listing that’s what they will have.
Andrew Milburn Is An eBay Consultant Based In Lichfield Staffordshire.




