Apologies if this is in the wrong forum.
I'm trying to find the term that describes the scenario in the title above. I see it so frequently, particularly on eBay, that I suspect there must be a financial word for it.
Please help if you know the word or phrase.
Ebaying.
3pl
parasite
i hate when people list their thing on ebay for like $1, and then charge $300 for shipping
that is ok… as long as the item is worth/usually $300
would be crap if the item was worth $1 and charged you $300 shipping
Disagree. If the item breaks during shipping or within the warranty period, you'll only get $1 back.
Sellers do use similar stunts to avoid warranty claims.
ahhh i was kidding but you make an excellent point…
That's not true. A claim on Ebay refunds both the purchase and the shipping paid.
@plmko: I gave Ebay as an example in the main post, but I didn't mean to limit it to Ebay. I've seen "cheap item with expensive shipping" on Amazon and on plenty of other websites as well.
For example, it's common to see "$10 price +$90 shipping" when looking for textbooks on bookselling websites.
There's not really much difference between this and adding the postage cost to the item then offering "free shipping". It's just shifting the price.
I think at one stage people could get away with paying only the eBay fee for $1 item but now they charge the same fee for the postage cost so I'm not sure why anyone would do this anymore.
Edit: Russ makes a good point if a problem arises
In some cases, I think it's because a seller is temporarily out of stock, but don't want to change the listed price (perhaps because of price trackers?). They will go out of their way to obtain the item if you're willing to "make it worth their time".
But in most cases, I suspect it's just so Google searches show a deceptively low price.
They are trying to optimise the search engine and psychology of buyers. With thousands of similar items, you then search for cheapest items, hence rewarded by having cheaper item to get top of the list. Searching by total delivered cost also gets you to the top if the total amount is cheap. As seller you save ebay costs and make more sales. Will need to change the model to get ebay sellers to change their habits
to get ebay sellers to change their habits
I think that will be impossible, as the technique obviously works. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a taught method in "Ebay selling 101" webpages and courses.
Unless you mean changing Ebay, in a similar way to Australia's GST legislation, so that the "all-inclusive price" (i.e. including shipping) must have greater prominence than the item price. That may also require changing Google, as they also want to show the lower price in their advertisements.
I can actually see a business opening here, for a website that scrapes Ebay, Amazon and AliExpress, and lists "all-inclusive pricing" for searched items. Perhaps such a site already exists?
Postage pirate
The finance term is cross-subsidisation. Pricing one item below value and the other above value.
That makes sense, but perhaps we should create a word for the more specific situation I described.
How about "shippingjacking" or a more general (but also more vague) "price stacking"?
Just go with 'shipstacking'
I think that's what they call loading containers onto container ships.
Doesn’t it just cancel out? Say if you charge $20 for shipping but it really costs $10, you make $10.
So if you sell an item you bought (say costing $50) for $70 dollars free shipping you made $10, But if you sell it for $50 + $20 you still make $10.
The difference is that when you are searching for the item, Google will usually display the price without shipping. So people may not notice, and get ripped off.
Lol what are you selling?
I've never sold anything on eBay. I just get annoyed when I want to buy something, Google shows me a good price, and only after I've gone to the website do I find out the true price is much higher - often AFTER I've been forced to create an account with them.
I've also had elderly relatives caught out by this practice.
Sendle
If it's anything to do with eBay there's only one word that fits all situations. It's called 'Scamming'.
The scam works by Ebay saying you paid $1 for product and can get your $1 refunded. They say it makes no sense for the seller to refund you the cost of delivery of $300.
I thought there might be a scam hoping people with Ebay Plus would buy, not caring about shipping costs, and then hope the customer doesn't bother to return the $1 item.
Is there a word for selling items at cost, while making profit from shipping?
Yes, unscrupulous.
Fleecing
Free real estate
(im referring to the meme, please dont neg me)
Sounds similar to car prices with "plus on-road costs".
Where have you seen free real estate? 419 scams?
Reverse broden
No local pickup.
Statistics show that most people are bad at maths.
The bestselling item isn't based on the price but rather the perception of what is a good deal. The list below shows how people shop from bestselling to low sales.
It gets worse when people start combining s&h.
Sauces
Compiled data from 10000s of sales.
No