Posted by I don’t often decide to cancel an Ebay order, but sometimes the buyer’s address isn’t worth the risk. I had a listing for a white Xbox One controller (quantity of 4) with free shipping. One sold within a few hours to a buyer in Oregon. The next buyer was located in Brooklyn, NY. The problem was that the address was an apartment building. Having recently experienced a buyer who lived in an apt. and claimed that they couldn’t find their package at their mailbox after it was delivered, I was afraid to fulfill the order. I decided to ask the buyer if they had a secure mailbox. They said they had a mailbox that required a key. Next, I asked them if an 8x6x4 box would fit in their mailbox. They said it wouldn’t and would need to pick it up at the post office. I told the buyer that I would need to cancel the order in that case. Luckly, they understood and didn’t put up a fuss.
Since Ebay doesn’t allow you to exclude certain address types, I will be cancelling orders that I determine to be a shipping risk. In big cities there are a lot of people who live in apartments. But I’d rather not take a chance on a package not getting to them and me having to refund their money. The remaining 3 controllers were purchased later the same day by a pawn shop in Arizona. I don’t mind selling to pawn shops or thrift stores. I have sold several controllers to stores in the past. Sometimes they send an unsolicited offer, but most of the time my prices are reasonable enough for them to make a few bucks on the item.
Another item that sold this month was a women’s winter coat. I had it listed for $38 plus shipping. Since I saw a lot of similar coats on Ebay, I decided to promote the listing. I noticed that the buyer had to pay $25 shipping which I thought was unusually high for a 2 Lb. package. It turns out that the package dimensions that I entered were larger in one dimension than needed. By changing the height from 7″ to 5″, the cost was significantly less, even after bumping the weight to 3 Lb. When this happens, I usually send the buyer a partial refund, which is what I did in this case. I found out that a promoted listing takes a percentage of the total cost (item + shipping). Since the shipping was unusually high, the promoted listing fee ($5.52) took a big chunk of my profit. After the refund, Ebay refunded $0.65 of the fee. I guess $4.87 was a reasonable fee for a faster sale. But you need to be careful using promoted listings on items with a low profit margin. In the end, my total profit on the coat was only $5.81. Include the transaction fees and Ebay made a larger profit than I did!