[quote="Sea-to-sky-games"]

The seller can't be held accountable for buyer mistakes just as buyers can't be held accountable for seller mistakes (or bad entrepreneurial decisions). [quote]

Actually Sea, Beyond is quite correct.  That statement is entirely wrong.  Sellers are often accountable for buyer mistakes (and in fact the business I used to work in had cost annalysis for just that).  The reverse is also true, buyers quite frequently are held accountable for seller mistakes...whether its in increased cost or service time.   Happens all the time.

As a seller, you take the lumps as a cost of doing business or you risk alienating buyers.  As a buyer you take the initiative to recoup some of your losses by doing what is neccessary to hound the seller (hoping they will count on your return business), or you cut your losses and move on.  Most sellers (smart ones that is) want at least a certain percentage to come back to hound them, and do a decent to exceptional job at pleasing the customer to maintain loyalty or spread word of mouth.

Those sellers who use the good nature or assumption of the buyer (for example the shipping cost listed as has been discussed), and take advantage by gouging, will eventually reap what they have sowed.

Sea, your argument is that if extra non shipping related costs are included with s/h then the final auction cost will be lower and conversely that if the s/h is lower then the final auction cost will be higher.

I think the biggest problem that you have with trying to prove this statement is to show that most buyers are intelligent enough to really take this into account for each auction they bid on.  If you are trying to say that every buyer will go and do comparative shopping on Ebay to find the actual cost of shipping for each particular item they are interested in and then determine what a going rate for that item is and finally bid accordingly based on these two numbers - then I think you are crazy!  This idealism really sounds like someone who has taken a couple of economics courses and learned to use a spreadsheet.  No offence but in the real world textbook models such as this just don't work.

Since it should be obvious that 99% of buyers do not go through this process, the responsibility then falls onto sellers.  Auctions are set up with two parts: the sale of the item and shipping.  Ebay has made it clear that  fees associated with the sale of the item such as listing the item, etc are included in the final price of the item and they can not be passed onto the buyer.  The second part is shipping and handling associated with shipping.   

When you go into a store and buy something, do you expect to be charged extra fees such a couple of bucks to pay the cashier to take your money or the janitor to clean up the mess your shoes brought in, or for having someone help you?  How many times have you even left a tip for  these service people?  My guess would be NONE!  What I don't understand in your argument is why do you feel types of fees are legitimate in an Ebay auction?  They are clearly not fees related to shipping.

I never suggested they could.  Try to pay attention, please.  You're missing some really high-quality stuff.  

I said that sellers aren't permitted to take undue advantage of buyers.  You certainly can and should charge reasonable shipping and handling fees.  Reasonable.  It's not an entirely subjective term, as you've implied.

We all know there is a distinction between the reasonable and the outrageous.  We don't agree on precisely where that line is drawn, but we all agree within about an order of magnitude.  A $100 s/h fee on a single module is outrageous.  A $10 one might be reasonable.  A $1 one is generous.  Therefore, a $100 s/h fee is taking undue advantage, whether explicitly stated in the auction or not.

I never disagreed with this. I apologize if I misconstrued your argument. However, it is hard to imagine that the general impression on this thread is not that sellers should be responsible for buyer mistakes (as indicated in a host of other posts).. hence my comment.

Clarkie seems to be summing it up well . . . in the REAL World sellers are frequently accountable for buyer mistakes.  If someone buys the wrong size outfit, tries it on, returns it to the store and asks for a refund . . . the store takes a loss.  Maybe they can restock it again and sell it for the same price . . . odds are not.  Plus they have to staff a person(s) to take returns and all sorts of other paperwork, expenses involved with it.

This accountability is voluntary.. and they do so to increase profits and stay competitive with other firms. [Yes they take occassional losses, but overall they make tons more by having a strong reputation as being easy on costumers].

There is certainly no law that states seller need to refund someone for buying something that doesn't fit et al.

You do see online sellers be accountable for mistakes ("oh, this item was in far worse shape than I thought").. but again, it is voluntary. It is not that they must, but in some cases it makes good business sense to do so.

I don't know any firm in the world (by my limited knowledge) that would refund the cost of buying something because they forgot to factor in the shipping and handling charge.

deimos3428 wrote:Nortel.  IBM.  Samsung.  Dell.  (Just naming firms I see on my desk, actually.)  Any sufficiently large and reputable firm has an "If you're not completely satisfied for any reason..." guarantee.  As well, most firms this large will invoice.  There's no refunding involved at all on such returns.

Smaller firms don't have the luxury of being so accomodating.  But the customer is always right -- even if they are stupid.  You shake your head, negotiate and come to an agreement, or you lose the sale and quite possibly the customer.

Heh, some real world applications coming into this theory driven conversation,  imagine that.

Just to add something else on to this "conversation" is the fact that although we do live in a capitalist based society and governement, we do not live under a system of pure capitalism, in case our new postered hasn't discovered this yet.  Therefore, all those pure capitalist theories that continually keep getting cited as reality suddenly come into question for those exact same reasons....

Nortel.  IBM.  Samsung.  Dell.  (Just naming firms I see on my desk, actually.)  Any sufficiently large and reputable firm has an "If you're not completely satisfied for any reason..." guarantee.  As well, most firms this large will invoice.  There's no refunding involved at all on such returns.

Smaller firms don't have the luxury of being so accomodating.  But the customer is always right -- even if they are stupid.  You shake your head, negotiate and come to an agreement, or you lose the sale and quite possibly the customer.

Absolutely. I wasn't referring to "satisfaction or your money back" policies.. which of course can apply to anything.

But specific to the question at hand -- overlooking s/h costs -- you might find a couple mega sellers being able to do this, the vast majority would not. Hence my comment.

Sea-to-sky-games wrote:
This accountability is voluntary.. and they do so to increase profits and stay competitive with other firms. [Yes they take occassional losses, but overall they make tons more by having a strong reputation as being easy on costumers].

There is certainly no law that states seller need to refund someone for buying something that doesn't fit et al.

You do see online sellers be accountable for mistakes ("oh, this item was in far worse shape than I thought").. but again, it is voluntary. It is not that they must, but in some cases it makes good business sense to do so.

I don't know any firm in the world (by my limited knowledge) that would refund the cost of buying something because they forgot to factor in the shipping and handling charge.

As a buyer, I'm more intelligent than most I guess....I ALWAYS figure in the shipping/handling charges into my bidding.  STS is right....the lower the shipping/handling fees, the higher I will bid.  Conversely, the less money the seller will make!  Because a lot of scumbags count on buyer ignorance to jack up shipping.
  I'm on the fence about this.  I know when I'm a BUYER I pay close attention, yet when I'm a SELLER I know some buyers of my items have little clue and sometimes pay little attention to my very exact pricing structure.  For example, it very explicitly states the shipping price per item on every single item in my store.....yet I still get buyers that complain "Hey, you are charging $5 shipping, a priority envelope is only $4.05, I know I already bought the item and entered into a contract with you, but how about if I just send $4.05 shipping instead?"    Well, ok, they don't complain in exactly those words, butyou get the picture.  Honestly, I would rather not even make the sale than have people like this buy my items.  
  When the shipping/handling charges are EXPLICITLY STATED in the description I have little sympathy for any buyer, from the greenest newbie to the most grizzled of veteran ebayers.  When you go to a restaurant, and the prices are written in bold type on the menu, you do NOT get to haggle with the waiter/owner over the price because of the reason "I didn't really read the menu, I just wanted to eat the lobster because the picture was pretty and I was hungry."  The buyer MUST bear a large measure of responsibility....unfortunately, as a nation (the US) we are turning into a bunch of "Hey, no one is responsible, it's nobody's fault, everyone is a winner, etc" weinies.  This is why children are growing up today totally divorced from their bad decisions (driving drunk, blowing off school, etc) and grow up to be irresponsible, idiotic adults who feel they are not to blame for anything and should never be punished.  If an ADULT can't be held accountable to read a FRIKKEN DESCRIPTION before they buy something, I wish them all the misery they can handle.    Look, when I was younger, you screwed up, you accepted the consequences.  Sure I made some stupid bids on overpriced crap when I first got on Ebay....guess what, I paid for the stuff and learned my lesson, and moved on.  As a seller, I have done my job of supplying the buyer with all the information they need to complete a sale at my ebay store; if they can't do THEIR job and read a few paragraphs, I have no sympathy.
  Ok, just to blow your minds, I'm going to reverse field:  As a seller, there is also a responsibility to not cheat the buyer's expectaions, to make a newbies first few buys as painless and as enjoyable a situation as possible.  Why?  Because newbies don't always pay attention. Also, they can become good, loyal customers if you let them.  There have been many times when someone has goofed up when buying from me, I've eaten the difference on many a shipping mistake or taken a return from someone who inadvertandly bought the wrong item. Just recently, a buyer from Australia misunderstood the shipping on a set of books, and only paypal'd me half the money.....it was TWICE what they thought.  They were mad at themselves (nice at least they didn't blame me!!!) and we worked it out, I ended up forgoing any fees or further payment and shipped at flat cost (and lost a few bucks) to make the experience more enjoyable for the buyer so their first experience on Ebay wouldn't be a kick in the chops and a neg.
 I've worked retail.  The adage "The customer is always right" is horseshit.  You realize that when the day after Christmas at the music store groups of people walk in clutching garbage bags full of dozens of HEAVILY used cds saying they just got them the day before and want their money back or THEY'RE GOING TO CALL THE COMPANY AND GET YOU FIRED!!! (yawn).  On the other hand, I would do everything to the limits of my authority to help out music buyers who were truly needing help, clueless, or at least appeared to be very interested in music and had made a mistake.  The same goes for my business now.  The quickest way to get a block, neg and a kick in the nads is to bow up to me and act bad ass. That's why I work for myself...I can tell you to go eff yourself and not worry about my bottom line or have to answer to some pansy ass manager that is afraid of offending anyone no matter how asinine they are.  The quickest way to get everything worked out in your favor is to admit you made a mistake, ask what can I do to help you out, and admit your lack of knowledge or the fact you didn't fully read the description of my items and that's what led to the problem.
 So I guess what I'm talking about is that there has to be an assumption (whether true or not) that the buyer is not a total knothead and at least takes the time to read instructions/descriptions before buying on ebay, and an assumption the seller is not such a piece of crap he's willing to take advantage of inexperienced buyers by doing stuff like not listing shipping/handling charges in his item descriptions.  Likewise, the seller has to at least accept some measure of responsiblity for not misrepresenting his shipping/handling.  
 In the long run, I think the marketplace, as in most capitalistic endeavors, sorts itself out.  Well, you say, what about a certain Kitty that has been getting away with highway robbery for many years and seems to be quite successful?  IMO, this Pussy...cat....has cost himself untold thousands of dollars over that time from members of this forum who refuse to deal with him, to buyers of his items who had a horrible experience and wont' deal with him, to anyone savvy enough to peruse his feedback page and see the train wreck he's got going on there and read between the lines.  Thus, the buyer of used D&D may instead amble over to my page, or BTB's, or BCs, and money that could have been Cougies is now in our pockets.  The buyer is free to not buy from me and instead purchase from Coug is he wishes, and more power to him for that decision (although it has a much larger chance of ending in disaster for said buyer....)

Mike B.

Can we all just agree that BadMike summed that up perfectly?  If I were to guess he's also a little bit drunk, but that's not an insult coming from a Canuck.  

We do not live under economic theories, we live under economic systems.  The further away from a pure capitalistic system we are, the less applicable theories that you continually cite here based on pure capitalism become.  Since we do not live under a purely capitalistic society those exact same theories of pure capitalism that you continuosly cite here to prove your are right are become less relevant based on that fact alone.

In the Soviet Union you had shortages of everything and long lineups.. and this was precisely because the goods were free. People would buy more than prices were ultra low.

Just as in the US, when we imposed price controls on gas in the 70s, you had to weight around the block to buy some.

These are all cases of the law of supply and demand working perfectly. I don't think I've used other theories.. but if so, what other "theories" have I used that don't apply?