Why do eBay insist on free postage for certain items?

[pimpin gimp]

I helped a mate put something on ebay yesterday, a shoulder bag that he doesn't want.

best case he gets a fiver for it (or someone clicks buy it now at £12.99) but it was started at 99p as were the rest of the similar items, yet he has to offer free postage for it! ridiculous! I understand that online shops offer free postage, but considering their turnover of stock I'm sure they can (justabout) justify it. But this is one kid selling one item, why should he offer free postage, on top of the ebay fees, and on top of the paypal fees. So if it does only sell for 99p it's going to cost him money to sell and send it!

Bloody shocking. Assholes.


And before you suggest raising the starting bid, none of the others on there were starting over 99p so we didn't want to outprice them!

[swiftpete]

They make you offer free postage as it makes them more money. They charge a percentage of the final value fee, not including postage. So making you send it for free gives them more cash.
They've done the same with a lot of things on there.
If you send stuff for free you get more best match points which moves you higher up the list when people search. Annoyingly, it means that if you charge for postage, you're further down the list and your item is less likely to sell.

Edited by swiftpete on Monday 10th August 12:58

[Nolar Dog]

If it's not viable to sell that way, sell somewhere else.

[Tycho]

So rather than possibly not selling the item, he has put a 99p starting price in and could make a loss just so he doesn't outprice the competition?