eBay increase postage caps ahead of Royal Mail changes

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eBay have updated the postage caps ahead of the Royal Mail price and size changes coming into effect on the 2nd of April 2013. eBay say that “We regularly revise the limits to reflect changes to Royal Mail prices. Since their introduction, we’ve also adjusted them to allow room for sellers to offer Royal Mail Signed For delivery services”.

Some of the largest price increases are in Books, with the postage cap for comics, fiction rising from £4.00 to £7.00, non-fiction rising from £4.00 to £8.50 and magazines rising from £4.00 to £11.00.

In clothes, shoes and accessories the clothing postage cap rises from £4.75 to £7.00 and coats and shoes have a cap of £10.50 up from £7.00.

Mobile and home phone postage caps largely remain the same, but accessories see a more generous postage cap of £7.00, an increase from the previous cap of £4.00.

One of the biggest price rises is for DVDs where the cap doubles from £2.25 to £4.50. We’d recommend you check the exact postage caps for the categories that you sell in, all of which are available on eBay.

Whilst postage caps are more generous and for many sellers using Royal Mail postage prices will be increasing, it may be some time before consumers realise that postage simply costs more money. This could have an adverse effect on postage and packaging Detailed Seller Ratings.

Cross Border Trade

One thing that remains to be seen is what effect increased postage prices will have on consumers, who may simply decide to purchase from overseas. Whilst postage prices within the UK are to change it’s unlikely to have the same effect on sellers shipping from outside the UK. Indeed we’re sadly expecting sellers in the Far East to appear more attractive than previously for consumers who aren’t in a hurry for their purchases.

It may be that consumers simply vote with their feet and purchase from whoever has the overall cheapest price, so we’d recommend that you don’t simply hike your postage prices simply because you can.

Shop around for the best shipping rates that suit your products be that Royal Mail or their competitors and keep costs and prices to your customers as low as possible. Although there’s a budget this coming week it’s unlikely that the Chancellor will have much good news to share and likely that consumers will be hit even harder in the pocket over the coming year. It’s not a good time to be increasing postage costs unless absolutely necessary.

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Maximum limits on postage and packaging charges