shipping

[cheese]

Ebay is taking their cut of the shipping cost no matter what, so if I sell the item for $1 and $15 shipping, or $15 and $1 shipping, it's going to be the same. Usually that item you are selling is going for about $16 no matter how you divide it up (except some folks get turned off by obviously higher than actual shipping rates and won't bid as clovis mentioned). If I list a box of paslode air gun nails, it is going to have to be right within a small margin or all the other people selling their boxes of the same nails, shipping and all, or it will not sell. My extra work spent figuring out how to get the most nails sent the cheapest is what makes my listing more appealing than the other 74. Using the shipping calculator gives me the closest margin I can get, and I don't see how I'm "doing it wrong" that way. This way, I know what I am making on each sale, without guessing if 32 cents or $1.21 was made by me overcharging for shipping, and I get consistently high ratings on my shipping charges... everyone's happy. I purchase and print the shipping at a 11% discount (unless it's parcel select) right at home and I don't have to worry with that entire aspect of selling, and in the end, I've made the same thing as the guy guessing what shipping might be.

 

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[diggummup]

Ebay is taking their cut of the shipping cost no matter what, so if I sell the item for $1 and $15 shipping, or $15 and $1 shipping, it's going to be the same. Usually that item you are selling is going for about $16 no matter how you divide it up (except some folks get turned off by obviously higher than actual shipping rates and won't bid as clovis mentioned). If I list a box of paslode air gun nails, it is going to have to be right within a small margin or all the other people selling their boxes of the same nails, shipping and all, or it will not sell. My extra work spent figuring out how to get the most nails sent the cheapest is what makes my listing more appealing than the other 74. Using the shipping calculator gives me the closest margin I can get, and I don't see how I'm "doing it wrong" that way. This way, I know what I am making on each sale, without guessing if 32 cents or $1.21 was made by me overcharging for shipping, and I get consistently high ratings on my shipping charges... everyone's happy. I purchase and print the shipping at a 11% discount (unless it's parcel select) right at home and I don't have to worry with that entire aspect of selling, and in the end, I've made the same thing as the guy guessing what shipping might be.

Okay maybe me saying "your doing it wrong" was a poor choice of words, for that I apologize. And I do understand what you are saying about the end result price. All I know is I've maintained a top rated seller status for the last 4 years consistently without really trying other than making sure I print a shipping label within 24 hours of the sale, so I must be doing something right. That 20% discount on final value fees does add up each month. Basically all I am saying is, I prefer not pay the 10% that ebay takes out of shipping, I pass that to the buyer. Does that affect my final sales price? No, because I do not start any auctions with a price any less than I would be willing to let an item go for in the first place. So any extra is icing on the cake. It doesn't seem to have affected me adversely yet, in the last 2 1/2 years or so since they started taking a percentage of shipping. So as far as I'm concerned, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

[cheese]

No apology necessary, and I'll go with that... we do what works for us. We all have slightly different ways of working our sales, but in the end, the same common item listed by any of us who are refined at selling on ebay will end at a similar final price in most cases. In other words, no matter which way you slice your pie, Ebay has already got dibs on a pre-determined number of bites. We can control which slices the bites come out of, but we'll be left with the same amount of pie.