To understand just how much gouging a US based seller is doing, take the following test. Start at usps.com and check rates for international packages. Then head over to uline.com to see their costs for packing materials. Next is staples.com for envelopes. Finally conclude your trip at eBay.com and enjoy their seller rates which include shipping costs. At the end of the gouging the seller may pocket enough to feed a parking meter. But make sure your are close by because the 10 minutes or so you were able to get with your profits is going to expire very quickly.

quote:

If there were cards in the letters I receive for the Royal Mail, then anything up to 25% would be wrecked from a collectors point of view if they were sent without the protection I described before. Machine sorting combined with being carried around in a postman's sack is not kind to regular envelopes. I imagine it is the same in countries outside the UK.

I have been asking sellers in the US for donkey's years to just pop my card (or sometimes 2-3 cards) into a stiff plastic top-loader and then put it into a plain white envelope. It can then travel at letter rate for peanuts (about $2-$3. I always offer the seller indemnity for a lost or damaged card but (hand on heart) have never either lost one or had one damaged.
I suspect that talk of cards being munched up by sorting machines is so much brown stuff that comes from the rear end of male cows(this is a family forum after all),dreamed up by post office regulators to try and discourage people like me.

I bought a costume card from the bay from a UK collector, he posted it in a normal envelope through the royal mail. When it arrived it was cracked down the middle.

So probably fine for normal auto cards that can bend with the machine but a risk for costume cards.

Listen, apart from the actual high cost of postage, the most important thing about sending cards is packing them properly. You don't need the Staples padded overpriced stuff, but you do need ridged plastic wrapped in cardboard or plastic bubble tape or newspaper or anything really that encloses and protects the cards.

And you do need a packing envelope, not a regular mail envelope that goes thru letter sorting machines.

There is a lot of room for different opinions here and it does depend on what side of the transaction you are most on, but this part is always true. A guy can say, "just throw it in an envelope with $.50 cent stamp and I'm good", but when that card arrives with a crease down the middle, he/she will scream bloody murder and want their money back.

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Originally posted by Raven:
but you do need ridged plastic wrapped in cardboard or plastic bubble tape or newspaper or anything really that encloses and protects the cards.

And you do need a packing envelope, not a regular mail envelope that goes thru letter sorting machines.

But if you do any of those things and it makes the envelope more than 1/4" thick, the Post Office considers it to be a package instead of a letter, and the price goes from 50 cents for a 1oz normal letter envelope to $3.50.

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Originally posted by Bill Mullins:

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
but you do need ridged plastic wrapped in cardboard or plastic bubble tape or newspaper or anything really that encloses and protects the cards.

And you do need a packing envelope, not a regular mail envelope that goes thru letter sorting machines.

But if you do any of those things and it makes the envelope more than 1/4" thick, the Post Office considers it to be a package instead of a letter, and the price goes from 50 cents for a 1oz normal letter envelope to $3.50.

I think I've gotten stuff for $1.95 - $2.30 postage already, but I won't quibble, even saying $3.50, that isn't unreasonable. It's the eBay postage fees that are insane because sellers have to adhere to their buyer protection rules or else the sellers lose any claims. I'm all for sending cards the cheapest possible way even if there is no buyer protection because, as long as you are doing business with honest people that you know, the cards will get to you practically all of the time.

However to say that the PO is careful handling mail and that sorting machines never do damage and envelopes are never torn open and mail is never lost is just not accurate. So you have to at least pack cards securely and all of the sellers I deal with always make an attempt to put them in top loaders or boxes and wrap all of together with cardboard or paper or something. Which means it doesn't go in a white envelope with a couple of stamps.

Even if the cards are inexpensive, you expect them in the stated condition, not damaged in handling. And if they do come insufficiently packed and damaged, the buyer always thinks that the seller put them in that way and they were cheated. So yes, you can risk no buyer protection and you can risk no insurance and you can risk a cheaper method of mailing, but you can't risk poor packing of the cards. If that means a $3.50 minimum, you just have to order some one higher card or several cards together to make the transaction worth the additional $3.50 S&H.

After all this the fly in the ointment seems to be E Bay rules and percieved shipping rates were is E Bay on this surely they have personell reading these posts like Beckett do and reply to wich makes them seem at least benevolent towards collectors but there is a defening silence from E Bay Do they not care YES are they not interested YES or they would at least be explaining their convoluted rules instead of just making them and saying that it will benefit all and all seems to be E Bay this seems to be big business adage now days what was the saying let them eat bread

I've only bought things on ebay, never sold. How much do they eat up?

Suppose, for example, I sell a card for $9 and charge $1 S&H. The buyer paypals me $10. How much of that is eaten by fees, and how much will I get in my pocket at the end of it all?

Does it make any difference if the $9 is the final bid in an auction, or if it is a Buy It Now sale?

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Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
I've only bought things on ebay, never sold. How much do they eat up?

Suppose, for example, I sell a card for $9 and charge $1 S&H. The buyer paypals me $10. How much of that is eaten by fees, and how much will I get in my pocket at the end of it all?

Does it make any difference if the $9 is the final bid in an auction, or if it is a Buy It Now sale?

In the US eBay takes 10% of the total including any shipping charges. Paypal takes 2.9% + $.30. So for a $10 sale you would clear $8.41. And there's no difference between auctions and "Buy It Now" anymore as far as fees go. In my mind I always just round it off to 13% taken by both eBay and paypal. If I make a $100 sale, I would clear approximately $87.

thanks

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I think I've gotten stuff for $1.95 - $2.30 postage already, but I won't quibble, even saying $3.50, that isn't unreasonable

Some of the price differences could be retail vs. commercial pricing.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
I've only bought things on ebay, never sold. How much do they eat up?

Suppose, for example, I sell a card for $9 and charge $1 S&H. The buyer paypals me $10. How much of that is eaten by fees, and how much will I get in my pocket at the end of it all?

Does it make any difference if the $9 is the final bid in an auction, or if it is a Buy It Now sale?

Its a bit higher in the UK depending if you can take advantage of a free listing offer. Just sold a card for £9.99 with free postage and cleared £6.81

Paypal fees £0.54 Ebay fees £1.34 Postage and packaging costs £1.30.

quote:

Originally posted by Logan:


In the US eBay takes 10% of the total including any shipping charges. Paypal takes 2.9% + $.30. So for a $10 sale you would clear $8.41.

The last card I shipped in a bubble envelope cost $2.66.

So on that $10 sale after fees and postage you are clearing $5.75. That, of course, doesn't take into account the cost of supplies/bubble envelope/etc.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:

I've only bought things on ebay, never sold. How much do they eat up?

I normally work on keeping 2/3 of any sale, the other 1/3 is eaten up in fees and postage.

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Originally posted by webjon:

The last card I shipped in a bubble envelope cost $2.66.

So on that $10 sale after fees and postage you are clearing $5.75. That, of course, doesn't take into account the cost of supplies/bubble envelope/etc.

The only way I can get $2.66 out of the USPS pricing page is to select media mail -- is that what you did? (strictly speaking, cards don't count as media mail)

I suppose you've made the decision that charging $1 for S&H when you are spending at least $3 is good business in the long run.

If you could have shipped the same card for $1 in an envelope and a top-loader, you are essentially spending $2 of your own money to insure yourself against the Post Office chewing it up. Does the Post Office lose/destroy 20% of packages? If it were me, I'd mentally revisit that cost/benefit analysis.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:

The last card I shipped in a bubble envelope cost $2.66.

So on that $10 sale after fees and postage you are clearing $5.75. That, of course, doesn't take into account the cost of supplies/bubble envelope/etc.

I suppose you've made the decision that charging $1 for S&H when you are spending at least $3 is good business in the long run.

You must be thinking of someone else, I don't do that, and I don't think I've ever said I do that.

Then I misunderstood you somehow. The transaction brought in $9 for merchandise and $1 for S&H, for a total of $10. You said you are spending $2.66 plus the cost of supplies, envelopes, which I estimated at at least 34 cents, for a total of $3 (or more).

You bring in $1, you spend $3. That's what seemed to be going on.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Mullins:
Then I misunderstood you somehow. The transaction brought in $9 for merchandise and $1 for S&H, for a total of $10. You said you are spending $2.66 plus the cost of supplies, envelopes, which I estimated at at least 34 cents, for a total of $3 (or more).

You bring in $1, you spend $3. That's what seemed to be going on.

I was just posting how much it cost me to ship a bubble envelope the last time I did as a follow up Neilsy's post for a direct comparison between US/UK fees/costs.

quote:

Originally posted by btlfannz:

quote:

If there were cards in the letters I receive for the Royal Mail, then anything up to 25% would be wrecked from a collectors point of view if they were sent without the protection I described before. Machine sorting combined with being carried around in a postman's sack is not kind to regular envelopes. I imagine it is the same in countries outside the UK.

I have been asking sellers in the US for donkey's years to just pop my card (or sometimes 2-3 cards) into a stiff plastic top-loader and then put it into a plain white envelope. It can then travel at letter rate for peanuts (about $2-$3. I always offer the seller indemnity for a lost or damaged card but (hand on heart) have never either lost one or had one damaged.
I suspect that talk of cards being munched up by sorting machines is so much brown stuff that comes from the rear end of male cows(this is a family forum after all),dreamed up by post office regulators to try and discourage people like me.

Here's a video of how letters are sorted in one place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB7dhE_TW9g
Here's another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG8ULky-NwA

You'll forgive me for fretting a bit about regular letters.

Is this for real I thought that I had moaned enough about E Bay but if this is for real I think that it takes the cake while checking on the shipping costs on a E bay site the seller used the E Bay Global Shipping Programme in the information about the combined shipping the seller had the statement that they couldnt combine items that used the Global Shipping Programme can anyone confirm this as E Bay global shipping is expensive enough you should be able to combine anything at its prices