I don't think anyone thinks that a seller should put an expensive card in the post without getting it signed for and i'm sure nobody would object to paying for it.

I end up screaming at the computer when a seller tries to tell me that the $1 card I want to bid on needs to be covered by about $30 worth of insurance and signed for because ebay won't refund his dollar otherwise if it goes missing.

There seems to be so many ways of sending a card and they all have a different price attached to them i'm not surprised people get confused and even nice sellers honestly think it costs $7 to post a card when it is only $3 because this is what the system tells them.

I quite understand Wolfie Asking high shipping prices for very low value cards is a bit ridiculous. I know the price of posting things here in the UK and it can be relatively cheap to send low value cards locally. Overseas, there is a minimum because everything has to go at least Small Parcel (trading cards aren't letters, so technically should not be sent letter post) and that is a minimum of £3.50 or around $6.

As for how they should be packed, as it happens I send and receive packages and letters as part of an official testing programme. Around one in twenty of the regular letters I receive is creased or folded. If they had cards in, they'd be wrecked or damaged on a regular basis. As a result, I would never send out cards that do not have additional protection to keep them safe. It's just not worth the risk

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin F:
Overseas, there is a minimum because everything has to go at least Small Parcel (trading cards aren't letters, so technically should not be sent letter post) and that is a minimum of £3.50 or around $6.

Last time I was at the post office I was told this, because I had put trading cards on the customs form it was £3.50. I was told postcards are classed as letters so we changed trading cards to small postcards and it went for £1.80.
Needless to say it got their quick, safe and with no problems.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
I don't think anyone thinks that a seller should put an expensive card in the post without getting it signed for and i'm sure nobody would object to paying for it.

I end up screaming at the computer when a seller tries to tell me that the $1 card I want to bid on needs to be covered by about $30 worth of insurance and signed for because ebay won't refund his dollar otherwise if it goes missing.

There seems to be so many ways of sending a card and they all have a different price attached to them i'm not surprised people get confused and even nice sellers honestly think it costs $7 to post a card when it is only $3 because this is what the system tells them.

Where Ebay is concerned, to send a card internationally in a padded envelope with cardboard on each side of it is $6.77 for up to 2 ounces. Padded envelopes cost between 25 cents to 75 cents depending on where you get them.

If the seller sends you a $1 card and even takes the loss and charges you only $6 to send it as I've described, and you were to then report it to Ebay as not received (whether it was lost or not, mind you), the seller is not out just the $1 for the card, but also the $6 shipping, since as soon as Ebay finds there is no online tracking number for the item, the matter is decided and the money will be taken by Ebay from the seller's Paypal account and given back to the buyer, the item cost itself and all shipping, no other questions asked.

Where low prices items being sent to a different country than your own, it's become an inefficient use of time for most sellers to make essentially no money while filling out more paperwork. This is why many sellers who once gladly shipped worldwide now choose to not offer international shipping at all on lower priced items. The high shipping cost of them sent with tracking is prohibitive. Those sent without tracking is far more economical for the buyer, but leaves the seller totally liable for the cost of the card(s) and the postage (usually more than the cards). Again, the card may only be a dollar or two, but now that shipping has essentially doubled on small packages up to two ounces, what was less than $4 last year is nearly $7 this year, postage alone. So every dollar card you send, you risk losing $7 to $8 should it not arrive, or even just be claimed to have not arrived when it actually did.

And once a card is valued at $40 or so (or more) and sellers are willing to ship overseas, now the tracking number becomes necessary to protect the value of the card itself. The least expensive method of tracking currently is $14 Registered mail (includes $47 insurance, at least) which added on to the $7 postage makes a total of $21. It' still kind of pushing it on a $40 card, but on a $100 card, it's not so bad.

Regardless, every single item an Ebay seller sends without tracking, the seller risks being on the hook for the price of the item AND every single penny of the shipping. Most buyers, the overwhelming majority, are honest, but certainly some opportunistic bad eggs are savvy enough to see that under the current Ebay Buyer protection setup, if they receive a package that does not have some kind of tracking on it, there is an easy opportunity to get the product AND receive a refund. These people and cases are rare, I'm sure, but also real, so I choose to not leave myself exposed to this. The lost international sales are sizable, but unavoidable as I find it priceless to not be left at the mercy of dishonest people. I have this silly sense of fair play that does not allow it, you see.

Another nice thing about having an online trackable confirmation number is that if the buyer claims to have not received it even though it was confirmed delivered, or the confirmation number seems to have been lost in the post office with the package likewise in limbo, Ebay can be asked by the seller to step in and cover the refund so that neither the buyer nor seller suffer loss when neither did anything wrong, which is really as it should be. Ebay has the resources, however they have to be reminded from time to time that their best sellers are at least as valuable to them as their worst buyers, and therefore should receive the same protection they do.

You can trust Ebay because most of the people on there aren't morons. They've got it set up that well, at least. I also consider it to be the best and most current and accurate price guide on pretty much every thing that can be legally sold.


When Ebay is not involved, the shipping of a card or two to a friend or a trader is a completely different story. I can put a card in a top loader in a regular envelope and mail it anywhere in the world for around $2, or for 45 or 65 cents within the USA.

But for Ebay deals, with their power to take funds from your Paypal account and give them back to a buyer who may have indeed received the item, it is a different story entirely.

All of that said, I truly do lament the loss of the days when I could send cards around the world (and get them) for about $3 postage. What a great time that was for sharing the hobby.

Finally, seller beware sending ANYTHING sold through Ebay without a tracking number. If it's not worth enough to track, it probably just shouldn't be made available at all to international bidders. It is very sad, but true, and has obviously had an negative effect on the sale of single cards, especially lower priced ones.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface,

quote:

Originally posted by chesspieceface:

Another nice thing about having an online trackable confirmation number is that if the buyer claims to have not received it even though it was confirmed delivered, or the confirmation number seems to have been lost in the post office computer, Ebay can be asked by the seller to step in and cover the refund so that neither the buyer nor seller suffer loss when neither did anything wrong, which is really as it should be.

In the past 5 years of selling on ebay I have had 1 buyer say they didn't receive there auction winnings. The thing is I print all the shipping labels through ebay which includes delivery confirmation.

It also just happens that was the only item sold during that week, which meant I only printed out one postage label and shipped one package that week. Well, the delivery confirmation showed the package was delivered but to a zip code and town other than what the shipping label was for. I did not refund the buyer any money because the package was delivered but, eBay did refund the buyer the total amount plus shipping. The refunded money did not come from my paypal account.

The worst part about this was after the buyer received his money he told me he already bought a duplicate item off ebay and the buyer harassed me and blamed me for the error. Really... how did I deliver it to the wrong address.

I have had some sellers shipped cards to me using this method. Another plus for this shpping is that they arrive very fast. I got them in just 7-10 days. The fastest first class mail I received from any continent was 12 days.

Clearly what is required here is an Ebay sanctioned buyers disclaimer. It could be worded as:
I, the buyer of this item formally request that item #........ be shipped to me without tracking or insurance by the cheapest method available. I understand that should this item be lost, damaged or destroyed that I will have no legal recourse on either Ebay or the seller of this item.
Signed_____________
Date_____________)_

Ahh! But then Ebay wouldn't be able to gouge its regular outrageous profit anymore so this idea wouldn't fly now would it.

quote:

Originally posted by btlfannz:
Clearly what is required here is an Ebay sanctioned buyers disclaimer. It could be worded as:
I, the buyer of this item formally request that item #........ be shipped to me without tracking or insurance by the cheapest method available. I understand that should this item be lost, damaged or destroyed that I will have no legal recourse on either Ebay or the seller of this item.
Signed_____________
Date_____________)_

Ahh! But then Ebay wouldn't be able to gouge its regular outrageous profit anymore so this idea wouldn't fly now would it.

I would agree with this, and especially with trustworthy sellers...but then I really thought about it. What about the untrustworthy sellers? The minority out there who would be willing to sign up to this with the buyer but then never send out some of their items, and never intend to send the items. The buyer then has nothing to protect them at all, other than the obvious "You shouldn't have signed away your consumer rights." It would be a very small minority...but that sort of ability to abuse the system brings us to the problems of international sales in general again.
It raises the question of finding sellers you like and therefore then dealing outside of ebay with them, which immediately lowers the postage costs and gives more alternative methods of shipping.

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:


I would agree with this, and especially with trustworthy sellers...but then I really thought about it. What about the untrustworthy sellers?

I agree with you. . . but the buyers in a situation like this have a huge advantage -- the buyers can choose which sellers to buy from, but the sellers have almost no control over who buys from them. So at least as a buyer in this situation you can make a (hopefully informed) decision about who is trustworthy and who is not. Sellers don't have that ability.

Another piece of support for the sellers, to illustrate that they're also at the mercy of the unscrupuous or careless buyers.

I've received over a thousand packages internationally, either cards from eBay sellers, other things from eBay, card trades, and before that scads of books. (And a lot of the oldest ones were "Fourth Class Surface.") The percentage that have been waylaid or mislaid or damaged is a lot smaller than the percentage of complaints received by a reputable eBay seller.

I don't think I'm in a special situation, living in suburbia with mail delivered to a standing box on the street, where the mail might end up sitting in the box for days. I conclude that a portion of the "didn't receive" complaints are from ripoff artists or people who don't give full attention to their incoming mail.

If I need something off eBay quickly from overseas, I have to throw up my hands, because I've had a lot more trouble with "complies with eBay policies" signature-tracked mail. I usually allow an extra month for delivery, and tracking records show that usually a parcel was dispatched immediately from its home country, arrived in the U.S., and then spent four weeks traveling a few hundred miles to me. It didn't take that long for them to mail many tons of gold from Philadelphia to Fort Knox by U.S. Mail.

Sure, I can feel pretty confident that a tracked package will arrive *eventually*, maybe after their monthly closet-cleaning, but often it's after it's too late to give positive feedback for the seller.

They've been better recently, so I hope I haven't just hexed myself.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
There seems to be so many ways of sending a card and they all have a different price attached to them i'm not surprised people get confused and even nice sellers honestly think it costs $7 to post a card when it is only $3 because this is what the system tells them.

As a seller, any card someone wants to purchase is a desirable card to them. Every card purchased gets the bare minimum packaging: Penny Sleeve, Topload, Team Bag, Cardboard on both sides, in a padded envelope. This ships for just under $7 to anywhere other than the US.

I mail out free promos however people send their SASE's. But, I get a few each time asking for another since theirs was damaged in the mail. Now, either these folks are just wanting another copy of the card, or the cards aren't always making it undamaged.

If it's worth sending, it's worth sending so it will arrive intact.

ed

quote:

Originally posted by Scifi Cards:
As a seller, any card someone wants to purchase is a desirable card to them. Every card purchased gets the bare minimum packaging: Penny Sleeve, Topload, Team Bag, Cardboard on both sides, in a padded envelope. This ships for just under $7 to anywhere other than the US.

I mail out free promos however people send their SASE's. But, I get a few each time asking for another since theirs was damaged in the mail. Now, either these folks are just wanting another copy of the card, or the cards aren't always making it undamaged.

If it's worth sending, it's worth sending so it will arrive intact.

Not to sound like an as$ but you forgot the most important thing, tape. The sleeve / toploader SHOULD be taped on its opening. I have had sellers shipped to me cards inside toploaders that got dings because they did not tape it. There were also two instances where the cards fully got out of the toploader. On a safer note, the toploader or sleeve should be taped on at least one cardboard to limit the shaking and drop impact.

quote:

Originally posted by juke:

quote:

Originally posted by Scifi Cards:
As a seller, any card someone wants to purchase is a desirable card to them. Every card purchased gets the bare minimum packaging: Penny Sleeve, Topload, Team Bag, Cardboard on both sides, in a padded envelope. This ships for just under $7 to anywhere other than the US.

I mail out free promos however people send their SASE's. But, I get a few each time asking for another since theirs was damaged in the mail. Now, either these folks are just wanting another copy of the card, or the cards aren't always making it undamaged.

If it's worth sending, it's worth sending so it will arrive intact.

Not to sound like an as$ but you forgot the most important thing, tape. The sleeve / toploader SHOULD be taped on its opening. I have had sellers shipped to me cards inside toploaders that got dings because they did not tape it. There were also two instances where the cards fully got out of the toploader. On a safer note, the toploader or sleeve should be taped on at least one cardboard to limit the shaking and drop impact.

Note the Team Bag. That goes over the topload eliminating the need for tape.

And the card/topload/team bag assembly is taped to one side the the protective cardboard. Didn't think it was necessary to point out where the tape goes. For full disclosure, I also put tape over the self-seal flap on the toploader, just because...

Ed

^oh, sorry, I didn't know how team bags were packed.

Anyway, it got me furious when one of those sellers shipped my second order with the same method. And I left him a negative because I already asked him nicely that the minimum should be a taped top loader. Twice he shipped me loose cards on a top loader.

quote:

Originally posted by juke:

quote:

Originally posted by Scifi Cards:
As a seller, any card someone wants to purchase is a desirable card to them. Every card purchased gets the bare minimum packaging: Penny Sleeve, Topload, Team Bag, Cardboard on both sides, in a padded envelope. This ships for just under $7 to anywhere other than the US.

I mail out free promos however people send their SASE's. But, I get a few each time asking for another since theirs was damaged in the mail. Now, either these folks are just wanting another copy of the card, or the cards aren't always making it undamaged.

If it's worth sending, it's worth sending so it will arrive intact.

Not to sound like an as$ but you forgot the most important thing, tape. The sleeve / toploader SHOULD be taped on its opening. I have had sellers shipped to me cards inside toploaders that got dings because they did not tape it. There were also two instances where the cards fully got out of the toploader. On a safer note, the toploader or sleeve should be taped on at least one cardboard to limit the shaking and drop impact.

Like Ed, I also put cards in sleeves, then toploaders and then in team bags. As he says, the team bag eliminates the need for tape on the sleeve and toploader but it also provides some protection agains the risk of water damage. I also then wrap this whole thing up in card before placing that between two longer sheets of card taped down tightly to prevent movement. Those extra pieces of card are cut to be a close fit inside the jiffy bag/padded envelope which stiffens everything up and discourages posties from folding it. This also protects things through automatic sorting systems. One final thing is to tape down the flap on the jiffy bag. While this makes it harder to reuse the bag, it prevents any bits from sticking out and getting jammed in automatic sorting systems.

I take packaging things up securely so they arrive intact quite seriously

I am pleased to hear that dealers and sellers do take time to make sure the card they send is packed properly so that it will arrive in perfect condition and I can fully understand why a buyer would want this on a card that had just cost them $100 but this same thing is being applied to a free or $1 promo, this makes the cost of the card $8 which is just crazy. I and i'm sure many others cannot afford to pay $8 for a $1 card which is why I have pretty much given up buying promos from ebay as the cost is just not viable anymore.

Little collectors like me are being priced out of the hobby by all these sorts of things and it won't be long before the only people who are collecting cards are the few who have loads of money to do so.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Little collectors like me are being priced out of the hobby by all these sorts of things and it won't be long before the only people who are collecting cards are the few who have loads of money to do so.

I think that its easy to start getting that feeling about non-sport cards, what with eBay fees and forums raving about $200 plus boxes.

I look at it this way, card manufacturers are not printing money and there isn't a single card that I can't live without. I don't begrudge anyone who has the means to buy anything, but I know that at a certain point a lot of that buying is just plain stupid, even if the parties don't see it.

I still like adding to my card and autograph collection, but if I had to stop tomorrow I would still have my cards to enjoy. I spent a lot of time and effort on them, the money is secondary if you are a collector. Once you do it for several years you accumulate something that can not be replaced by you in the current time. That's kind of important, its an accomplishment of sorts.

If small and average non-sport card collectors become shut out, the hobby will suffer. You can't destroy the base and expect the top ten percent to float by itself. But should it become crazy and that happens, the hobby will reset itself again. Most things go too far before they come back, the swinging pedulum and all.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
If small and average non-sport card collectors become shut out, the hobby will suffer. You can't destroy the base and expect the top ten percent to float by itself. But should it become crazy and that happens, the hobby will reset itself again. Most things go too far before they come back, the swinging pedulum and all.

I agree 100%. Non-sports cards still haven't seen the Collector's Choice of Upper Deck.

But the fact still remains that the main reason collecting hobbies are dying out on today's generation is because they are now more into computer/console games. I'm among the guilty ones though.

I think as a seller we all learn the hard way. We try to be as accommodating and as reasonable as possible, then something out od our control happens, and we have to adapt. I sent a case of 100 x 100ct snap lock boxes to South Africa from the UK. The item was £25, so I sent it without insurance. What I didn't realise was that the £50 shipping was only refundable on a signed for item, which was only another £7. So I lost about £70, not just the cost of the item.
So when shipping 3 star Trek Albums to Australia Last year, I had to charge 2 lots of £20 shipping for a 3 x £4 albums. I just couldn't take the risk.

For the US, I usually list on ebay with free shipping. I just account for the shipping costs when I set my starting price. Shipping is $1.69, bubble mailer is about 30 cents (I do buy in "bulk"), plus a very small cost for the sleeve, toploader, team bag and graded card sleeve. So $2, give or take.

So if I list with free shipping, anything that sells for less than $10 just isn't worth my time after ebay, shipping, and PayPal fees. But I had a number of cards in the $5 range I wanted to sell, so I tried an experiment.

I changed my auctions and stated that anything under $10 would be sent in a plain white envelope, first class mail. I listed and sold about 5 auctions under $10. Each was put in a sleeve, then toploader, then teambag, then the envelope. I weighed each one, a couple took extra postage due to weight, but everything had correct postage.

The results? 4 of the 5 made it with no issue. The 5th, I got hit with negative feedback saying the card arrived bent. I contacted the buyer to offer a refund, and they never responded. So for me, experiment failed. Very small sample size obviously, but 20% failure is too high.

As far as shipping outside the US, I'm more than happy to. However, I'm not willing to do so at my own risk. If I sell a $10 on ebay, ship it as cheap as possible (say $3 shipping cost), and the buyer claims to never get it, I'm going to be out $13 (assuming we used PayPal). It's simply not worth the risk. The only way I'm shipping outside the US for an ebay sale is if it's tracked, which means shipping is going to be ~$15.

It's not that people outside the US are less trustworthy. It's also not because I want to be a jerk and overcharge/make money off shipping. It's that I'm not willing to risk my own money just so that someone else can get cheaper shipping.

That being said, if I'm trading/selling to an established member here or on another board, that's likely a different issue. I'd be much more willing to send cheaper/untracked.

One solution is to have someone in the US receive small shipments for you, then mail all the shipments together from the US to your location. That presents an issue when paying with PayPal though (confirmed address).

I want to be able to sell internationally without charging silly amounts for postage, but also not risk losing money. I'd love to hear any suggestions.