I adapted and created my own style to ship the cards. I don't like when some buyers appears with nonsense offers and demanding how to ship cards. Even asking for free ship for 1 item.

Most of you will have seen the NSU/Breygent promo offer. Three promos USA to UK for $2.50. Actually four promos spread between two toploders with postage a mere $1.10. And before someone says that's only ok for free promos then this is the second parcel i've received in a month for $1.10, the other contained a sketch card and three promo, similarly packaged. Seller described contents as a Halloween card which wasn't far from the truth. No customs declaration needed and arrived in perfect condition in just four days! No wonder we think we're being regularly ripped off....

That's OK only if the person receiving the cards is honest.

Indeed, it this was an Ebay transaction you were referring to, you could, right now, immediately after having read this, go and inform Ebay that you never received the sketch card and the three promos (that you did receive) and the seller, unable to prove having posted the items in a way that Ebay would accept, would have the money taken by Ebay from their Paypal account and given to you.

You would get:
1. All of your money back for the item, including the postage, whatever the amount
2. The item itself

The seller would get:
1. Screwed (or "ripped off", if you like).
They would not only not have the items they sent to you. They also wouldn't get to keep the money you paid for the item, and will have paid the $1.10 in economical postage for the privilege of having had this happen to them.

Good thing you're honest, but sellers who don't use tracking are asking to be taken advantage of by people who are less honest than you, and if you did not know there was such a thing, I'm sorry to have taken your innocence from you in this way, but there very surely are such people.
I have met a couple from back when I really wanted to keep shipping as low as possible for buyers to the point where I'd accept the risk of mailing items without proof of mailing. Those days are passed.

Tracking on international packages is very expensive, $13 for Registered mail, which additionally can only be used on packages, not letters. A package is a minimum of $6.77 to send, no matter how light, and significantly more once it weighs over two ounces. This means international shipping that protects the seller the same way a buyer is protected costs $20 for one card.

The exact same service on a card mailed within the U.S. to a U.S address is $2 to $3 dollars, hence the vast amount of American sellers who once did but will no longer ship internationally. To wit, even if a buyer was willing to pay $20 shipping for a $10 card, I wouldn't be willing to accept a $30 payment from which I get to keep well under $10 of it, after fees. The result is, I don't offer international shipping on any item less than $50. Getting to keep about $45 out of a $70 payment (including the shipping) is about the lowest I can go percentage-wise, and even that is pushing it.

As the system is set up currently, there is no way around that expense which results in the fair and equitable treatment of buyers and sellers in the event the item is lost in the mail.

And here we are.

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

I've just won a couple of cards on ebay. Both from same seller, each listed with $8 postage. I asked for a combined invoice which came back with $15 postage. $1 discount and postage now almost as much as the cards. My 750+ ebay score clearly counts for nothing. Maybe i'm naive but there has to be an element of trust on both sides. If I say send it cheap and i'll take the risk then I have to trust the seller to actually stick the card in the post. Thankfully I try and deal with the same people and we all know what to expect. The six/seven dollar package seems to be the default setting in most cases with the customs declaration attached. I just think other options are definitely out there if the seller is prepared to look for them, and maybe do a little research on the buyer, which was the original theme on this thread. 'Cheap way to send cards'.

OK, say the shipping charged was $8. Ebay would take 80 cents in fees from that, so the seller would have $7.20 left. Paypal would then take the 30 cents of it (4% from international transactions), so they'd have $6.80 which is pretty much exactly the cost of shipping a small padded envelope, but not enough to pay for the envelope or top loader they would hopefully also use, so $8 is actually very reasonable if a seller is unwilling to ship a card in a regular envelope due to concerns of damage, particularly considering the seller remains 100% responsible for the card should it not arrive, or arrive and then be claimed to have not arrived.

Even so, if the seller can send one card in a padded envelope for $8, they should be able to send two. The only thing I can think is that since it is two cards, they are indeed now purchasing the Registered service, in which case they would be saving you $5 from the actual cost of $20 for that. If this is the case, the likely reason they are willing to cover $5 of the actual $20 cost by charging you only $15, is that it is worth it to them to no longer be on the hook for the full value (and postage) of the cards if lost, as they no longer would be if Registered service has been purchased.

Or, you might just get them in a plain envelope in two top loaders marked as "Halloween" cards and sent for $1.10 in which case the seller made an extra $11.50 in postage off of you. (From $15 shipping, they would get $12.90 of it after Ebay/Paypal fees charged on shipping, and then have about $11.50 left after the $1.10 postage, plus say 30 cents total for the two top loaders and envelope).

If that is the case, you should note that in the feedback that you were overcharged on shipping.

Friends and even traders on boards like these can and have shipped cards across the ocean for $1.10 all day long, and I hope they will continue to.

However, where Ebay is involved, and equal fairness to the buyer and seller is insisted upon by both parties, there currently exists no "cheap way to send cards".

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

quote:

Originally posted by Zero:
I've just won a couple of cards on ebay. Both from same seller, each listed with $8 postage. I asked for a combined invoice which came back with $15 postage. $1 discount and postage now almost as much as the cards. My 750+ ebay score clearly counts for nothing. Maybe i'm naive but there has to be an element of trust on both sides. If I say send it cheap and i'll take the risk then I have to trust the seller to actually stick the card in the post. Thankfully I try and deal with the same people and we all know what to expect. The six/seven dollar package seems to be the default setting in most cases with the customs declaration attached. I just think other options are definitely out there if the seller is prepared to look for them, and maybe do a little research on the buyer, which was the original theme on this thread. 'Cheap way to send cards'.

Whenever I'm interested in buying more than one item from a seller, I always check the listing for a combined shipping policy. If it doesn't specifically state the cost for each additional card, I contact the seller. This has saved me from some very unpleasant surprises.

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