Buying Train Stuff on Ebay

Sellers do all kinds of stuff with shipping charges.

Some sellers like me, only charge the buyer the exact cost of shipping the item. And, I have USPS/eBay print the actual cost of shipping on the label.

Some sellers want to build additional profit of the sale by artificially increasing the shipping costs. Some folks want to cover their cost of shipping supplies. Or, their "time."

Jim

This area is for SELLING/BUYING items ....but for now we can post...it may get moved.

I will not deal with folks that over charge. And folks that I know are under charging I tend to bid higher. That's the good thing about ebay....you control it and pass if someone charges more than you think they should. The item will come along again....

Just like looking to buy anything you have to compare, shop around, even on Ebay.  I just bought a car last week at what I considered a reasonable price and shipping was less than $10.  I saw other sellers selling the same item with prices as if was solid gold and shipping was as if from the space station to earth.  :-)

Shop around

I agree with EBT (East Broad Top?) JIM.  I think shipping is a bit of a cottage industry for some sellers.  What confounds me is that I know what it costs to send a 8 pound locomotive package across the country and some sellers say the shipping is $12.59 for priority mail for theirs????  I paid nearly $50 to have a pair of William's FAs and a caboose mailed from Pennsylvania to California and that was the actual cost!  How can they do that without loosing money?

When I sell on eBay I list the shipping weight in the text. The customer is free to calculate what he thinks it should cost. Sometimes the results are surprising. The weight of most stuff isn't hard to find or estimate. For large or heavy shipments, boxes and supplies can be a significant cost if purchased retail. A decent sized box can run 3 or 4 bucks easily.

Some sellers use flat-rate USPS whether that is the lowest cost or not. It often is not.

If you think the calculated shipping is too high, ask BEFORE you bid. 

Ebay adds the price of shipping to the final cost of the item. They did this a few years ago because sellers were overcharging on shipping cost. I guess quite a few sellers didn't get the memo.  

Bob

I buy and sell on Evilbay.  I have been fortunate both ways.  Occasionally I will receive an item that is not up to it's description.  In those cases, which are very few, I ask the seller to make some adjustment on the price, usually in the form of a partial refund.  I have sold two or three items over the many years that I've been dealing on Ebay, where the buyer wanted a refund.  One was belligerent for no reason, the other two were justified as one item failed to perform and the second broke in transit.  

Shipping charges are sometimes absorbed partially in the selling price.  I, myself deal on Ebay to support my hobby, so I am not locked into having to make a certain percentage to justify my time.  Depending on what I am selling I will either list a fixed shipping charge or let the distance dictate how much the buyer pays for shipping.  

Funny story, I knew a guy that sold some items on the Bay before it started taking it's fee out of the shipping charge and the item selling price.  He listed very expensive items for a dollar, with a four hundred dollar fixed shipping cost.  Someone within driving distance wanted to pick the item up after he had won it.  The seller indicated that was not possible and he could only ship items.  So the seller only paid Ebay fees based on the dollar sale.  Since then Ebay has changed the rules and keeps changing them.  

PLCProf posted:

When I sell on eBay I list the shipping weight in the text. The customer is free to calculate what he thinks it should cost. Sometimes the results are surprising. The weight of most stuff isn't hard to find or estimate. For large or heavy shipments, boxes and supplies can be a significant cost if purchased retail. A decent sized box can run 3 or 4 bucks easily.

Some sellers use flat-rate USPS whether that is the lowest cost or not. It often is not.

If you think the calculated shipping is too high, ask BEFORE you bid. 

The weight is only ONE factor in figuring shipping cost, I recently sold some Passenger cars, to 3 different buyers on this F/ST board, and all three shipping prices were GREATER than the shipping rate for the weight. The shipping companies use a weight/cubic foot scale as well as simple weight to figure shipping rates. On one of my sales, the actual weight was 15#, the DIMENSIONAL WEIGHT charge was 31#, for the package.

 It had been too long since I had sold/shipped anything, and all the shipping rates were  about double what I expected, I wont guesstimate shipping in the future, but I did honor the shipping prices that I quoted my buyers.

I can understand charging a LITTLE over actual postage, to cover boxes, bubble wrap, peanuts, tape etc., but I have seen sellers that use shipping charges to pad the profit margin on some items, this was especially common with ebay before they started charging final value fees on shipping charges. Some sellers used to sell items way below the true value of the item, then charge ridiculous shipping fees to make it up. Sell a $100 item that would cost $8 to ship for $8 dollars and then charge $100 for shipping, the end cost to the buyer is the same, but the ebay fees were only based on the $8 "SALE" price. Needless to say, ebay eventually caught on to that trick.

Doug

BK posted:

Ebay adds the price of shipping to the final cost of the item. They did this a few years ago because sellers were overcharging on shipping cost. I guess quite a few sellers didn't get the memo.  

Bob

And since ebay now takes about 10% of the shipping cost many feel they need to 'pad' to get the cost of shipping AFTER ebay takes their cut. 

I'm one that thinks I should be able to at least break even on shipping.  If I sell an item that the average shipping is 20, probably more like $15 on the East Coast and $25 on the west coast, I'll add the 15% of the $20 as a handling charge.  I usually just about break even, for longer shipments I lose a little, for close shipments I make a little.

Dan Padova wrote:

I buy and sell on Evilbay

I sure get tired of this term and others like fleabay, if it is SO HORRIBLE, WHY are you buying and selling there?

I personally have had Excellent results buying on both ebay and the F/ST board, but ebay not only gives the buyer protection that the F/ST board DOESN'T, I have had several buyers from the F/ST board commit to buy then back out, that is pretty RARE on ebay. I have also had several Great transactions selling here on the F/ST board as well.

It seems pretty simple to ME, if ebay is SO EVIL, YOU shouldn't be buying/selling there, you are not being forced to buy/sell on ebay, it is a choice you make freely, I wonder why you continue to do so?

Doug

As a shipper, I've been shorted by eBay calculations for UPS many times, but I really don't care. If I don't want it, I want someone else to have it. I also like offering "free shipping", just to be done with it.

I have found that ebay is not accurate for UPS and especially for Fedex. I end up having to pay more on them. I don't offer UPS/Fedex unless it's a large &/or heavy item. I usually will check ups/fedex fee's before I state a price for shipping. I do not try to make anything off of shipping.  

Some people, like myself, take care in packaging the sold items.  New boxes, peanuts and bubble wrap.  Those things are not free to me and are added to the cost of shipping.