Help with pricing on EPay

From: Scarletdown <SecretaryBird_at_SoftHome.net>
Date: Tue Jan 14 03:30:01 2003

From: "No Junk Mail" <3sdiarftt02_at_sneakemail.com>
To: cctalk_at_classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Re: Help with pricing on EPay
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Date sent: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 18:11:08 +1100

>
> > One of my main beefs are the number of sellers in the US
> > who restrict the volume of bids by refusing to ship to
> > anywhere outside own their limited vision of the world.
> > Either thru fear of unknown extra efforts, (which for the
> > most part are minimal) or even ignoring the "will ship to"
> > section.
>
> My pet hate is people that charge 50% to 100% more postage to ship
> from the US to Australia than it actually costs. I have been gouged,
> *over*charged, an amount almost equal to the cost of the item before
> now. That is to say that on a US$25 item I might be charged US$35
> postage, but it's only cost US$18 for them to post.
>
> I've walked away from purchases where postage costs have been this
> disproportionally high.

I always try to give bidders some idea of what the shipping costs are
going to be. I start by stating what the total estimated weight of
the package is, then give a link to the USPS Domestic and
International Rate Calculators and make sure that my ZIP code shows
up in the Location section of the listing. If a package is going to
be under 1 pound, then I state that shipping will be $3.85 for USPS
Priority Mail for U.S. bidders. If it is a real small item, such as
a video game cartridge for example, then I state a flat $2.50 U.S. or
$4.50 overseas to cover 1st Class (or Air Mail) postage and the cost
of a padded envelope.

If it is books, magazines, computer software, music, videos, or
several game cartridges, then I go with USPS Media Mail (stateside).
For heavy items, USPS Parcel Post is best, and overseas, I will offer
USPS Air Parcel, Surface Parcel, or even Global Express. And
sometimes, I list Global Priority as an additional option.

When all is said and done, I try to keep the package weight as close
as possible to what I had estimated. If it is significantly less
than the estimate, I will either refund the difference (if payment
was via PayPal) or spend the excess on insurance and/or delivery
confirmation. If I underestimated, then it's "too bad, so sad, my
loss", and just go ahead and absorb the extra expense (though quietly
hoping that the buyer might decide to reimburse the difference if he
notices when the package is received.) :)

As for those who will only ship within the U.S.; I can understand a
few reasons for that, though most of the time, I think it's just
laziness. In some cases, there may be export restrictions. A prime
example was the MS Outlook CD I recently sold. Right on the front
label on the case was printed "Unlawful to sell this outside of the
U.S. or Canada" (or something to that effect); so naturally I had to
limit it to the U.S. and Canada. Also, on one occasion (it was for a
Girls Gone Wild DVD), in the Will Ship To Section, I had to select
U.S. and everything except for The Middle East, due to extreme Muslim
anality on how much flesh can be shown. :/

There are also USPS size restrictions for both Air and Surface Mail
going overseas. You can find the info somewhere on their web site:
usps.com

About the only other time I have limited an auction to U.S. bidders
was when I tried to sell a couple Cromemco systems via eBay. My
reason for limiting the ship-to location was because I was covering
shipping (UPS in this case) myself, and had set the opening bid and
the BIN with what I figured the average cost to ship anywhere in the
lower 48 States would be. Neither of them received any bids
unfortunately. However, one of my buyers from a couple TI-99/4a
auctions I did is now in the process of purchasing them. He is in
Canada, and is willing to pay shipping costs (any excess of which
will be reimbursed). The biggest challenge is going to be finding
boxes large enough and strong enough to hold a System Two and System
Three (at least UPS will come pick them up.) Fortunately, I have
time to work this detail out due to the way we have arranged payment
and shipping into three parts (starting with just the software and
manuals...)

Anyway, enough babbling from me for tonight. About time to go catch
a few Z's and sleep off this migraine. :/

-- Scarletdown
Received on Tue Jan 14 2003 - 03:30:01 GMT