OT-ebay ?

[connorsmom911]

Ok, so I've sold before on ebay but it's been a long time and the postal outlet that I used to use and who held my hand through all of the postal stuff has gone under. The new postal outlet closest to home and work, well, let's just say I'll have to know what I'm doing and I really feel like I don't. I have looked at Canada Post's website and tried to figure out what to do, but I'm not sure and I don't want to end up losing money (money is really tight right now, hence the reason to sell on ebay to make a little extra).

So, my question is, how do I determine a flat rate to put in my auction listings for a) Canada and b) USA? Most of the items I'm thinking about selling are small, would fit into a small bubble envelope, or are Star Wars action figures (hubby is reluctantly parting with his extras) which would have to be in a small box. I don't want to do the trip to the post office to determine shipping after the auction, I want to put the cost in the listing up front.

Secondly, where do you suggest getting packing materials. I used to have an in when hubby worked at Home Depot as he could scoop the little boxes and packing peanuts before they were put in the crusher, but he doesn't work there anymore. Do you approach stores and ask them to keep boxes for you? Any suggestions?

Any other tips would be appreciated. As I said, it's been a while and it seems that some things have changed in the ebay world.

Thanks,

Tracey

 

[pxlbarrel]

I ship almost daily. I started on Ebay and evolved into an online store.

Do you have scale (can be one you use for food) or anything you can figure out how heavy your package would be?

Canada Post is cracking down on bubble envelopes...meaning that even if it fits through their measuring slot, if it doesn't contain paper products, it'll have to be shipped as a package as opposed to a letter.

A small Star Wars figure will probably weigh less than 250 g in a bubble envelope. You can go to the Canada Post website and use their parcel rate calculator. And figure out how much it'll cost to ship within your own province and then to the rest of Canada (use a postal code for a city farthest from you to figure out the rest of Canada and a city farthest from you in your own province for your province.) If you're selling to the States, you can use a state that's farthest from you. For us in Toronto, we use British Columbia or Newfoundland for the province and I use London for a city in our province. I could have used Thunder Bay but it's too far away and skews the shipping too high. LOL For the States, we use California.

Small packages to the States will probably go as Small Packet (air or ground.)

If you don't have a scale or anyway of measuring it, you just really need one or two trips to the post office to measure similar objects and you'll get a feel for how heavy your stuff will be.

As for what to ship it in....if you're doing this in your spare time, I wouldn't bother going out and buying boxes. Having the right size boxes saves a lot of time in packing but boxes are kinda of expensive (I just got box quotes yesterday...YIKES!) I work in an office that I can take a lot of boxes from the recycling bin so if you have that kind of opportunity, you can try that. But yeah, you can ask the Home Depot if you can take a look...or another store. My mom found me a HUGE bag of styrofoam peanuts at a Bowrings store...she saw it there and asked if she could have it. They were throwing it out anyway so they said yes. I saw a box that was perfect for something I was going to send...and it was at Canadian Tire. I asked the clerk if I could have it and she said yup!

So...it's not too hard...just a bit of legwork at the beginning.

Good luck!

 

[seashoreCM]

Nothing wrong with guessing on the high side.

You do not have to use flat rate. If you do use flat rate you can say that flat rate shipping is only for buyers in Canada (or buyers in Canada and the U.S. if you prefer).

You can even say in y our description that buyers can email you for a more precise shipping cost instead of pay immediately with flat rate (quoted for the longest distance), and the buyer can choose either way.

Quote parcel post for parcels, not letter post. My experience (shipping from the U.S.) has been that even though you might have succeeded in sending a parcel via letter pos yesterday, the clerk handling your transaction today might insist on parcel post.

Disney hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[pxlbarrel]

Well, Canada Post has started to put their foot down on anything going as letter post that doesn't have paper products inside. It used to be if the package could fit through the little slot that they use to measure the mail, it could go as letter post. However, they are now cracking down on that so if you're not sending a letter, book, magazine, etc...then you have to ship it as a parcel. Shipping in the U.S. is not too bad if you stay below 1 kg. You can then ship it anywhere in the U.S. as a small packet (air or ground). Once you get over 1 kg, you have to ship it Expedited USA which is actually ground shipping but has a tracking number and has a expected delivery of 6-9 days. Its cost also depends on where you're sending it. The farther away, the more it costs. Both small packet and Expedited come with $100 insurance but only Expedited comes with the tracking number. (Yes...Canada Post still insures the non-trackable...makes you wonder about the logic of it all but don't fight it, it's to our advantage.)

If you're going to ship stuff in Canada, you should head over to the Canada Post website and sign up for a Venture One card. It'll get you 3% off of your Expedited shipping within Canada. In other words, you can ship your stuff Expedited rather than regular parcel post. It'll be cheaper than regular parcel post AND it'll get there faster. It's a great deal. It'll also help with shipping Expedited parcels to the U.S.

One more thing about Canada Post...fuel surcharges on Expedited shipping (USA and Canada) are around 7.5% right now. It's terrible.

As for not putting down a shipping cost on your auction and asking them to email you. My preference when I surf is that if it doesn't list a shipping cost, I bypass it and go to another auction unless it's really something I can't live with. In my opinion, for what it's worth, buyers like to know the whole cost so they can compare prices. And most Americans don't know how much it actually costs to ship something to them from here...so putting the cost on the auction prevents them from hyperventilating and emailing you nasties when they discover that shipping their widget to them will cost them double what they thought.