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Hi guys,
I have been devouring this podcast and I have been trying to eBay my little heart out. The issue I am having is with shipping costs. I saw someone state that the best way to deal with it is to sell items under 1kg so they can ship as tracked packages.
I wonder is anyone having success with larger items? For example, I listed a vintage Kodak slide projector the other week. It is 8kg. I listed it relatively low for what it is. I see ones selling for $50.00 more without all of the add ons I am including. So I know they sell. Two of the exact same model sold yesterday, but mine hasn’t. I checked the differences and it seems to be shipping. They are shipping from within the US. Their shipping is $20.00 and under, mine is $67.00. I get it. I would not want to pay $67.00 for shipping.
So, the market is in the US. Canada Post makes it hard to get into that market. So, is this even doable? Are people having success? Is Canada a large enough market to survive off of? We are really wanting to be the Ryanne and Jay of Canada, but I am getting disheartened.
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There are some Canadians here who I hope will chime in. I imagine that shipping to the US will simply be more expensive. If you depend on the US market, then that’s a reality. But isnt the good news that you get paid in USD and that’s worth more than Canadian dollars?
You may want to avoid selling large, heavy items to the US because that will always be more expensive.
I’m not sure if you;re close to the US border, but I know some Canadian sellers use “reshippers” (I think this is the right word) in the US. The packages are driven across the border and shipped through USPS.
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We are Canadian selling almost exclusively to the US, and completely understand your frustration with Canada Post. We live around 1 hour from the border and I drive to the US every Monday to mail packages via USPS. We set our handling time to 5 business days during the week and switch it to 1 day over the weekend.
Its obviously time consuming and not ideal, but the difference in shipping costs makes it worthwhile. We set the item location, as the location in the US where we ship from. I think it probably helps for customers to know their order will be shipped from within the US, and it means we can use calculated shipping.
If you aren’t near the border, it may be better to focus on smaller items. -
Dragon13x, can I ask if you are doing this full-time or part-time?
We are in Toronto, so we can make it to the border, but if we only have a couple low value items we would lose money in gas. Still, it is something we are considering. My husband is American and likes to cross the border as much as possible.
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Jay, we are considering reshippers, but we don’t have enough sales yet to justify it. I guess once we change our shipping costs we may have more buyers.
I am really hoping there are some Canadians, far from the border, who are successful at this. Our dream is to sell our house and move to Nova Scotia and do this full-time. Then we would be very far from a border and likely re-shippers.
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Hi Aberwine, at the moment Ebay is a relatively small part of our business. I generally take 5-10 packages per week over the border. I do have other reasons to visit the US, but would probably only make a couple of visits a month without Ebay.
We are hoping to grow our Ebay business (as you are) and if we can increase our sales, then the trips to the US will make even more sense.
You may find that if you offer shipping from the US your sales grow, and driving to the border could be worthwhile. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help if you move to Nova Scotia! -
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Hi Ryanne,
We print USPS labels from Ebay, but then I do stand in line at the post office so I can be sure the items are scanned in.
For returns we use a shipping company address in the US, they charge us USD 2.75 for each package they accept on our behalf. Our policy is for buyers to pay return shipping (unless of course we’re at fault) and they probably wouldn’t be too impressed if they had to pay international shipping rates for returns.
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They just charge for packages they receive on your behalf. They act as a drop off point for Fedex and UPS, I’m not sure about USPS because I prefer to get my items scanned at the post office. Drop off service is free.
I think they are quite common along the border. Canadians that live close to the border can order stuff online from the US (as its often a lot cheaper than in Canada) and get it delivered to the shipping company. They then drive over the border to collect it. -
I’ll weigh in with my $0.0156 (converted from USD to CDN).
I’m about five hours from the border, in Alberta, and ship primarily via USPS using a cross border shipper. If my buyer is Canadian, I generally use Canada Post. Anywhere else, I use USPS (or on occasion, FedEx for heavier items).
If you’re in Toronto, check out Chit Chat’s Express. I’ve not personally used them, but I know that they offer USPS shipping from Canada. They also service the Atlantic provinces, so it’s an option if you end up in NS as well (I’m from NS originally. Beautiful area, but holy taxes…)
When I started out selling, I was shipping using only Canada Post, and since making the switch, my sales have increased, my costs have dropped, and my delivery times are faster. All for as little as $1/cdn per package.
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