FB Offered me the option to start shipping, I smell an expirement!

[Lauren]

Hey team,

So last night I hit the amount of reviews/sales/whatever metric FB uses to gauge shipping availability, and they let me add a shipping to some of my items. Here’s what I’v learned so far:

-Not all item catagories can ship (housewares can, antiques cant) I list most of my stuff as household regardless so it’s not a huge issue

-There are two options for shipping- FB Labels, which are limited to 1 cu feet packages and prices vary by weight (the prices are pretty good) or provide your own label and charge a flat fee. No calculated shipping based on location. I have both set up on various items so we’ll see how they turn out.

-Buyers have 30 minutes to cancel a purchase with what seems to be no strings attached. Similar to Amazon, you can’t ship an item until it moves from “pending” to the next step (my first order is sitting on pending, I’ll let you know what it says)

-Theres a buyer protection program, not seeing anything on seller protection

-Fees are waived until December 31st. When they reinstate, it’s 5% per item, or a flat 0.40 cents for items that are $8 or less.

-You can’t see orders from your mobile, at least I couldn’t. When someone buys something, it automatically sets the listing to “pending”, but I had to sign into my laptop to see the order processing. No word yet on if there is a notification that comes after it’s done processing. At least now, it looks like you have to be on top of your orders, and check a few times a day.

-There is an OBO feature, with an automatic decline threshold. Not sure if this is also an automatic accept. Theres only one, and it says “the lowest I’d accept for this item is __”  (recalling from memory, might have the wording wrong)

I’ll let you know what else I learn as I learn it. Anyone else have insight on shipping on marketplace. It feels smooth, but there’s more to be desired about how it works. I would have liked a tutorial or something.

 

Thanks!

 

Lauren

[Lauren]

Okay, update:

After the pending switches to an open order, I got a desktop notification but not a cellphone notification.

You have 3 business days to ship items

You’re paid straight to your bank on file when the item is marked shipped

FB Collects sales tax

They did send me an email which got redirected to my social folder. Here’s what it said after the order details:

<span class=”m_7067480614335621113mb_text”>What happens next?</span>

 

<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>

1. Ship the item using a shipping service of your choice. Make sure to get a tracking number for the order.

 

<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>

1. View order details from this email or from the Facebook app. Mark the order as shipped and enter the tracking number provided by the shipping service.

 

1. Payment to your bank account will be initiated 5 days after delivery confirmation.

 

Here’s to learning!

[Jay]

Yeah, Facebook started allowing some sellers to ship last year. Not sure why some people are chosen over others. Let us know how it works for you.

[Lauren]

Building off of this.

 

Facebook is…interesting. It definitely boosts my sales during slow times. Here’s what I learned:

There’s 2 types of customers. Silent, similar to Ebay, and people who want to tell you their life story.

Some orders come in without getting any messages from the customer at all. It’s beautiful, just like Ebay. I’m a big fan of not talking to people if I don’t have to, so this works out well.

The other half want to have long drawn out conversations. On Ebay, I’d throw up a red flag, but after selling locally on Facebook for a while, I know that’s just the platform. I think the most excessive was someone buying a swung vase. She was very concerned about it getting broken in transit, etc, and had been burned before on returns. We went back and forth after explaining how I packed things, she bought it (normally I wouldn’t put this much effort into a sale, but it was $50 and a slow day). The day after it was delivered I woke up to SEVEN messages from her. Shit. It broke. Just kidding, I opened up messages to find puppy dog pictures, songs of praise, and overall joy about her vase getting to her. It was nice, but 7 messages seems excessive.

 

Another suggestion on FB is to not list for shipping anything more than a cubic foot. You can either ship with their labels, which only go up to 10 lbs and 1 cubic foot, or a site like pirateship. I like having control of my listings so I use pirateship, but after a cubic foot their rates jump up like 20 bucks depending on where it’s going.

I have yet to really deal with a return or anything on FB, and am limiting items to a $75 price point or under. Thats pretty much what I’m willing to lose, anything higher than that just stays on Ebay.

 

I have noticed that since I started shipping, I get almost no one asking for local pickup. I hate local pickup, and my sales haven’t dropped, so I’m cool with this.

Facebook overestimates how long it’ll take to deposit money. When I sold something on the 1st, it estimated I would get my payment by the 20th. I actually received it by the 10th. Not as fast as Ebay or Paypal. They mark it as 5 days after delivery of item, but as long as I know the money is coming, I don’t mind as much.

[Author]

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