Patches shipping help needed.

[twizzle]

Patches shipping help needed.  Sold a few patches from my stash last Friday. Do I just throw them In an envelope, hand write out the address and add a stamp or print a shipping label ? How do I print a small address shipping label as my thermal printer only prints 4×6.  What am I missing ? Thank you, Suzy.

[Jay]

Be interested to hear from our patch sellers here, but I think they just take a gamble and ship without tracking.

[NC]

yeah unfortunately, eBay standard envelope is not an option in the patch category so you have to either ship with a stamp, or take a hit and do first class shipping for $4. It’s virtually impossible to compete in the patch niche and charge $4 for shipping so pretty much everyone ships with stamps.

 

I buy the 1″ x 3″ labels and copy and paste the addresses into the dymo software and print the labels that way. I have an ink stamp with my address on it for the return address. I buy stamps in bulk for usually under 40 cents a piece on eBay.

 

If someone says the item never arrived, your only option is to refund since there’s no tracking. I get a few of these every month now but it’s still cheaper than paying for tracking on all of the orders. I also can’t be a top rated seller but that doesn’t seem to hurt too bad.

My advice for patch selling is to either go all in or not at all because of the variables I mentioned above and the average sale price is usually quite low.

[Retro Treasures WV]

 I also can’t be a top rated seller but that doesn’t seem to hurt too bad.

My advice for patch selling is to either go all in or not at all because of the variables I mentioned above and the average sale price is usually quite low.

 

At what point with these Item not received cases do you tip into that below average seller arena where ebay charges a huge penalty on your final value fees? Is that a concern?

[NC]

Thankfully, if you refund the buyer before eBay steps in, your account doesn’t get affected negatively. There’s a patch seller with over 40,000 listings and no telling how many INRs they get.

[twizzle]

Firstly, Retro so very glad you are feeling better and back listing again. Thanks for replies . Watching thread.  Thank you.

[twizzle]

What Dymo printer is best for printing 1″ x 3″ labels ?

[NC]

I use the dymo 450 turbo. I wish I had the XL for 4×6 labels cause mine can only do the 2×7 labels and I haven’t figured out how to get eBay international standard labels to print in that format.

You should be able to use small labels in a Dymo printer that does 4×6 but not sure if that’s what you have

[debitendcredits]

I sell patches at a pretty regular clip and never charge less than $12.49 (price includes shipping).  If you have the only one on eBay someone will pay.   They are definitely more long-tail using this method, but they don’t take up much space.

[Timo]

@millionairedojo:
Maintaining a Top Rated Seller Plus rating gives a seller the seal and 10% off on final value fees.
Most of us probably don’t need to jump thru eBay hoops for this.
But for most of us, Top Rated Seller is worth maintaining for the discounts on shipping plus potential best match visibility, etc.

The two remaining seller Levels are: Above Standard and Below Standard. So you are probably Above Standard.

Below Standard sellers pay penalties in the form of increased FVF. So no one wants that. Are you checking your Seller Dashboard / Seller Level to make sure you are not moving toward a problem there?

If you are on managed payments, you probably cannot issue refunds without eBay knowing. If necessary, you can download reports about the transactions that have offended eBay to analyze what is going on.

[NC]

Yeah I keep a close eye on all of that stuff since this is now my main income. What I was talking about with refunds was when a buyer starts an item not received case, as long as I refund them (eBay gives this option as part of the case) before the case closes and eBay has to step in to decide what to do, I don’t get any negative affect on my account. I just lose the money from the sale. Basically, eBay doesn’t want to have to do anything when a case is opened, they want us to resolve things before that happens. So giving a refund is what I can do in item not received cases.

I am above standard and tick all the boxes to be top-rated except for the percent of tracking uploaded.

[Jay]

On any given month, how many patch refunds do you make because of lost mail? I know you ship a lot.

[NC]

I just checked this page and for the past 12 months I have 36 total

 

https://www.ebay.com/sh/resolutions?filter=ISSUE_STATE%3ACLOSED_ISSUES%2CTIME_PERIOD%3ALAST_12_MONTHS%2CISSUE_TYPE%3A

[Jay]

That’s incredible because I assume its just 36 refunds out of hundreds (thousands?) of patch sales in that 12 months.

[NC]

Yeah, I’ve sold a couple thousand patches in the past 12 months. I think I’ve only had 1 or 2 people get a patch and not be happy with it and want a refund. The rest have been item not received.

[NC]

This page explains it all:

https://export.ebay.com/en/customer-service/case-resolution/item-not-received-cases/

 

“Defect cases can affect your Seller Performance Status.

The case counts as a defect only when:

• You’re not able to resolve the issue with your buyer,
• and eBay is asked to step in,
• and eBay resolves the issue in favor of the buyer.”

[Author]

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