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I am selling a 176 book series on eBay and I had it listed as local pick up. However, I received a very good offer from a buyer in Amsterdam who asked if I could ship it via eBay’s GSP. The buyer has 4k positive feedback and has been on eBay since 2003. I would like to accept his offer, but shipping is intimidating. It’ll be 176 hardback books, each one weighs about 23 ounces, and they’re 11″ x 9″ each.
Does anyone have any advice on the best way to ship these?
Thank you!
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eBay does not provide a really good way in which to offer shipping in more than one box. When I’ve had something that had to go into two boxes, I put in the total weight for one box, then I paid for two boxes and took the hit in cost.
One thing about media mail is that eBay won’t allow a weight over a certain amount. I think the maximum is 70 pounds.
Seems like you would need to ship around 6 boxes. I don’t really see how you can do that through GSP. Perhaps you should do what Ryanne suggested, but ship directly. You either have to invoice him through PayPal for the shipping, or update the listing with the flat rate. If you have an outstanding offer on it, you would need to decline the offer first before you could update it. First notify your buyer and get buy-in before you do that.
Before you do anything, I suggest calling eBay and see if they have any other suggestions.
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Ask at your local post office about the International media mail rates using a M-bag. If I remember correctly, you can ship up to 70 pounds per bag and the rate is much cheaper than the usual rates. The post office supplies the bag and an address label for the bag. You can also put multiple boxes in the bag because you wouldn’t want to ship 70 pounds of books in one box. I wouldn’t ship more than 20 pounds of books per box. If you do use the M-bag, make sure you address the boxes too in case a box gets loose from the bag.
Just curious, what set of books are you selling?
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Interesting! Thanks for the tip. I’ll look into it.
I’m selling volumes 1-43 of Automobile Quarterly, years 1962 – 2003.
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In the future, it’s often smarter to sell the volumes individually to people trying to complete their collection. You’ll make much more money and it’s much easier to ship. Only caveat: it takes longer.
We bought twenty years worth of a random magazine collection for $5. We sold them by the year at $30 a pop.
How much is the Dutch buyer offering for all the books? It’s not too late to change your mind.
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We had considered doing that, but thought we’d try the whole lot first. But the shipping issues may be the deciding factor…
He’s offered $900 + shipping. We bought the whole set for $95.
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So he’s paying $900 or about $5 a book. Looking at Solds, that seems like a good deal:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=Automobile+Quarterly&_sacat=0&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1&_sop=16Does the $900 include shipping it all to Amsterdam?
If so, the profit goes way down.
What does it cost to mail 260lbs to Amsterdam?Brainstorming:
–You could explain that it’s Local Pickup, and he’s have to arrange his own shipping.
–Or you could make him pay $900 for local pickup. Then require him to send you a separate Paypal payment for shipping eight boxes of books.Both ways, the shipping happens outside the transaction so you’re safe from any hassles.
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Another thought is to treat it like a small art sculpture, and make a small wooden crate. 1″x2″ framed cube with thin plywood or masonite sides . Glue and screw it all togther. Many YouTube videos on how to make mini crates and ship small sculptures. Bundle the books into several small groups and wrap with plastic, then stack on the base of the crate, bind the bundles with more wrap, use a small felt furniture pad taped around the whole batch, then screw on the sides. Then that whole small mini crate depending on the total weight and size may go FedEx to the Global Shipping Center in KY. Thee is also some of the ship and mail centers that will crate up an item.
May also have the buyer arrange for his own shipping by private shipper after you have it crated. As a local pick up all you have to do is have the carrier who picks up sign a receipt you create and the buyer and his private shipper handles it from their. I think DHL handles something like this. As a buyer he needs to find a world wide shipper to handle it for him.
Just trying to think outside of the box. But I have been successful several times on crating small sculptures we have sold.
Good luck….
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
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