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Doesn’t all of this back and forth with the various customers just make one want to take the weight of the item plus estimated packing and then throw on the cost to ship it to a 3,000 mile zip destination, mark that up 30% then tack it on to the item price and OFFER FREE SHIPPING. That way they can never say shipping is a rip off again.
I have been reading lately that a lot of sellers are going to Free Shipping and doing exactly that. We have started going toward free shipping on most items that are less than 3 to 4 lbs. and building in the shipping to a Cal. zip and rounding it up. [We are in Atlanta]. So the Cal. customers pay about the right cost, those in the mid-USA pay somewhat more and locals pay a lot more, but we are about at the point we don’t care any more. Our item prices are probably a touch low and this makes up for it. Also unusual, vintage, hard to find or unique, ecletic items who is to say about it’s total price. Every item has a buyer sooner or later.
There is a lady “Danni Ackerman” who does YouTube videos. Look up her couple on free shipping and see if you change your mind.
With the free shipping scenario the customer doesn’t have a clue as to the weight, final packed size, as opposed to what you are charging for the item. We even throw in room for Sales and Offers.
Example. I have an item we paid $3.50 for and $6.75 will get it anywhere in the USA. We sell it for $60 free shipping. Now the customer is in the dark. If they want to return they pay to do so. Conceptually in their minds they never paid for shipping anyway.
We have been talking with a lot of people and as long as it isn’t a competitive, current commodity item, I think this may just solve the issues.
imjosh: Isn’t the sweet spot at about 1,728 cubic inches. That is what I has used for years. As long as the dim. weight threshold has not changed then one can try to stay under that sizing. We always try to be careful of the 1728 cubic inches when we buy at our sources. That is why I carry a tape measure with me.
A long skinny pkg. at 48″ long but only 6″ x 6″ square is 1,728 cu. inches. Then a 12″x12″x12″ cube box is also 1,728. So we try to only buy what fits into that approx. area-size and we know we are always safe.
We sort of figured that is why the USPS stopped making the 15x12x12 “C” size boxes and also Ebay stopped there 18″x?x?.And yes, love the fitshipper tool. Used it for a long time and have played “what if” many times. Saved our butts a few times also.
mike at MDC Galleries in Atl.
Yeah that’s right. Didn’t think that through enough.
Also I see on the Shippo page that they are only accepting “a few” applicants at this point. Wonder if this is in Beta Testing and once it is offered to everybody then this will be a subscription service. Also I didn’t get the service level difference between the ShipRush and the Shippo except that the ShipRush links with a much larger selection of accounts than the Shippo version. On the Shippo page it shows it links with only 3 or 4 and the Etsy logo is “greyed out”. Just really wonder if this will be a subscription service somewhere down the road.
Also we have a SL member who has a web site we have mention several times here at SL and that’s “FlipperTools” and “FitShipper”. He has a very similar program whereby we are supposed to sign up and he says we would then get a discounted rate off of the USPS Commercial rates.
Here is his link: https://www.fitshipper.com/ Check this out and see how it compares. Who knows, maybe his rates are even lower by more.
Wonder why Ebay is letting this go to sub-contract / 3rd party type of services instead of keeping there fingers in it. Maybe now they make their extra money off the total shipping costs they don’t care if we can get discounts elsewhere. Wonder if Ebay Labels could have offered us even lower costs all along and they just decided to keep that extra for themselves. As big as they are I would assume they could drive the USPS down about as low as it could go. Hhhmm.
mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
T-Satt:
I assume that Ebay still gets their share of the shipping after it is reported by Shippo BUT would not Ebay’s share now be lower since it is a percentage of shipping costs? If so then not only would we save by using Shippo to lower our actual package ship costs but also save a small amount by way of Ebay getting less.
Hey Julie .. Interesting place. Looked at their video. Makes it easy for the prop masters to come and select because everything is organized by type-category. It is 55,000 sq. feet.
The Antique Mall we had 6 booths at is 110,000 sq. feet. Two stories of 55,000 sq. ft each, so twice as large as this place. The big difference is with over 500 dealers, while the selection and diversity was there, it was not organized by category of item because everyone is a separate dealer and arranged there own personal inventory within there own spaces. This “by category” makes it easier to select for a movie. If you want retro looking lamps, just go to lamps and make your selection while at the booths, you had to look all over the place.
But that did not stop the prop masters from coming out and “picking” the whole Antique Mall [all 500 dealers]. They had it down to a system. We had many prop master come in with a group of 6 to 10 assistants. The prop master would be out front with a clip board [a list of what they were looking for] and walking the aisles. She would hang big yellow tags on anything she wanted to buy. Her helpers were coming along behind her pushing rolling canvass laundry carts and picking up everything she tagged and taking it all up to the checkout desk area. This happened quite often. It was not unusual for them to spend $10,000 to $20,000 in a day long sprint. We came in one day and we saw a lot of yellow tags on all our bamboo furniture and we knew a prop master was in the building and the helpers had just not gotten to do the pick up yet on our isle.
This place is up I-75 toward Marietta. Funny though that there are now about 15 or more movie studios shooting out of Atlanta. I hear a lot of them are occupying the old Lakewood Fair Grounds buildings which are in South Atlanta. I would think that a prop rental company would prefer to be down south of the air port and closer to where all the new studios are congregating. I have heard that, they are calling South Atlanta, the New Hollywood East because of so many film making studios here along with record recording studios.
There were a few dealers out at the Mall that did nothing but “rent” there inventory, but it was mostly for weddings, business gatherings and the such. It was all mostly chalk painted white, distressed, shabby look items. But had a lot of flatware, linens, glasses and the such that were old looking. I guess it was sort of like a “Aaron Rents” party rental only for “old looking stuff”.
The old monthly antique show that used to be at the fairgrounds, now relocated several years ago, called Lakewood Antiques are in a permanent building in Cumming, GA. Think that is much closer to your location [I believe] They are open once a month, sort of like Scott Antiques in South Atlanta, only smaller. We go occasionally but they are all dealers and hard to get any real “Bargain Prices”. They know the drill, know their items and know the prices. So we go more for just to get out. My wife calls it “airing me out”. LOL 🙂
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta.
Good morning Amatino: No that was human error. I ran back through and see that it was an M-500 at the $49 price point. My error. I used a more generic term, Argus Projector without the model no included and a larger quantity popped up. I just quickly sorted from high to low and scanned down quickly and made an error. They looked almost the same and I was fast scanning by image and they looked so similar.
Sorry about that. Also did a Google image search and got the same ball park as you did.Learned lessons on camera and projectors years ago. They don’t go for much. The only time I buy a camera now, is if it has a special brand or type of lens. I buy the whole rig, detach the lens or lens and case and dump the camera body. Most camera bodies unless very high end like Hasselblad on Canon, etc. don’t bring more than $5 bucks or so. One has to also be careful of the “mount” on the lens. A Carl Zeis lens, high zoom factor and with a universal mount will go for much larger amounts.
Sorry again on the over site on the higher priced on the M-1000
Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta
Zach: Also it depends a little bit on how you listed it.
* Did you test it first and state tested and works in your listing or did you say “untested” would be good for parts? If you sold it as a tested and working unit, then they question is did he break it or did it just give out, or did he mount it on his camera body incorrectly.On paying for repairs, I wouldn’t leave that up to a customer. If the lens is a high priced lens, say $75 or more, I would say just send it back and you will have it checked out and resend it back to him. That alone would probably make him go away. What’s the shipping back to you less than $10 bucks or so. You can even issue a pick-up call slip so he doesn’t have to even do anything other than re-pack and box it up. Then when you get it back if it works fine, refund him and re-list it and sell it again and build in your cost of his shipping return. In other words, sell it for more than you did the first time.
You never know, but if you agree to a repair, he could actually go to a camera shop, trade it in for another one he likes better and then give you some sort of bogus receipt that is really just the cost difference of his trade in or trade up.
Just thinking out loud. No one rule that fits all in situations like this.
Welcome to the week of crazies. Looks like a lot of us are having them come out of the woodwork.
Maybe all of the drunks are just coming out of the New Years Party stupor and now are taking to the net.
I agree with Jay. Looks like a craft like decoupage project. Cut and paste down, then over paint. In this case trying to make some sort of social or personal comment or something.
Don’t see why you can’t list it. just wonder what would be market though. Probably a real DIY, one of kind, personal type item.Yep.. You are dead on accurate. We do the same thing couple times a day, just like T-Satt. In comes an offer, we except, decline or counter-offer. That is the communication.
No we have never sent any e-mail telling the customer that we are in the process of accepting their offer.
What she may be confusing herself with is that in the past, she e-mailed a seller using the contact seller button and sent a verbal offer through and e-mail and the seller replied to her e-mail [from the message center of course] and informed her they would accept her verbal offer. Then the seller created an invoice and sent to her and she paid from the “Invoice Sent by the Seller”.
but as far as the formal “Make an Offer Button” you don’t have to even add any text in the message box, just a number in the offer amount field. I will offer you $10 and send, you accept, done deal, they pay. End of story.
