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Yes. I looked at the PDF. So either Fed Ex changed the rules around DIM for Smart Post for everyone with their January price change and their teammates are not giving correct info or they changed the rules for eBay only. I really don’t know which…
Also, there is no way that I could see to check rates for Smart Post on the Fed Ex website. So that was for Ground…
What Nate in shipping told me is that essentially that it no longer makes sense to use Smart Post for anything bigger than 7x7x7…
HI all, I have some updates.
1.) The Fed Ex Smart Post rate is all Fed Ex. Our calculator is fine. Those are the rates that Fed Ex is currently offering for Smart Post and, yes, they suck.
2.) eBay is currently renegotiating Smart Post rates with Fed Ex and hope to have better rates beginning April 1st.
3.) When checking rates on the Fed Ex site (for comparison purposes), make sure you check the “this is a residential address” box. Home delivery is more expensive and When I did that using the scenario above (2 pound, 16x16x8, etc.), the rate on the Fed Ex site is $18.33, so the eBay rate of $17.63 for ground was slightly better…
That’s it for now folks. Wish I had better news…
Malinda
That’s interesting. When I just got a quote on Fed Ex.com, it told me that ‘Dimensional Weight of your package(s) was used to calculate your rate.’ I used the 2 pound 16x16x8 package details… Ah well, regardless, I hope we get this resolved soon. Thanks!
Malinda
HI there,
Okay, I sent this again with the specific example of the 16x16x8 2 pound package to my contact in shipping. I tested your numbers and agree with the results. Seems kind of crazy. I’ve escalated this and will let you know what I find out. It can take a while to get these kind of things resolved, but in my mind, it just doesn’t look right either.
I’ll let you know as soon as I have any updates and, with any luck, at least a road map view of when the issue will be resolved if a bug has been identified.
Thanks for pushing on this! I have some listings with Fed Ex Smart post calculated shipping and I’m wondering if it is turning some buyers off due to the high shipping cost.
Thanks!
Malinda
Hi guys, can you direct me to a thread on the SmartPost stuff? I do use SmartPost occasionally and haven’t noticed any specific issues. I just don’t have enough experience with it to confirm one way or the other whether or not there is a problem with it.
I will say that the content was partially updated yesterday and we have one more update going in today on the “if you offer free shipping, you can’t deduct shipping costs from your refund”. More to come.
Thanks!
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</center>Malinda
Good call out on offering free shipping. It’s why I don’t offer it. To me, it’s too muddy if you don’t separate the item cost from the shipping cost. I’ll make sure I confirm that policy and get it added to the Help page as well! Thanks for the heads up on that.
Hi all,
Malinda from eBay here. I did some following up on this and NO – eBay did NOT change it’s policy. The good (and somewhat embarrassing news) is that the content is incorrect. The policy around buyer remorse returns did not change. If a buyer returns something because it doesn’t fit or they’ve changed their mind, you do NOT need to refund original shipping, nor do you need to pay for the return shipping label. I’m working with our Help Content team and our Returns Product Manager to get the content updated this week.Thank you for bringing it to my attention!
Malinda
Active listing beginning of week: 552
Active listings at the end of week: 617
New Listings: 94
Items sold: 33
Total Sales: $910.07
Average price: $26.77
Cost of items sold: $164.71 (18.10%) – a little high this week…
Best sale: $110 For a Teac untested Reel-to-Reel (local pick up so we didn’t have to ship!)
No Returns (1 threatened, but then never followed up… She may still.)
Spent on new Inventory $513 (We are still aggressively trying to build up inventory with the cash we set aside to do so. But still think we may have overspent this week on some items… We will see)We did link with Bonanza this week and did sell one item for $35 (included in numbers above).
Overall, we are really happy with our progress and will keep listing this week with our goal of listing at least 100 items a week. We didn’t quite reach our goal this week. Our power went out Thursday night, so we missed a whole evening of listing. And, we had family over on Sunday so didn’t get much done then either. We will make it up this week. 🙂
Hi Simplicio, sorry for the late reply, I just saw your question. So, this is our first time “officially” buying and selling on eBay. I’ve been an eBay member since 2001 and have bought and sold lots of things, but just VERY casually.
I think our success can be attributed to a few things…
1. Binge listening to 1 year (or more?) worth of Scavenger Life
2. I’ve been a Realtor for 15 years, so some a good understanding of the importance of taking good pictures and how to market your items
3. Finding some great stuff to sell! (I know every week won’t be like this).
4. Doing other research on how to sell on eBay and being kind of a geek so understanding how search terms in your title and description can help you get found.Hopefully we will continue to see some success since my husband is now doing this full time!
So, having no idea what “Jarts” are, had to GTS (Google that shit). What is the first thing that came up? “Send a Jart: Send a Fart in a Jar. Laughs for hours, stinks for days.”
I’m assuming that is NOT what you sold for $100. LOL
We had a really good week this week, which was appreciated since today was my husband’s first official day without a corporate gig. 🙂 We are encouraged.
• Total Items in Store: 552 (as of Sunday night)
• Items listed this week: 126
• Items Sold: 28
• International 1 GSP
• Total Sales $986
• Highest Price $249.99 CPAP Machine
• Average Price Sold: $35.19
• Returns: 1 (Actually a refund of $37 because a cup & saucer broke in shipping.)
• Cost of Items Sold: $75.50 (7.66%)
• New Inventory Costs this week: $280The CPAP was definitely our scavenge of the week. We bought it, along with a box of new accessories (tubing, nose cushions, full face masks, etc.) for $3.00. We have all the accessories listed separately and sold two of the nose cushions tonight for 17.95 each. Of course, after the CPAP had sold and been paid for, I got an email letting us know that our listing was removed because you need a prescription for a CPAP (who knew). But since it was already paid and shipped, not much we could do.
Our lesson learned this week was in shipping china. We shipped a set of 4 cups and saucers and 1 cup and 1 saucer broke. The buyer was pretty upset when she emailed me (apparently she had 3 damaged items arrive that month). However, I immediately refunded her the shipping cost and half the cost of the items and apologized profusely, admitting it was our first time shipping china. I also tried to be empathetic with the fact that she had received 3 other damaged items (I told her her I’m sure that was frustrating.) I was dreading the feedback, but I think my quick response and empathy helped the situation. She left positive feedback: “Great seller. Very kind and honest. I will do business again. Many thanks.” So, all is well that ends well. And I’ll be watching many more YouTube videos on packaging china to ship!
This is officially our 5th week as eBayers. We had a good week, although not our highest week. We met our sales goal, which increased our confidence considering this is my husband’s last week at his full-time job. Our numbers for this week:
Week of Feb 12 – Feb 18
Total items in store at end of week:448
Items sold: 15
Cost of items sold: $28.50
Total sales: $559.44
Highest price sold: $200 for an Edgefield Pottery Jug I paid $20 for
Average price: $.37.30
Spent on new inventory $427.50 (including $100 for 106 pairs of shoes!)
Items listed: 147
Goal gross sales amount: $400
Met our goal!Customer issues:
– 2 UPIs (not included in total), 1 for $150 and one for $22
– 1 Return for a porcelain music box that had a previous repair we didn’t notice.Scavenge of the week:
We had an amazing sourcing weekend and found so many great things, I can’t even decide what our scavenge of the week is. Some highlights.
– The shoes (We’ve already sold 4 pair)
– We found a framed Bev Doolittle print, paid $5 and it’s listed for $194.50. (Will sell for sure)
– We bought 7 tubs of all kinds of fabric remnants for $5 each… We haven’t even started listing those yet as I wanted to get through the shoes (yes, finished listing them last night!)
– We bought a set of flatware that I thought was unique looking for $2.00, sold yesterday for $55.The most surprising sale(s)
– We bought this (God-awful) vintage faux fur coat at a yard sale for $1 (great condition). Sold through the Global Shipping Program for $35. I didn’t think we’d ever sell that thing…As a side note, we are LOVING the Global Shipping Program so far. We’ve sold 5 things through it in the last 5 weeks. Amazing!
Thanks again for the pod cast and the reminder about hard work paying off. I also enjoyed the dialogue around pricing. I was cracking up. 🙂 Bob and I are always reminding ourselves that we are not buying things for ourselves, so don’t base the decision to purchase on whether or not WE think it is attractive or cool or whatever. It is always surprising to me to see what people actually buy.
This week is already starting off great. It’s Wednesday and we’ve already sold 9 things for $314 (so far only one item not paid for, but just bought last night.) Can’t wait to see the numbers for this week!
