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As IndySales pointed out, FedEx may have been cheaper. I’d guess FedEx Smart Post may have been $15 or less for those specs. If you don’t check FedEx (on the eBay shipping calculator page) when listing, do so when have heavy, larger packages like that. Sometimes the price difference is amazing. With respect to USPS, FedEx always seems to either be a lot more expensive or a lot cheaper, but very rarely “about the same”.
Regarding the situation of ad blockers blocking 2% or so of promoted listings:
I’m ignorant of the backend workings, so my point may be silly. But I don’t get why eBay would have promoted listings appear to ad blockers as “ads”. Why wouldn’t they call them up as normal listings, but with the addition of text saying “sponsored listing”? Are they retrieving them from some sort of “ad server” (I don’t know the correct terminology) rather than their own system? What’s the deal?
The_SEAM_Store – You’re correct about combined shipping. Whenever a potential buyer messages me beforehand, hinting they might buy multiple items, I also suggest they just put them in their cart then request total. But of course it only works if the buyer has the foresight/foreknowledge to “request total from seller”. Once they pay there’s no way to adjust it.
You can also refund part of their shipping. But in cases where eBay takes it upon themselves to combine and undercharge the buyer, there’s no way to get the correct shipping amount. That’s why there needs to be a way to opt a given item out of combined shipping eligibility.
Some may see the potential conflict it as a fringe situation, but I’ll bet anything it’s an issue a lot more often than one might think. It’s happened to me at least 3 times in the past 6 months; it probably happens across the platform thousands of times every day.
Tacystouch, I was referring to the Amazon listing I linked above.
I haven’t had the time to suss out my numbers in quite a while. But I do feel like tooting my horn and sharing that – because of some particularly great scavenging last week – I had four $200 ($190, $215, $210, and $225) sales Friday night. I paid $20 total for those four items.
About a week ago I found a jackpot of Xerox (some OEM and some generic) compatible “solid ink” blocks in a dumpster behind the local military recruiter. What I found is worth about $750. So far I’ve sold $117.65 worth!
I had several really slow weeks during the summer. But things turned around for the better about 2 weeks ago. And this weekend was fantastic, between eBay and Facebook sales, I did almost $1,200 since Friday. My total cost for all items sold in those three days is $30 or less.
If only it was always like this! I just need to keep that momentum going. ABL, baby! I currently have 561 eBay listings (the most I’ve ever had at once) and I’m frantically adding more as I can.
Man, that Amazon 5 Dollars place, Price Drop and Treasure Hunt all sound pretty awesome! I wish we had something like that near me. Scavenging and reselling is my full time job (well, I’m also a freelance woodworking project writer & tool reviewer for a big home improvement website. But my biggest income is from reselling). I find lots of great items, but more sourcing options would certainly be welcome.
Ah, cool, Rick! I’ve walked Lake Hollingworth many times myself. I lost 40 pounds walking that lake over about 4 months. Then I got married, gave up the walking and regained the weight. Good times!
@ Ricker – I really do think it’s “industry standard” not to return such fees. So I’m not too upset with PayPal. I had an electronics repair shop / retail store for nearly 20 years. I’m pretty sure the credit card processors never gave us a single fee(s) refund when we refunded money to a customer’s card. In fact, they may have charged us a transaction fee both way, I’m not sure.
Another situation I had was when I was selling of bunch of brand new Westin Delta airline blankets. A single blanket would just barely fit in a flat rate legal envelope (and that was the shipping option). So one customer bought several and eBay took it upon themselves to combine shipping. Well, only one would fit in the envelope. And they weigh over a pound each. So eBay’s combining shipping meant that I had to ship them in a box and pay another $10 or so to make up the difference in price.
It turns out – in that situation – that there is a way to go into the advanced options (I can’t even remember how to find it now) and set a shipping cost for additional items. But it hidden, hard to find and not at all intuitive because the language is incredibly ambiguous. So it’s hard to know if the things you check will do what you hope they will when a sale occurs.
Woohoo, I was mentioned 2 episodes in a row! This time about the combined shipping issue. The thing is, though, that eBay sometimes DOES automatically combine shipping. And if the buyer’s already paid it can cost you extra money to ship separately if the items cannot be combined. That recently happened to me with a heavy wheel bearing and a fragile coffee mug.
But earlier this year it happened to me in a huge way. I sold 20 cases of of item. The cases were 16″ cubed and weighed 12 pounds each. One buyer purchased all 20 cases and eBay took it upon themselves to combine the all 20 cases into 1. And they charged the buyer only enough shipping for about 2 of them.
I have no clue what made the system think that was feasible. It would have cost me over $600 out of pocket to ship the buyer’s order (because that’s how much eBay UNDERcharged the buyer). The shipping amount I had set per case was correct. But eBay automatically combined the order than could not be combined and grossly undercharged the buyer. I frantically contacted eBay in a panic! It was an extremely frustrating experience.
If lowball offers offend you you shouldn’t have the turned on. Or, as others have said, set an auto-decline limit. You can’t get mad at someone for trying. It’s just people fishing for a hungry seller ready to jump on any action they get. Nothing personal. If it weren’t for lowballs, many of us wouldn’t get many of the great scores we get. For all they know, you could be someone testing the waters to see what the “market” says the value is.
Other times, they’re just hoping you’ll counter. The best way to get a low counter-offer is to start with an even lower offer.
According to the listing, it seems the foam balls sit in the holders and you use to slingshot to shoot them straight out of the holders. Very strange setup for sure.
I thought it looked like a slingshot frame. But the three holders made no sense. It’s a foam ball slingshot. The holders hold your “ammo” so they’re at hand.
Haha. Good stuff. Not quite as profound, but still somewhat amusing: I looked at the feedback given/received of one of yesterday’s buyers. Under their list of feedback were three items they’d reviewed on eBay. One of the items was penis enlargement pills (and they were a verified buyer).
It was amusing enough that someone would buy such a thing, thinking they’d actually work. But their review explaining that they didn’t work for him and that he felt ripped off was a funny read. Oh the silly things people will buy!
