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LukasTreasureTrove hit Pirate Ship on the nose:
You can put boxes in a bag and sometimes make things a little cheaper. you do need to measure out the length of the flat bag though. I don’t use PS every single day and if I’m in a hurry I do most of the shipping through eBay. But if I come across something that’s heavier than I expected I’ll check on PS.
I really like their Intl Shipping, which again, you’ll need to chat with them and ask for the “Simple Export Rate”. This makes intl shipping so much cheaper and you can add cheap insurance so if it disappears, or it breaks, you can make a claim (which I have not yet had to do).
I also love their customer service. For a free company, I think they do an exceptional job.
Replying to my own comment to say that I just saw others say basically the same things I did, lol! My apologies, hope I didn’t make you guys scream, haha.
I’ve also noticed more sales internationally due to shipping 1st class. I will say that SL has more volume than I do (currently have about 160 listings) so I send out a few international every month. I send them out Pirate Ship as well, they are great! Sometimes I add insurance to my international packages through them as well, which is only like a couple extra dollars. Just a reminder, you have to ask through chat to get their Simple Export Rate, which is cheaper than 1st class. I’ve lost more US packages than Intl.
I know Ryanne is a self proclaimed shipping nerd so I’m surprised she never jumped on Pirate Ship to look at cubic rates and such.
Also, one of the best things I ever did was move to Mint and pay $200 a year for service. I can’t believe people pay $100 a month. Now I even think my old service at Straight Talk was too expensive at $45 a month.
What we do in the shadows fan here! Favorite episode was the Mailer Daemon.
Slow sales over here lately from all 3 of my platforms, but enjoying the break from the overall business of the pandemic. Sourcing Halloween is probably a great idea right now, just sold a blow mold for $50.
I’m really looking forward to Managed Payments. I haven’t received an email to join yet but I have the Payments tab and I can “express interest.” I wish they would just let me join. I do need to start a new bank account for it though. I remember when I first signed up to Ebay coming from Amazon I was really disappointed in the fact that I had to pay Ebay its fees at the end of the month, I was like, “for real?” I guess people on ebay just really accepted that this was the way it is, not that they could do anything. I’m so happy ebay is catching up to 2020.
Lukastreasurtrove, I’m hoping for the best for your trip! I think I just have the absolute worst luck.
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I’ll look into it, though I’m having to deal with a third party travel agent that is very hard to deal with. I was absolutely going to go to Japan with no worries except for maybe places being shut down. I was actually looking forward to no crowds when my work called me into HR. No, there’s no way I can work from home, that would have been wonderful. So if I go, I not only spend money while I’m there, possibly can’t see the stuff I’ve wanted to see, then go home to no pay for 2 more weeks AND have to see a doctor to get a note. Ridiculous, y’all. Thanks for listening to my ranting.
I’m not afraid of the virus, but me and my husband are in this weird situation where we have tickets to Japan literally for late this month. We’ve been planning this for nearly 2 years. We had tickets that had gone through China for a layover. That eventually got cancelled and got my money back when the coronavirus hit china hard. So then I went and bought nonstop tickets straight to Japan, because I had no idea how crazy this whole thing would get. Then a week ago, I had a talk with HR telling me that if I went to Japan (only a CDC level 2) I’d need to quarantine myself for 2 weeks without pay and get a doctor’s note before I come back. There’s only 2 people and my boss who would be able to cover my shifts. So we’ve decided not to go. Tickets are nonrefundable. I have the worst luck ever when it comes to traveling, and I literally never want to fly again.
I really love those salt and pepper shakers Ryanne, I think I would have picked those up too. No major things to report here other than looking forward to garage sale season starting next week for me. I’m hoping to get my store to 200 this year, which is hard when I have these random 50-60 hour weeks at my full time job.
Very good interview Troy and Jay! I did miss a few things on Troy’s end due to the audio though. I liked that you encouraged Ryanne and Jay to put more things on Etsy, I’ve always thought their stuff would do so well there. It is slower for sure, but people have no problem paying more money for stuff than ebay, and this is completely subjective, but I’ve always thought Etsy’s customers were so much nicer.
Troy, it sounds like your kids are going to be setup nicely thanks to you and your wife. What a kind gift.
I’ve been notoriously bad about my own bookkeeping and tending to keep my head in the sand, but when you have the numbers in front of you, you can also know what to expect month to month.
From reading that page it looks like buyers are responsible for customs fees just like direct shipping as it is now:
What’s the difference between eBay Send International Standard and the Global Shipping Program?
eBay Send International Standard is a Delivered Duties Unpaid (DDU) shipping solution—buyers won’t pay duties and tax at checkout on eBay, but may have to pay the carrier for duties and tax on delivery. The Global Shipping Program (GSP) is a Delivery Duties Paid (DDP) shipping program—buyers pay duties and tax during checkout on eBay via GSP. eBay Send International Standard gives you full control of what you want to charge buyers for shipping (Free, Flat, Calculated) from end to end. With GSP, the buyer always sees the GSP shipping charges, and also any costs you set for the domestic shipping leg (Free, Flat, Calculated).Hey guys, just wanted to comment about the customs thing. I’ve commented before saying I do my own direct intl shipping as of about a year and a half ago. This December is when I ran into my first issue. A lady in the UK seemed pretty upset about some toys I sent her that she had to pay a customs fee of 15 pounds on. I nicely told her that this was not up to me and that it was her country charging the fee. She paid for the item eventually then apparently immediately tested the brand new, still in packaging toys and said that some didn’t work so she wanted a refund. Every day I was waking up to messages from her about when she was going to get a refund for these. I asked her to send them back, no dice because she’d have to spend her own money to do it. So I sent her half the money back just to get her off my back. I have a feeling she just wanted to get some money back from paying the customs. It didn’t feel good to get bullied into giving her a partial, but not waking up to more messages from her felt great. There’s probably a better way I could have handled the situation but I did my best.
I’ve sent packages all over the world and I finally got a customs issue so I guess it was due. I think in the future I will let anyone in the UK know that they will have to pay VAT and customs fees before shipping.
Thanks for sharing the NPR mini story, I found it interesting. While I sell more stuff on ebay than other sites, I have to agree with the soundbites about eBay being left behind. It’s clunky for sellers and buyers, especially new sellers.
I was wondering the same about Ebay’s GSP. Originally I was thinking that Ebay was now going to try and compete with the rates Pirate Ship offers with their Simple Export Rate, but I just compared the rates, and Ebay Send is still more expensive for things under 4 pounds. Above 5 pounds and they might have the advantage. Other than that, unless I’m not seeing something, Send can’t compete with PS.
For those that want to check it out for themselves:
