Pleasant surprise when logging in to send a card i sold last night that 1. USPS have increased their rates as of the 17th & 2. eBay no longer offer a shipping discount when purchased via them. I dont read the news in general often at all so please let me know if I missed something otherwise thanks for dipping your hand a little deeper into my pocket yet again assholes!
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I noticed this as well. The worst part is when international buyers complain they are paying $10 to ship one card, when you are paying $13-14. There is literally no cheaper option. With that said, the international USPS Delcon is a great service. I am very grateful that it exists.
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13-14 is tracked, right? Is that via Global Shipping Program?
I think international priority jumped nearly 10.00.
The international price I quoted is first class through eBay. First class International is the cheapest option. It only comes with tracking. More specifically, the tracking applies to the countries who decide to live in 2016 and track their items. Either way, when tracking was optional, it cost less than a dollar.
Priority express jumped the most. I used to pay $35-45, it is now $60 for the same service.
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How about priority mail international? (Not express)
Anybody else feel like perhaps postage companies may be shooting themselves in the foot long term? I cant help but think that with the recent auspost price hikes. They know that a ton of business comes from online shopping, yet are making it much less attractive to do so.
I know its not the same but i compare it to local fairs and things, when they charge 5-7$ a ride they mite get a couple kids on every 10 mins. If they made it $2.50 a ride they would fill it every time and make a lot more moneyā¦
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The problem I find with it is that for the small fry its just not worth it to list anything for less than 50 bucks maybe even more (not wasting my time to crunch numbers), either that or bulk amounts of items. Gone are the days of a household item being sold to make some pocket change even though they advertise to sell the crap you just cleaned out of the garage. But yet I see a huge amount of auction for a few bucks where ebay are making more money than the profit a seller could hope for after shipping and fees.
Unfortunate side effect of big business that has more money coming in they dont know what to with but figure ways to make more and it affects everything else around them.
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very good point, lower value items are getting to a point where youre losing money selling them.
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Absolutely! The price point isnāt there for cheaper cards. Not having tracking these days is not an option.
May I ask why tracking is absolutely necessary for low value items? Iām not from the US and if Iād were to add tracking to items itād bump the shipping cost from about 2-5 dollars to 10-13 dollars. I offer both options on my eBay for low value cards and buyers of course always choose the cheapest non-tracked one. To me, the risk of losing the item in the mail and refunding them seems worth taking instead of offering only tracked shipping and losing out on potential sales (itās already hard enough for a small seller profile like me to sell off doubles without lowering their price ridiculously).
The high postage costs from US definitely put my off from buying from there for my collection. Prices from the Global Shipping Program are ridiculous, itās like 20 dollars for single cards ā¦ (of course there are also the import taxes for me, but thatās something else).
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The prob with tracking vs not is to track gives a visual timeline with a beginning & endpoint. Without it the seller is usually always at a disadvantage. They can say they shipped and didnt, but ultimately when the seller does ship the buyer can receive the item and falsify a claim of non receipt (based on honesty), ebay step in and wave their yard stick and force the full refund. On small sales the seller then needs to make say 5+ sales just to make up the loss on one card.
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Exactly. If you ship without tracking and a buyer opens a case for item not received, itās an auto-loss for the seller. Ebay tracks these cases and there are consequences if your selling account has above a certain number (3% of total transactions I believe).
That being said, a buyer opening a case about anything is usually an auto-loss for the seller soā¦
Yes I am well aware of that. But Iād rather take that risk than putting off potential buyers with high shipping costs. I kinda need to because Iām such a small seller. At the same time itās only a fraction of the buyers committing such fraud. And on low value items the loss is minimal. I can understand that for registered companies the situation is different. But for a collector like me, I feel like the negatives donāt outweigh the positives of attracting customers more easily. Not to forget that buyers are likely to be more easily satisfied if they didnāt have to, in their eyes, āoverpayā on shipping costs.
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Well untracked shipping is just that, a risk. It just depends on how much you can take as an individual. Yes there are honest people out there but like I said one asshole makes your next X amount of sales irrelevant in moving forward. Tge longer yiu can make it, the easier it is to take a loss every niw and then. But this increase in shipping on uspsā behalf and removal of a shipping break on the multi million dollar ebays behalf make it even harder for people like you and me. Either you suck it up into your profits or raise your prices. Sort of sucks.
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Ideally, I would love to list cheaper cards and ship without tracking. However I would have at least one person per month ānot receive an itemā. I have had people who try and say an item doesnāt arrive, I check the tracking, it shows delivered, they then say, āoh sorry I forgotāā¦
Also, I personally do not use global shipping program. It probably protects the seller more, but I know international buyers hate the immediate customs charges that are sometimes not always accurate.
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Give your buyer the choice. Whatever they decideā¦do it. If they only want to pay for a cheap and unsecure method then demand a gift payment and if it gets lost they lose. If they want full tracking, full insurance, signature, etc, then fine. They pay for it.
If a buyer doesnāt want to pay for anything plus wants you to take all the risks then theyāre idiots and screw emā 
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The one thing I actually kinda like about the Global Shipping program is that custom charges are shown separately/included in the total sale price. That way buyers are never surprised by an extra charge at their doorstep. Itās mainly the shipping prices that put me off. Why would I ever pay 15 to 20 dollars to get a 1 to 20 dollar card shipped to me, lol.
A majority of cards shipped to me have NO tracking.
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