I sell singles often. I like to buy low-priced lots and search for gradables and then sell singles.
I only use stamped envelopes and no tracking for anything up to $15. Above $15 I do first class shipping with tracking.
I have only had two people say they did not receive the untracked stamped envelope that contained their single. I sent more than 200 untracked singles in 2017 and one person said they didn’t receive after waiting awhile and I immediately refunded, no questions ask. The other person I did the same thing, but her envelope showed up a few days later (this was in Texas right after one of the hurricanes so mail was slow). She was nice enough to say she received it and sent me the refunded money back. I was really impressed, she could have just said nothing and got free items. I told her only to send back a part of the payment for being so honest. In my experience, people don’t abuse the system often, in fact quite the contrary.
Tip: If you send untracked, I like to include a decent free single with their purchased single. Like a 1st edition jungle common or something. I feel that gesture can deter people who are considering claiming no receipt. Kindness is king.
I handwrite envelopes carefully. I only sell 5-10 singles a week on average so it doesn’t take much time.
I suppose that’s the only consequence. Half of my sales are singles, half are PSA graded cards (I always track). I still have a power seller rating, high stars, etc. No top-rated seller mark, and perhaps that’s because I only track half my orders.
Referencing (2.) above, I have had only a couple claims of non-receipt in 2017. For one, it eventually showed up and the other I fully believe was an honest claim because they were in a hurricane affected area and this was back in the autumn. Again, including a free single hasn’t failed me yet, whether it has an effect on the person’s moral compass or not. If the person claims non-receipt, depending on how long it’s been I’ll either ask them to wait a couple more days, or I’ll immediately refund. I do not put up a fight because I don’t have a leg to stand on. Buyer’s word is top if you choose not to track.
No input here, I just buy my stamps at my local PO.
Biggest piece of advice: If you don’t track, then don’t put up a fight if the buyer says they didn’t get it. You are obligated to take them at their word. Anything less and you’d be flirting with getting negative feedback. I’ll politely ask them to wait a couple extra days and if the decline then I’ll immediately refund if outside of the estimated delivery window.
oh and one last thing, if you haven’t already, in that other account for the singles, make sure you go into your seller preferences and limit which buyers can buy from you (those with too many unpaid items marks or other issues, etc.). This will help deflect some of the undesirables who aim to get free singles.
Was going to make my own thread about it but figured this was somewhat similar.
I’m new to actually collecting and selling some things, I know if you were to go to a physical store lots of cards are less than $1 for sports and Pokemon. Sold a Pokemon card on Ebay for $1 with free shipping. On Paypal it shows I got $.67 with their fee being $.33 from the $1. Not sure what the Ebay fee is going to be but with the stamp being $.50 that leaves me with $.17 before the Ebay fee. Is that a normal fee from Paypal because I feel like that is a lot off $1.
Few months ago I sold a Aaron Judge baseball card for $100 and $3.00 shipping, Paypal shows I got $99.71 with the fee being $3.29 which I’m guessing they took their fee from the total of $103.00.
The $3.29 fee sort of makes more sense to me because it is a lot more money than $1. Does their fee change more for less money? I guess is it a fixed percent or does it scale with how much money is involved.
Seeing if I’m doing this whole Ebay thing right, thanks for any help
Paypal charges 2,9% + $0.30. That why you ended up paying 33% in fees. So I’d recommend charging extra for sales that are that low, especially with free shipping. At least $1.49-1.99
Edit: Ebay will also charge you 10% + tax. In Canada we’re taxed on fees anyway, I don’t know about the US.
I think this was a very cheap way for you to learn how to calculate your costs properly. You’re going to pay about $1 in shipping and fees, so raise your prices. There’s 0 money to make at $1.
@poken00b88 I see thank you! So they are always going to charge that $.30 no matter the amount of money involved? I listed it at $1 with free shipping because that’s what a lot of the sold listings are at, I see a bunch at $.99 with free shipping. Are those people making a profit because they are selling bunches of them where I’m just selling one?
@masonkampe I will look into that, thank you for the advice!
It seems like there’s a cheaper alternative I had no idea about so you would have only paid $0.10 fees rather than $0.33. Thanks @masonkampe, I don’t sell cheap or untracked items but I’ll definitely look into it if I do.
Is it easy to switch from regular payments to micropayment between different listings or do you recommend 2 separate ebay/paypal accounts for low and higher valued items?
It is easy to switch, all you have to do is change the paypal email in the listing. The only “difficult” thing is that you need to make a second paypal account, send in a micropay application, and then they had to call me for like 2 minutes and make sure I knew what I was applying for.
At $1, with eBay + PP fees, you are making roughly 8 cents profit, which isn’t eye appealing honestly lol. Unfortunately most buyers buy separate and don’t use the cart option to check out at once. So every time this happens, its 30 cents per transaction. If you offer Free tracked shipping, you just keep losing more and more.
As long as eBay doesn’t feel the need to show an item description, it will be hard for a seller to get this message out and keep organized.
There’s a cheaper alternative than paying $0.30 each time. Check the posts above. It makes very little sense selling anything for $1 though, if you substract $0.20 ebay/paypal fees, $0.50 stamp and probably $0.10 packaging, you net $0.20.
However, if we’re talking the odd common/uncommon and considering the low price of bulk these days it’s not that bad of a deal if you move thousands of product.
You’re right that combining shipping is better, but we’re talking about shipping untracked, there’s only so many cards you can ship that way with a $0.50 stamp.
