There Is NO SUCH THING As A Shipping Charge

No. Don’t feel that way matt. I didn’t want to attack you which is why I created a different thread. There are no bad questions on this fourum and you more than belong;)

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last one I swear

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I talked about this a bit with Gary and its a tough call. Ultimately I think Gary is saying don’t assume the seller will combine shipping, and get that final amount before you commit to the purchase.

Also price point is a huge component. @cullers summed up that exact situation with $1 items. Gary, myself and other sellers mostly sell above that $20 threshold, so shipping becomes negligible.

I think the ultimate frustration is when a seller strategically use the additional shipping charge to add money to the deal, which isn’t clarified in their listing(s). The 42 weighed packs I bought from Collectors Cache were advertised as the “lowest price on ebay”. Yet they put a $22 shipping charge and actually paid $5, which made the “lowest price on ebay” false. IMO those scenarios are the seller trying to game the system.

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You are one funny dude brother lol. Keep it up.

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From this thread, I believe everyone can agree on these 2 common points:

  1. It is the seller’s responsibility to include in the listing if they will combine auctions to reduce shipping as shipping is a very common issue and can be resolved very efficiently with good communication.
  2. The seller has the right to not combine shipping and that’s fair as long if he gave awareness of it. The buyer can either suck it up or move on to another seller.

tldr: Shipping questions and issues can be resolved if the seller copy and paste one line indicating whether or not they will combine shipping on listings. It is always good practice to be as clear as possible.

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It 100% of the time costs money to ship an item so there is such thing as a shipping charge. If an item has free shipping, then the shipping cost is incorporated in the buy price. The post office isn’t a charity organization.

I agree with others in that as the price of an item increases, the shipping cost becomes negligible.

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I bought 3 cards the other day from the same seller where each item was $3.50 shipping. I paid and left a message to the seller that said “combine shipping?”. They ignored and I paid the $10.50 for shipping.

Would it have been nice if I got a little discount? No doubt fam.
But I didn’t expect one or think one was owed to me, so it’s all good.
ALWAYS EXPECT PRICE + SHIPPING TO BE FOR SINGLE QUANTITY UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE.

In the case of $20+ cards, this isn’t really a concern or something I thought too much about. When we are talking about buying a lot of sub $5 cards, I can see how the shipping could add up so much so that you could have bought twice as many cards if it weren’t for all the shipping. In these cases, the seller SHOULD combine shipping but is under no obligation too do so. Just as such, the buyer is under no obligation to purchase cards from someone who won’t combine shipping.

“Look twice - buy once” as my old man used to say. or was that measure twice, cut once?..

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USPS had a $70 billion revenue for 2017.

Like someone mentioned previously, it is not $120 for free shipping. You are paying for a service and ultimately the seller’s reputation. Amazon also is not hiding its fees. You know what you get when you pay for it. I get my packages same day, any issues they are usually resolved almost immediately and I like that. Many times I rather pay more and know the i’m covered. It’s just a preference lol.

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Idk…

I disagree.

It’s the buyer’s responsibility to understand the terms before buying.

There’s a reason it’s “caveat emptor”… buyer beware.

If the seller doesn’t advertise combined shipping, it’s on the buyer to ask.

As the buyer, if you just assume the seller will combine because they are cheap items, that’s your fault.

When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me…

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Wow, another person who got what I was saying. Well said and thank you:)

You have no reason to feel bad or stop asking questions. There tends to be a lot of pandering to veteran members on the site, but that happens in any club, organization, business, etc. That in no way validates or invalidates any one viewpoint. And it wouldn’t be the internet without discussions degenerating into personal attacks. Everyone has an opinion and can be triggered by anything. If you ask a question and people want to attack one another with crayons over it, I’d say you’ve contributed well to the forum :blush:

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I’m going to clarify and be more detailed here. If you win an auction or already paid for multiple items, you are in a binding agreement to purchase the item for whatever the cost was. Bidding and winning auctions are slightly different because of time countdown vs. static items that aren’t going anywhere, all you have to do is pm the seller before you purchase to ask about shipping policies and either suck it up or move on. Simple as that.
From my take, caveat emptor mostly applies to being aware about the quality of the goods and not as much as the “extra fees such as shipping fees and taxes”. Shipping fees are FLEXIBLE. You wouldn’t charge the same amount to ship a single vs a booster box.

You also haven’t addressed my whole point about why sellers not spending 2 seconds to paste “I will not combine shipping” is a negative thing as that clarifies EVERYTHING about their shipping policies. Again clarification is good practice.

I feel that this is a classic case of justification for both quantitative (actual cost item or shipping or both) and qualitative (common sense, context, business courtesy) arguments.

Of course what’s been argued here is that the buyer literally and always should have both the sense to check if shipping can be combined and still out of courtesy issue a question ahead of purchase to the seller, to remind, make it concrete - etc. But I think a lot of the issues raised here are from buyers who feel that “their common sense” is not being validated when a card is say $1 and the shipping cost is also $1 i.e. 100% cost of card or more. That apparent lack of common sense / courtesy from sellers where the high proportion of shipping cost outweighs the cost of item, obviously is frustrating - and the lack of empathy from others here - no doubt doesn’t help.
Lecturing them about it just makes everyone defensive.

I empathise… Believe me, as someone who’s been on eBay and other sites since 1999. I also live in Singapore, in Asia - and believe me when I say to those who stay in the US - shipping cost is definitely not a figment of my imagination like Peter Pan! Try switching your location and browsing any item on eBay - you’d see a variety of users who would ship the same item for free and charge up to a hundred bucks. I’ve encountered very nice sellers who literally go to the post office to calculate best rates - and those who just slap a blanket large fee to cover themselves → I can totally understand both sides. I’d probably do the same. I have also encountered sellers who say that when it comes to certain type of auctions and shipping (e.g. eBay Global Shipping), they themselves don’t seem to be allowed to combine shipping, when they tried.

I guess my two points are. There ARE shipping costs - they vary depending on a number of factors. It’s entirely up to an individual on whether or not they’d like to define those shipping costs as part of their overall outlay. Secondly, it really is up to buyers to ask. Just ask. If the seller doesn’t want to, doesn’t reply, or is just being a pain - then don’t proceed with the bid, the same way you wouldn’t buy a really low cost item from a zero rated seller.

I think everyone could just do with a bit of empathy here instead of picking on definitions and calling out on the “other camp” / POV.

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Complicating the issue with long diatribes will hardly change the fact that not shipping charges, not handling charges, nor listing price exist (or matter) when deciding to bid on an item or not. It’s the total/final price that you’ll use to decide.
When you buy a new car it doesn’t matter how much the tires cost, what the destination charge is, or the price of the carburetor. All that matters is how much is the car going to cost you.
Sweating the small stuff is a total waste of time.
Lastly, when you buy 10 items from a seller who offers supposedly free shipping do you go crying to him too and ask for a discount because they’ll all be shipped together?
Don’t complicate all this. KISS=Keep it simple stupid;)

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I don’t think this comparison is equivalent to combined shipping.
It’s more like you’ve already decided on all the extras of the car, that cost has been decided and accepted.
But this time you’re buying 5 cars, and you need them shipped across the country.
The shipping cost for each car is $300. They want to charge you $1500, even though they are going to ship it on one truck and save themselves a majority of that cost.

I can’t think of any other site that would try justify charging full freight on every item when there are savings to be made for everyone. The whole reason people buy/sell/ship in bulk is to save costs. Any seller that treats a customer that has made multiple purchases like this should be considered a bad seller. They are taking the fact that you have given them more sales and are using it to punish buyers and to line their pockets with undeserved money. It’s up to shipping companies to make money on shipping.

And it is relevant and not minor details, because the majority do charge shipping as a separate item to cover their actual costs of shipping, not to make money off. And in your situation, you offer free shipping, so you take that into consideration and no one has a case asking you for reductions, but it doesn’t make the realities of shipping costs go away. EDIT: And there are companies that offer free shipping charge, but reduce overall costs for bulk orders because there are savings being made.

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i bought a brand new car from Germany last year and had it shipped over to the uk. i added extras to the car that i wanted like a sun roof and all that good stuff now when they shipped it they shipped it as just one car if they would have said yeah you need to buy shipping for each tire then extra for a roof also the seats will need extra shipping money i would of told them to stick it up there arse because that idiotic. no reason to charge 10x shipping just because i added extras to the car.

its very very simple if you want to sell something at 0.99 and the bidding ends at a lower price then you wanted so you dont discount shipping to make up for the money you thought it would go for and you would have combined the shipping if the items sold for the price you estimated then the buyer can leave neg feedback. people are not going to keep coming back to ur store if ur trying to mug them off and penny pinch.

people on here dont like shady sellers but charging extra because you were unhappy with the sale price is the same as shill bidding im shocked people are still trying to argue it l0l

I think you guys are missing Gary’s car metaphor.

When you go in and buy a car, there’s always the initial unbelievable low price. “43k for a new truck? No way!” Then you sit down with the salesman and you work out the finiancing, he throws in the sales tax or title/tag/registration fees, he squirrels you into extended warranties and before you know it, your 43k truck is now going to cost you 55k over a 7 year loan.

At the end of the day, the car costs everything that you agreed to pay to drive it off the lot- doesn’t matter how they write up the different fees.

Gary, the unfortunate truth is that car dealerships do business this way and get away with it because it’s a good way to trick unintelligent people into buying things they can’t afford. Which might explain why people are hesitant to believe this “ridiculous” idea :rofl:

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To be honest, I was not going to reply to this thread because I agree with Gary’s rule of thumb; as a buyer, you need to do their due diligence prior to purchasing their cards. However, now I feel that both sides are arguing different aspects of the purchasing process to the point that it has rendered the topic over expanded with too many examples containing way too many scenarios.

First of all, clearly the majority if not the entirety of this community strive/is already good sellers and good buyers, and honestly it’s the crappy buyers and crappy sellers that is creating these problems. This makes it so that frustrated sellers with bad buyers point to bad buyers who are not really present in this community, and vice versa.

Great sellers will face questionable buyers who ask for discounts/haggling/combined shipping AFTER purchase of cards, and typically those same buyers are also buyers who complain the most after you say no to their requests by creating “not-as-described claims”, requesting partial refunds because the item arrived “damaged”, or anything to squeeze more money out of the seller. This may make seller oriented card collectors annoyed and face much more trouble with “cheap” buyers who do not do prior due diligence, and negatively associate those types of buyers as bad buyers

On the other hand, great buyers will face questionable sellers who have ambiguous listings, ship in crappy packaging to save on shipping costs while the buyer pays full price, does not answer messages…basically anything to maximize their margins on selling their cards with clear intent to dupe the buyers during the buyer process. This can make these buyers annoyed at specific sellers who are clearly out there to maximize their profits, or try to dupe buyers in some form and bullying them with their feedback or reputation.

What’s clear in this thread however, is that members who contributed to this thread are NEITHER bad sellers or bad buyers described, and are rightfully defending their own point. The problem lies in the fact that each individuals personal experience is providing different contexts that are irrelevant to the previous member’s post. It’s basically like arguing on different sides of a coin.

I don’t think this topic is black and white because there are simply too many variables at play here.

If you sell mainly expensive items at buy it now style listing, combined shipping is not that important because the cost is so minimal, and these listings are not time sensitive so messaging the seller if their description is not clear is simple.

If you sell mainly cheap items at buy it now style listing, combined shipping becomes important because the cost of shipping now is 50-100% of the cost of the card, and while these listings are not time sensitive, you should probably put something about combined listing in your description because you WILL be asked about combined shipping by a lot of buyers.

If you sell a bunch of expensive items at high auctions prices, combined shipping is still not that important since the cost is once again minimal, but the time sensitive aspect may make some buyers unable to contact you on time so as a seller, you should probably mention combined shipping in your description.

If you sell a bunch of cheap items at 99 cent auction prices, combined shipping is really important because the cost of shipping is significant AND the listings are time sensitive. As a seller you’re basically asking for trouble if you don’t mention combined shipping in your description for these types of listings.

THE BUYER IS 100% RESPONSIBLE TO DO DUE DILIGENCE PRIOR TO PURCHASING THEIR CARDS, BUT AS A SELLER, YOU ARE ALSO SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR FAILURE BY THE WAY YOU PUBLISH YOUR LISTING.
AS A BUYER, IF YOU SOMETHING IS NOT CLEAR AND THE SELLER DOES NOT RESPOND, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY BAIL OUT OF THE LISTING AND GO TO THE NEXT ONE.

Now in Gary’s point of view, I can see for a fact that he has full rights to say that the buyers should do their legwork based on the style of listings he publish. However, I do also see other’s point of view where there are scumbag sellers who lists 99 cent auctions with high shipping prices with a 24 hours left or some super short time interval and not reply to combined shipping messages during this allotted time to bait buyers with the shipping charge. Ultimately the buyer is still at fault for taking this risk, but I would say that the seller is also partially to blame for allowing this scenario to happen.

That’s not all, however. There’s also other variables at play. For example, one MAJOR issue I am finding with combined shipping threads is that most of the complaints revolve around quality of service. This is a topic that seemingly no one talks about but plays a huge role into this discussion. It’s also an important aspect that great sellers here do not think about, because you all keep a high level of service. Good sellers would answer the questions of interested buyers if the listing is not clear, or they would take great care in shipping the cards. Cards I have bought on Efour were handled with care in double packaging, lots of bubble wrap, etc. However, from my experience and reading other members’ experiences on other threads, sellers who don’t combine shipping are also the sellers who lowers quality of service the more you buy from them. Now that’s a load of BS. They are sellers who would not answer the buyers after days of inquiry, they would cram the most cards into an envelope without care (like Pokemondentist’s case in his thread), and they would ship the cards with the least protection as possible to reduce weight and size of the package. I think that’s what pisses most buyers off. Why the hell are the buyers paying full price shipping on each card to get WORSE packaging and shipping on the cards? Yes, total price per card matters, but at this moment, you’re essentially paying full price for your cards to be LESS protected so that the seller makes MORE money. Good sellers here don’t think that because you would not consider cramming three charizards in one top loader to save a couple of cents on packaging material and shipping, but some scrupulous sellers would do this. While sellers like Gary, Scott, Cullers, etc. would think of the best packaging materials to ship the card out, some sellers would calculate how many cards can be jammed into a top loader before the top loader can no longer hold anymore.

I believe most buyers who complained in this forum specifically about paying full shipping when their shipment was combined is more unhappy with the fact that the quality of service/packaging was lackluster for the price they paid for their cards, and less about the inability of combining shipping to save a few bucks.

Adding other variables like customs complicates things even further. Using Canada as an example, import taxes (~20%) start if the items exceed 20$. Therefore, this scenario can exist:

  1. If you buy a $20 item with $20 shipping, you will not be taxed. The total value amount is $20, and the buyer pays $40 in total.

  2. If you buy two $20 items with $20 combined shipping, you will be taxed. The total value amount is $40 + tax, and the buyer pays $40 + tax + 20$ shipping.

  3. If you buy two $20 items with $20 Non combined shipping, but the seller ships them individually, you will not be taxed. The amounts per order totals $20 each, so the buyer pays $40 for the items and $40 for shipping.

  4. Now here’s the part that screws things up. If you buy two $20 items with $20 non combined shipping, but the seller STILL ships them together, you will be taxed. The total value is now $40 + tax, but the buyer also paid $40 for shipping. This is where some buyers will be really pissed, and I am sure it affects some members in this community.

TooLongDidn’tRead: Buyers have the full responsibility in doing their due **diligence prior to purchasing their cards.**I for a fact completely agree with this, and never faced/created an issue where I didn’t get a clear answer on combined shipping prior to purchasing things online. If the seller does not answer, you should fully expect to pay full price for the shipping of each card, and not assume you will get some savings from shipping. However, the seller is setting themselves up for trouble depending on how they list their products if they do not clarify combined shipping in their description. There are also other variables that can make someone a bad seller, namely poor quality of overall service. The bad buyers and sellers mentioned in this thread are not even present in the community (I hope), so these points won’t really go through many members’ minds since it’s not really relevant to their own personal situations.

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That’s what I’m saying, @ditto has got it.

Many arguments in this thread are anecdotal, I.e. based on a specific situation that may not apply to ALL situations. In that, there’re a lot of wasted walls of texts in here…

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