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 Replies: 23 / Views: 3,306 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3540 Posts |
I do NOT like hidden or inflated shipping charges. What 99.9999% of customers do not realize, is the cost involved in packaging and shipping products. Products do not magically wrap, address, and buy the postage. Costs TIME and PACKAGING!...which translates into COST for the person or business selling.
Yes, shipping fees add to my cost to purchase, so I do look at this in my final calculation.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2049 Posts |
Quote:But if you offer free shipping on ebay - you get an automatic "5" on shipping price. While true, this shows an inherent flaw with the ebay detailed seller ratings. If I sell a 4-5 pound item and it costs $13-$14 to ship it Priority Mail to let's say California, I would certainly hope the buyer is smart enough to look at what I charged them versus what is on the shipping label to determine what rating to give. It's not me charging $13-$14, it's the post office. My goal is to neither make money nor lose money on shipping. By building the same shipping cost into the item and offering free shipping, the buyer that is one state away from you is in essence paying more for shipping than the buyer that is paying the same exact cost but lives across the country. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2049 Posts |
Quote:
What 99.9999% of customers do not realize, is the cost involved in packaging and shipping products. Products do not magically wrap, address, and buy the postage. Costs TIME and PACKAGING!...which translates into COST for the person or business selling.
Yes, shipping fees add to my cost to purchase, so I do look at this in my final calculation. Excellent points and I agree this is something few take into account. The post office doesn't give out free priority mail shipping tape as a rule (although I ship enough with them that sometimes they give me a roll). The packing materials cost money. The shipping label costs money. The toner used to print the label costs money. And it costs gas money to take that package to the post office. On top of that, ebay is now taking a percentage of the shipping charge which is relatively new. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1304 Posts |
Free or low cost shipping means alot to me. I check the shipping charges and if I don't like them I will look elsewhere for the coin I want. Sometimes I find a better deal, sometimes not. I have a couple of coin dealers on my desktop that provide resonable shipping and I always look there first, yes ACE, your one of them.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10038 Posts |
I pinch every penny until it screams. Then I buy. There have been many times I have put off the convenience of buying online b/c I see the P.O. making too much money from the deal. I can be patient and wait until I get to a store.
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Valued Member
 United States
438 Posts |
Thanks for all of the comments!
It does seem that free shipping does hold some appeal, a bit of a surprise to me. However, most collectors appear to look at the total of the item plus shipping when making a buying decision.
I will continue to try my best to keep shipping costs low. The $2.50 that I charge for first class covers the cost about half the time, other times I have to eat a bit of the postage. The minimum for shipping is now $1.95 as I pack the coins in cardboard which makes my envelopes into what are called first class parcels.
The $5.25 for Priority pretty much covers a flat rate envelope or small flat rate box.
From what I have read, it seems that I am ok at these levels.
ACE Mike
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Amazing, I must be the only person out there that doesn't factor the shipping into the cost of the item. I know items cost money to ship. Shipping is shipping and the cost of the coin is the cost of the coin.
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Valued Member
United States
266 Posts |
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Free shipping doesn't do anything for me. If I want an item and it's going to cost $40, I don't care if it's $30 with $10 shipping or $40 with free shipping. It's all the same to me and I'm not going to fall for the "free" shipping gimmick because it's quite obvious to me that the shipping costs are built into the item cost in some way.  If its something that I really want, then it is what it is. |
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Replies: 23 / Views: 3,306 |
First Page
Posted 01/23/2012 7:42 pm
