Free Shipping on Cheap Items (US Sellers)

[mschwage]

Hello,

I would like to offer some cheap stuff on eBay. I'm thinking a $10 price point would be about right. Now I'm not interested in competing with folks from China- there's no way. My edge is in my shipping time- it's much faster. So, assuming my item fits into a large envelope and weighs 12 ounces, the postage cost will be $2.65. It could get into the 6-8 dollar range if it's a box of some sort.

I don't understand how anyone makes money on eBay, trying to sell retail stuff. After the seller's fees and shipping, you can break into a significant portion of your profits. I'm thinking I may have to sell my stuff closer to $15, but I'm afraid that will be too much.

I regularly buy small electronics parts- from US suppliers- and they cost, say, $6 for a bundle in a padded envelope. I know those things cost $3 from China. So how did the seller make any money? There are oodles of things like this (try a search for "LM2596S Power Supply", and filter the results for US Only shippers). These are people that are selling them by the hundreds. An LM2596 supply may cost 60 cents in bulk, sold for $4 for 2 of them- free shipping- the seller's cost is at least $3.70 all in (include envelope).

Am I missing something- some sort of additional shipping discount that some people are finding? Or are people happy making 30 cents on an $4 sale?

[theguitarpartsguy · Accepted solution]

The simple answer:  You buy in bulk, enough at a time that you drive the price down... WAY down.  If you have more than about a dollar in an item you are selling for 10 bucks, you are in danger of having paid too much.

[loveyourimagination49]

-Minimum wage over there is $322 a month.
-There are warehouses in the US that warehouse China merchandise.
-Just because you choose us only doesn’t block out their bad quality products.

I also agree with gpg.

[mschwage]

OK, thanks. Boy, that's brutal... as it is, I'm going to be in at about $2.50. $3.70 with batteries. Guess that puts the kibosh on the batteries included.

Luckily, I was at near 5 bucks when sourced from American suppliers. ...Direct from China, I save 50%. God bless 'em. 🙂

I may be able to squeeze $14.99 out of this. We'll see. Thanks for the feedback.

[hurryagain]

Yup!  Just like @loveyourimagination49 said, many Chinese sellers now have U.S. based warehouses that they have their items shipped to/from...or at least they are "supposed" to use and ship from the U.S. warehouse...some do...others claim to but it still comes in from China...ask me how I know...

Sorry but it's hard to be an ACTUAL U.S. resident and try to do retail anymore since the Chinese group can claim a warehouse here and therefore can say they are U.S. based sellers....sneaky huh...