Shipping costs

Question

I sold a golf club (driver) for $40 and charged $14.99 for shipping like most people are doing but then I printed out the ebay usps shipping label and saw that I got charged $125 for the label so I lost money! I don't understand how you're supposed to make any money shipping a golf club if it costs that much to ship? Please advise, Thanks!

shipscript · Answer

@jocolb_14 wrote:
...like most people are doing ...

Never trust what the "others" are doing. Either they don't know what they are doing (and are being taken to the cleaners) or they are discounting shipping and beefing up the item price. When selling an item, it is imperative to enter the weight and dimensions of the package you will be shipping to get a clear indication of shipping costs.

Golf clubs are a real killer. A USPS change last year has added significant surcharges for items over 22" and over 30". I presume a golf club exceeds the latter. There is also something called "dimensional weight" for packages that are huge and don't weigh much. I don't know how much a driver weighs, but I suspect it is light for the box size that is required. In the end, you may find that you are paying to ship a 30 pound package (computed dimensional weight based on the size of the box) that actually weighs only 3 pounds with packaging.

Additionally, it appears you are selecting "priority mail". For something this expensive to ship, I would recommend economy shipping along with offering local pickup.

Here is eBay's Shipping Calculator:

https://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator

Take advantage of this when selecting a shipping service, and keep in mind that you will not be able to ship by "letter" or by "flat rate box" or by "media mail". In the end, you may be comparing USPS Ground Advantage to UPS ground and FedEx ground shipping.