You May Be Losing Sales Because Your Shipping Is Too High or Unrealistic
Personally, I determine my shipping cost based on sending my item to the farthest away zone from me. I measure and weigh it and determine my shipping box/bag. That is what I ask for. (I have had my share of miscalculations and have eaten lots of postage! lol) If it is ground advantage, I always include a Priority Shipping option. Alot of buyers don't mind paying for expedited shipping, why not offer it to them?
I sell merchandise on Ebay, not postage. I make money from my Ebay store, not by running a shipping service on the side .
I try to only charge my customers the actual shipping costs. I usually don't add anything to that cost for handling, but, sometimes it may be necessary. I also combine shipping to save my buyers on postage. I will often refund the buyer the amount saved by combinding their order.
Afterall, they are the ones paying for the postage, not you, so in some ways, charging more than the actual shipping cost is almost decetful and dishonest. Sell your item for the amount that you want and only charge what you have to for shipping. I honestly don't know why this isn't the common practice amongst us sellers.
I also buy alot of things on Ebay, and have passed over clicking on an item just by seeing the shipping costs. As a seller I know when a seller is asking way to much for shipping, even when their item is priced correctly. Then there are the ones that are so far off the wall, you wonder why someone even bothered listing it. I seen a daypack for sale the other day for $29, and $136 to ship, U.S. to U.S.
I just took the time to run through my listings and found several that I was able to reduce the shipping on, and while I was at it, i found some where I needed to adjust the price, higher or lower.
I also went through all of my shipping policies and updated the costs based on the new postal rates, while I was there, I also added a expedited shipping option where applicable to quite a few listings. And before you leave that policy page, double check what you have listed as your handling time.
I feel all of this is just good business and will lead to good interactions with your buyers.
slippinjimmy
·4 months agosoh.maryl
·4 months agoRespectfully, how does anyone know the reason a sale is lost?
There can be many reasons, impossible to even begin to list them.
tobaccocardyahoo
·4 months agoWhat is a good business practice differs based on what you sell, and how much competition you have.
Some sellers can get away with making shipping a profit center, others cannot.
Some of us run fixed price shipping to all US locations, others use calculated shipping.
Some buyers can quickly do arithmetic and compare total cost between sellers, others can't add 2+2 and buy items with "free shipping".
Different strokes for different folks.
itsjustasprain
·4 months agoYes! I am a buyer who can do arithmetic. I was looking at an item the other day with a decent selling price but a ludicrous fixed Shipping cost that was well over double the actual cost of shipping (which I am very familiar with as a seller of similar items in another account).
I actually wrote to the seller to ask if that Shipping price was correct - sometimes a seller will do a Sell Similar from a larger/heavier listing and forget to look at the Shipping cost - and got a gobbledygook word salad answer saying how it was the same cost to any location (yes I KNEW that) without really answering the question. Too bad. I would have hit the BuyItNow on the basis of the selling price IF the Shipping had been something reasonable but his pricing had killed his own sale.
fern*wood
·4 months agoSounds like the seller used flat rate and figured the shipping to the farthest zone...oh wait, that was the helpful tip given by the OP.
itsjustasprain
·4 months agoWhy would you do that? You said that you weigh and measure your package - which is all you need to know in order to use Calculated Shipping. That way each buyer pays only what is needed to get to his address and you are not ripping off buyers who may be much closer to you.
In fact you may see more nearby sales that way as you would not be discouraging prospective buyers who are wondering why your shipping is so high. (You can still include a Handling charge to cover your shipping supplies and related expenses.) You seem to be confirming your own Subject line here.
Right! That is the whole point of Calculated Shipping. Have you tried that in your listings?
krazzykats
·4 months agoI charge the actual shipping cost and pass my seller discounts on to buyers, but postage is still too expensive.
Even my feedback says so...🤣
I use calculated shipping so I can avoid extra editing when postage prices go up.
ᓚᘏᗢ
funfactorychannel
·4 months agoMy only advice is dont sell at retail shipping cost to customers cause many other sellers sell items for less shipping cost.
Also don't set to pass all your shipping savings to buyers. cause every item you end up losing alot more money.
Don't treat shipping cost as one line item. Your goal is to sell so make your shipping look good to the buyer. I switched to all flat shipping a few years ago and make shipping look more appealing by moving cost around between shipping and price of item.
Use shipping policies to make your life easier so you dont have to edit postage increase each time. Just go into the policy and edit it. That show I changed all my free shipping to 1.99. And with postage increase probably just changed it to 2.49
american-photography
·4 months agoCalculated shipping costs are determined by the shipper (UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc.), distance to the buyer’s location, and Ebay’s discounted rates, not by the seller except for the added handling fee which is the only controllable cost.
High shipping costs do deter buyers but some factors are out of the seller’s control.
stephenmorgan
·4 months agoWhy don't you use calculated shipping. Since you are already measuring, weighing and determining box size you have all the information to use calculated shipping, just input the information into your listing while listing.
You can use the Discounted Rate and your buyer will pay exactly what it cost and you will get a little less than actual cost because of the eBay fee deducted from what buyer paid.
If you want to get closer to actual cost use the Retail Rate and mostly after eBay deducts their fees there is still enough remaining to cover the actual cost.
chrispass918
·4 months ago👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
toomuchstuffagain35
·4 months agoAnyone who charges ONLY the ACTUAL shipping cost is losing money on every parcel they send out (did you forget that ebay charges you FEES on that actual shipping cost?)
eta: Oh, and you get charged ST on that shipping cost as well btw.
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoAll of which can be written off at tax time.
If your margins are large enough, it really doesn't matter. Flat rate shipping is where you can get seriously kicked in the head, especially on items that weigh more than 8 ounces. The rates you'd have to charge to be "safe" are the rates that make anyone close by pass on your items. If you offer free shipping, you run into the same problem for any item under 20 bucks.
I can count on one hand the number of times I've just broken even or lost money in the past 2600 transactions.
kibble-net
·4 months agoMy shipping cost is the ACTUAL cost plus $1.50 to cover the cost of boxes, packing materials and ebay's updated promoted attribution rules. (Formerly $1.00 before the new attributions went into effect earlier this year)
If the price is too high for a buyer's liking, they can simply wait until the item's price gets reduced. Since the shipping cost is a fixed amount, it is non-negotiable as far as I'm concerned. If they don't want to pay for the shipping, they can drive to Milwaukee and come pick up their board game in person 🙂
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoSame, except I build my $1.10 shipping supply cost into my item price. People are aware that shipping fees have gone up and they know that ebay is not Amazon. I can't see an actual good reason to mess with shipping.
Nobody believes free shipping is free. You're just rolling the cost into your item price. If you're not, good luck staying in business over the long haul.
meme6253
·4 months agoAll of us face the rising cost of shipping & supply costs, But we have to keep it at a reasonable level to pass on some of these costs, I get my boxes from a lot of places to cut down my cost as well as packing materials. I reuse & re-purpose all the time.
inhawaii
·4 months agoI don't offer free shipping on any of my items.
I can tell you without a doubt, that every single item I sell costs more to ship than what i'm charging my customers.
dhbookds
·4 months agoI determine my shipping cost based on sending my item to the farthest away zone from me.
So you are using a flat rate as opposed to calculated shipping? Certainly your choice, but that leaves you "open" to having to change the price every time the shippers raise rates... Since you are pricing to the farthest zone, you are overcharging the nearest zones......and that could be substantial since you are shipping from Alaska.
Not being critical, everyone has the right/duty to figure out the best method for themselves.........but pointing out the possible advantages of another method.....
shire123
·4 months ago@farnorthsid
Handling costs are real and for many they need to be included. It sounds like you don't (for the most part) include handling costs.
I sell so many things that I have to buy my boxes. That cost anywhere from 1.50 to 5 per box. And while small there is the ink and labels for home printing. I live in a rural area. While I could schedule a USPS pickup that means I would have to be home at the time of the pickup. And since I don't ship USPS for larger packages due to cost (many of my larger items would be over $100 for shipping via USPS) I need to get them to a UPS/FedEx pickup point. That means a 26 mile round trip.
So handling costs can be significant and are real.
Frankly, I see nothing wrong with charging a bit for the "service" of packaging and shipping. It is truly a service for the buyer. I source a lot of my items from online auction services. None of them charge just the postage.
As far as the buyer goes. It is up to them to determine if they want to pay for my shipping "service". If they don't like my pricing then they are welcome to move on.
Personally, if the stated shipping cost is too high for me I pass. If it is really low I know that the seller is making it up in their pricing of their product.
But at the end of the day whether you add handling costs or have them "built" into your markup on your merchandise it doesn't matter. The year end "profit" for tax purposes will be the same.
campanaelia
·4 months agoThe total price (item+s/h) is all that matters to buyers.
If a buyer is willing to pay $50 for an item it really doesn't matter if it's
$50 w/free shipping
$40 + $10 shipping
$25 +$25 shipping
or $1 + $49 shipping
I take that back, it actually does matter to me since I'm in a state with no tax on the shipping portion so I would choose the $1 + $49 shipping and pay only $0.08 tax rather than $4 tax on the seller with free shipping. For that reason items with free shipping are my last resort.
I think some sellers realize this hence the high shipping fees, It's only a numbers game to me.
And if I plan to bid multiple items I normally message the seller before bidding to see if they update the invoice before paying.
If they have one hour auto-pay, which I think is totally rude to buyers, then I pass bidding any items because it's not worth the time and hassle messaging, been there,done that!