Combined shipping setup with flat rate every x items purchased?
Hi, I sell low end baseball cards, mostly complete your set style listings. I can safely ship up to 10 cards in a standard envelope and stay under 1 oz, and I charge a $0.50c flat shipping fee that helps cover a portion of the 1 oz postage and shipping materials. I cover the rest, which is not much. My issue is when buyers order more than 10 cards, which happens often, sometimes 20 to 50 cards at a time. At that point I have to pay additional postage and occasionally use multiple envelopes or USPS ground. I would like to charge one flat shipping fee for up to 10 cards and then automatically add a set amount for each card over 10. Is there a way to set this up in eBay shipping policies or combined shipping rules so it calculates correctly at checkout?
12345jamesstamps
·6 months agoWhen I get an order that has 20+ items I will use more than one envelope...I email buyer photo(s) of envelopes with postage(real stamps) and just let the buyer know...never had a problem of that.
I keep track of what is in each envelope as well and filed on my PC.
My business model is a little different than yours.
I offer free shipping to attract 'repeat buyers' and buyers who purchase multiple items.
I don't nickel and dime the potential buyer on shipping.
When I was selling Star Trek trading cards...I was able to put 4 cards in a small standard envelope for one forever stamp or $1.70 for International shipping and yes...I did have some International buyers.
You might think about putting the shipping in a card of item for sale...like $2.00 with free shipping and put 'free shipping' in the title.
And if someone buys multiple cards...great...'repeat buyers' are the 'bread and butter' of a business if you are selling the same like items in a category.
Sellers who sell everything in the world including the kitchen sink will not obtain 'repeat buyers'.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoHey @daone_35 @rfmtm , unfortunately this is a long-standing pain point for sellers.
When it comes to combined shipping rules, eBay does not let us impose quantity caps with either flat rate or combined by weight like - combine up to X at $Y or Z#, then start a new calculation if the quantity exceeds X.
It's something I've been asking eBay to implement for several years, but I'm not holding my breath on this being improved any time soon.
You don't yet have a Store subscription, so you can't set something up like free shipping, but a discount when a buyer purchases X or more, but that's something you can consider as your offerings expand and you eventually subscribe to a Store.
For the time being, I would charge the full ship cost (not just 50c) then set up combined shipping discounts based quantity. Make sure the discount isn't so great that you can't cover a few eBay Standard Envelopes, or a single Ground Adv package. Sure it means you may be charging slightly more, but it will balance out with the occasions you need to take a small loss.
Edit to add this link: Account Settings > Shipping Preferences
Go to that page and explore the options under combined shipping rules. There are several options and you can set up different flat rules or different promotional rules. See if something may work for you.
Keep in mind if you set up a combined rule, you still have to edit your listings where you want to apply the combined rule. There will be an option under shipping you can select to apply the rule, and yes, you can do it with bulk edit.
wastingtime101
·6 months agoAs an example, let's say you charged $1 ship and 15c for each additional. That means you'll get:
10 cards = $2.35
20 cards = $3.85
30 cards = $5.35
40 cards = $6.85
50 cards = $8.35
That's not a bad breakdown to ship multiple envelopes or a single Ground Adv package. I don't know - mess around and see what works.
Keep in mind you pay eBay fees on ship cost, plus you have packing materials, so you'll typically want a small buffer.
rfmtm
·6 months agoI don't think there is a way to do this except by some work around.
@wastingtime101 Got any ideas here?