How do people sell small items for $3 with free shipping?

[dealforyou22]

If I ship an empty 1 oz package, it would cost me $4. Is there something I'm missing?

The item in question is an "Alcon contact lens case". A very small and light item. The seller is domestic in the US (Pennsylvania) and says in the listing the item will ship in a small package.

This is something I've always wondered. While I do hold the belief to focus on my own business and not worry about others prices, it makes me really curious to know how folks get away with this and maybe if there's something I can do to reduce my costs that I'm unaware of. Thanks.

[fbusoni]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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@fbusoni wrote:

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

What's 'hideous' about this is our collective mania for mountains of the cheapest stuff available that we can then throw into the nearest over-filled dump. We are our worst enemy.

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As a general proposition, Chinese merchandise in my experience is engineered to go bad after 6 months.  

Chinese advertising is designed to convince Americans that that is perfectly ok.

The end result is the addiction to which you allude -- which is a national security objective for China because it weakens the USA.

Slightly off topic but relevant:  I heard Richard Grenell talking on public radio today.   He was acting Director of National Intelligence during the Trump administration.   During a lengthy interview, he was asked what he thought about TikTok.

He said (and I slightly paraphrase):  

"I will not allow smart phones into my home that have the TikTok app on them... that's all I can really say about that."   

This provides a bit more insight into just how invasive TikTok is.  

As background, I do not have the Facebook app on my phone because it looks at all sorts of things that I do not want it to see (phone numbers, contacts, etc.)

But what Grenell suggests is that TikTok takes "invasive" a step further by monitoring your wifi connection and, by extension, hacking into your wifi password.

Buyer beware.

[chapeau-noir]

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@magicn-38 wrote:

some have special deals or discounts with usps if they ship somany a day or week especially with media,

probably make like .25 to .50 cents a item. but sell over 50 a day. 

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Yes - those are the really huge sellers who have contracts with the USPS for pre-sort rates. It's how those giant booksellers sell their penny books, for instance. It's against postal regulation to ship beneath USPS cost, but with pre-sort everything is already sorted, postpaid and palletized before it even reaches the depot, so it needs almost no further handling from the USPS, just basically simple delivery. I used to buy penny books from some of those sellers and they don't combine shipping and they do charge counter rates, so they make their money on shipping, selling thousands of items a day. The sellers with these contracts, though, are huge, like Amazon, etc.

[continentalcollectibles]

Thats Great!!

[keziak]

There seem to be some book sellers who aren't the mega-sellers selling for low amounts with free shipping. Even if they obtained the books for free and also free packing supplies it makes no sense. But lots of people use Fulfillment By Amazon with fees that make no sense either. 

[continentalcollectibles]

You Proved my point! Have a great day and Keep Selling!

[inhawaii]

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@titipeo wrote:

Some sellers are really bad at math. 

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... that and not so smart.

[chapeau-noir]

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@keziak wrote:

There seem to be some book sellers who aren't the mega-sellers selling for low amounts with free shipping. Even if they obtained the books for free and also free packing supplies it makes no sense. But lots of people use Fulfillment By Amazon with fees that make no sense either. 

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It doesn't and they are definitely losing money - the only way to make money with that model is on scale. 

But honestly, it's also true that some people just don't seem to math very well. Others I think are just using loss leaders. The only ones I *can* explain with these stupid low prices are the mega-sellers.

Right now I'm cleaning out our two libraries. Between the two of us, the DH and I have thousands of books collected up down through the years, and most I'm taking to the Goodwill, which has their own several good book sections here and I think an online bookstore as well as a physical bookstore. Judging from the numbers of people I see who haunt the book aisles and purchase piles of books, the biz is alive and well, but not at a high price level, certainly not worth my trying to sell them here. 

There's a reason I use a Kindle a lot for my fiction reading - I used to buy penny books from Amazon and they really pile up - this is a lot easier. The non-fiction I'll usually just purchase, trying to find used copies as I use them for my research job.

[keziak]

Your local library might be interested in them for their booksale. 

[fbusoni]

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@keziak wrote:

There seem to be some book sellers who aren't the mega-sellers selling for low amounts with free shipping. Even if they obtained the books for free and also free packing supplies it makes no sense. But lots of people use Fulfillment By Amazon with fees that make no sense either. 

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 I wonder if there might be some sort of tax deduction that they can take for doing so. 

[keziak]

I think it's more that people either do not have a place to store books locally or do not /cannot take on the job of shipping. FBA in the past was such a good deal that nearly everyone sent in their books. For years the expenses have gone up and up.

[fbusoni]

I'm not referring to FBA, but rather to eBay.  

If I sell 500 books and take a $1 loss on each of them, I'm assuming that that is something I can report on Schedule C.  

Is there an accountant in the house?

[vintagecraze50]

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@dealforyou22 wrote:

If I ship an empty 1 oz package, it would cost me $4. Is there something I'm missing?

The item in question is an "Alcon contact lens case". A very small and light item. The seller is domestic in the US (Pennsylvania) and says in the listing the item will ship in a small package.

This is something I've always wondered. While I do hold the belief to focus on my own business and not worry about others prices, it makes me really curious to know how folks get away with this and maybe if there's something I can do to reduce my costs that I'm unaware of. Thanks.

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High volume. Low shipping costs, mostly from China.

[fbusoni]

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@meme6253 wrote:

You mean NO THANKS to Trump, Really people check your facts!, Let's call it like it is Misinformation, Disinformation, Fake News= LIES

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"Really people check your facts!"

(NOTE: My comment does not imply endorsement of any particular candidate.) 

[keziak]

I know, I just meant that there are other  instances where it's not clear how low dollar sales work.

[gloryglorygifts]

Did you not understand what I wrote. I said that BOTH the seller and the item were supposedly in the U.S. and the item shipped from China. They lied about both locations and yes, I reported them. I even asked about the tracking on here because I had never seen U.S. tracking like that before. That's when it was pointed out to me that it was from China.