eBay

kathiesbooknook · ‎02-04-2019

How can booksellers sell a book weighing 6 pounds for $3.74 or even $3.95 with free shipping when it costs $5.35 just for USPS media mail postage??

Is there some kind of new math that I haven't heard about???

gracieallen01 · ‎02-04-2019

@kathiesbooknook wrote:
How can booksellers sell a book weighing 6 pounds for $3.74 or even $3.95 with free shipping when it costs $5.35 just for USPS media mail postage??

Is there some kind of new math that I haven't heard about???

That's easy - they sell the condensed version.

Not saying 'NO' doesn't mean 'YES'.

The foolishness of one's actions or words is determined by the number of witnesses.

Perhaps if Brains were described as an APP, many people would use them more often.

Respect, like money, is only of 'worth' when it is earned - with all due respect, it can not be ordained, legislated or coerced. Anonymous

escuintla · ‎02-04-2019

There are some questionable items for sale, and their shipping charges are....well, funny, laughable, or tragic because you can't wrap around your brain the idea of them shipping them for less than what we pay.

Just today, I realize my $2.66 for first class turned into $3.05 or more. Since I state I will use Media mail, well, Media mail I will ship.

_________________________________________________________
If you haven't paid for your item, you're a winning bidder, not a buyer!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

southern*sweet*tea · ‎02-04-2019

The megabooksellers don't use USPS Media Mail. The ones I've dealt with use DHL Ecommerce, which is a hybrid like Fedex SmartPost and UPS Mail Innovations. Those sellers ship thousands of packages a day and get huge discounts that the likes of us can only dream of.

That's what happens when you buy and sell books by the train load. I imagine they pay only a penny or two per book, so they can sell for a lot less than a small seller does. Coupled with the huge shipping discounts they can afford to sell for cheap because they do such a huge volume of business.

The easier you are to offend the easier you are to control.

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did. - Thomas Sowell

fern*wood · ‎02-04-2019

Yes, most high volume sellers have great shipping deals with probably all carriers. Ebay may too, but we will never really know. High postage, which we are saddled with and thus need to pass on to our buyers, is probably as big a drag on ebay's success now as anything else.

southern*sweet*tea · ‎02-04-2019

@fern*wood wrote:
Yes, most high volume sellers have great shipping deals with probably all carriers. Ebay may too, but we will never really know. High postage, which we are saddled with and thus need to pass on to our buyers, is probably as big a drag on ebay's success now as anything else.

If your volume is high enough you don't need Ebay or anyone elses' discounts. You negotiate your own, just like they do. Presort and palletize and you, too, can get huge discounts lol

If Ebay does get a better discount, it can't be much more than it already is because Ebay doesn't ship anything. It would be nice if they'd offer the cubic discount, but I'm sure all that extra programming would cause things to implode. After all, it would take a competent tech department to program such changes.

The easier you are to offend the easier you are to control.

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did. - Thomas Sowell

nobody*s_perfect · ‎02-04-2019

@fern*wood wrote:
Yes, most high volume sellers have great shipping deals with probably all carriers. Ebay may too ...

The really good discounts require presorting, which wouldn't be possible for eBay.

ozarkjoe · ‎02-04-2019

One possibility is that they have such a huge operation that heavy books fall through the cracks and they fail to charge enough postage but that is such a small loss that they do not worry about it.