@robot-hands
You are still out the money....the exact opposite of "insurance"
How do you think insurance companies make money? They take in more from 1000s of customers than they pay out to any one customer.
The seller who is self-insuring through Cookie Jar Insurance is not losing money.
Not over all 17 cards.
Cost of card=$0.00
Cost of listing fees= $0.00 to $0.35
Cost of selling & shipping fees= $1.60 (I'm guessing, depends on sale price and cost of stamp and envelope)
So each sales costs about $2.00
Each sale grosses up to $10
If sales net (after costs) on average $8.00, then the seller netted $136.
The loss of one payment is lower.
You have to look at the month end totals, not the total for each sale, if you are in business.
When we had our shop, DH used to get upset when he didn't make a good sale all day.
He didn't notice that the rest of the staff were making dozens of small sales at the same time.
I set up our daybook so he could see that we were in fact covering our costs and were profitable even without his high end sales .(He dealt with the big spenders and senior collectors. We sold supplies,packets, cheap items--- and lots of them.)
And I set it up so that each day's takings were totalled at the end of the week and each week's at the end of the month.
He was much happier then.
TL-DR -- What you lose on the coconuts, you gain on the merrygoround.
