Selling low cost items

[dougsue123b]

I bought a adapter cable a bit ago for .99 cents free delivery.

Then I got to thinking how can a U.S. seller do that?

.33 cents for paypal, .20 cents for ebay. That leaves .47 cents to ship it

and make a profit.

I just dont see the logic, can you?

[southern*sweet*tea]

If they're a US seller, they can't make a profit, even if they have a micropayments account. It's either a loss leader or they're clueless.

[orangehound · Accepted solution]

Likely, they are selling loss-leaders to build up an account's reputation ... they might also do that to get an account out of below standard status or raise it up to TRS.

[dougsue123b]

I thought maybe they had some kind of better deal with usps. 

I cant see a loss leader working online, so I guess clueless is the answer.

[dougsue123b]

I think you are right, says 1370 of them were sold. feedback 99.8

[southern*sweet*tea]

Let's see:

With a micropayments account, Paypal fees would be 10 cents (5 cents + 5%), Ebay fees would be 10 cents, so that leaves 79 cents.  71 cents for a two ounce letter plus the non-machinable surcharge of 21 cents would leave the seller in the hole 13 cents.  That doesn't include COGS. If they ship as a package they're losing almost $3.

Sounds like a plan

[dougsue123b]

It came first class padded envolope.

[professor-t]

Of course, if the seller was Chinese, they get subsidies from their government.