"Outrageous shipping"

[pvcliff]

Yesterday I relisted a ceramic heart box that had timed out without selling for a dollar or two less. I've had it listed at least a year. So today comes the note that a potential buyer has received an email that the price has dropped, "item is beautiful" but my shipping is "outrageous" and she's never paid that much for similar ceramic items even bought as far away as the UK. I composed a response (not sent yet) telling her item weighs two pounds, sturdy box for highly breakable item weighs one  pound, hence my 3-4 pound weight estimate and that PM is both weight and distance based and if I mailed it to myself it only costs a fairly reasonable $8.50 so she must be on the opposite coast from Los Angeles. 

Her feedback left for others  indicates no problems, but I'm dithering about whether the word "outrageous" rather than something like "more than I would have expected" is a red flag.  This is an $8 item, so even within my own neighborhood shipping doubles the price. I find myself torn between blocking her for her choice of words and/or waiting until after Valnetine's Day and just wrapping the darn thing up and putting it in my charity box hoping that it will make it to their pricing people intact.

[bubbleman2010]

If you have a favorite pizza place just ask them to save a couple mozzarella cheese boxes. They are just monster strong boxes and can ship parcel post ground cheaply....

[pvcliff]

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@missjen831 wrote:

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@lookng2015 wrote:
I do know when I looked at it the shipping WAS "outrageous" lol

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I do agree but I would still block the buyer myself. On one hand the buyer did OP a favor but a buyer who complains before the purchase is likely to complain after. 

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I ultimately decided not to block at this point because she did cause me to learn something today (learn something every day if I'm not careful).

[missjen831]

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@pvcliff wrote:

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@missjen831 wrote:

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@lookng2015 wrote:
I do know when I looked at it the shipping WAS "outrageous" lol

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I do agree but I would still block the buyer myself. On one hand the buyer did OP a favor but a buyer who complains before the purchase is likely to complain after. 

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I ultimately decided not to block at this point because she did cause me to learn something today (learn something every day if I'm not careful).

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Hey no judgement from me, it was nice of you to not block her 🙂

[castlemagicmemories]

I think the buyer, although correct, used a poor choice of words to explain the problem.

Your shipping seems to be high, could you please check it for  me?  is a much more gracious request, than telling them, your shipping is OUTRAGEOUS!

Or, I know the shipping calculator could be off, can you confirm that shipping to my zip code is?  

Just some thoughts.

[rustictrollop]

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@pvcliff wrote:

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@fern*wood wrote:

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@pvcliff wrote:

The price I see has never changed from $8.50, so I am confused.  I have now reinput 12x12x12, are you still seeing $20, or did $43 come back??

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One of your dimensions earlier must have been over 12".  The cost is still $20. to me now and before it was 40ish.  The dimensional issue does not affect the cost to your own Zip.  It kicks in on zones further away.

I once had an email like yours and when I looked, I had entered something crazy for dimensions.  They bought from me after I fixed it.

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Yes, I had 14" as one of dimensions.  Interesting excercise today. My two Vernonware pitchers are 11.5" tall and definitely need larger boxes.  Time to try to sell those locally.

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@pvcliff

I'm coming to the table a bit late for this discussion...nevertheless, having read the OP notes and the follow up pages,  I wish to add a couple of observations.  I ship items from here in Canada and our postal rates are truly outrageous...lol.   Nevertheless, I convert from CAD to USD to post the rate on my listings so they are comperable to rates I find in similar listings by other Sellers.  Oftentimes I am quite shocked that at times my rates are actually cheaper than others selling within the USA...even then it doesn't stop potential buyers from asking if that's the best I can do!!  Seriously?!  Surely when similarly listed items come up in a search the differences in shipping rates is obvious...isn't it?

I've just spent an hour researching listings for items I am interested in listing.  First thing I check, if it's available is the shipping rate.  I cannot even begin to count how many sold listings there were for items that went for a $3-$7 auction/bin price, yet shipping rates were averaging around $17-$18 for a smallish lightweight items, that I  could ship from Canada for much less (around $12-$14 USD with the conversion).  Color me confused!!  I see this anomaly every time I do listings research.  Yet here you had someone complaining over what I consider to be a reasonable shipping cost for a delicate, yet weighty item (the ceramic heart box right?), that needs to be carefully packed.  

It behooves me to understand why so many buyers are willing to pay outrageous shipping prices for items that can be shipped for much less (non-fragile things that need minimal padding, in a smallish box).  And selling thru well, at that.  Yet someone complains about the cost of shipping a larger delicate item that requires decent packing.   I'm starting to realize that the more I learn, the less I know, or perhaps understand about what goes on in the mind of a Buyer.  Am I missing something here?  Or is it that theoretically if you are selling a popular or desirable item you can pretty much get away with what seems like a pretty high shipping cost, because your item will sell regardless?

It's like the thing that I still can't understand about listing pics that are dark, out of focus, and the items are on dirty shag carpets, yet still selling for good prices on a regular basis...as opposed to items photographed nicely that sit and don't sell even at very reasonable prices.  I wish someone could explain that one to me...much like the discrepancies in shipping rates.  Cheers!

[lookng2015]

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@missjen831 wrote:

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@lookng2015 wrote:
I do know when I looked at it the shipping WAS "outrageous" lol

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I do agree but I would still block the buyer myself. On one hand the buyer did OP a favor but a buyer who complains before the purchase is likely to complain after. 

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I was actually talking about MY shipping dimensions booboo = )

[ed8108]

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@rustictrollop wrote:

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@pvcliff wrote:

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@fern*wood wrote:

---

@pvcliff wrote:

The price I see has never changed from $8.50, so I am confused.  I have now reinput 12x12x12, are you still seeing $20, or did $43 come back??

---

One of your dimensions earlier must have been over 12".  The cost is still $20. to me now and before it was 40ish.  The dimensional issue does not affect the cost to your own Zip.  It kicks in on zones further away.

I once had an email like yours and when I looked, I had entered something crazy for dimensions.  They bought from me after I fixed it.

---

Yes, I had 14" as one of dimensions.  Interesting excercise today. My two Vernonware pitchers are 11.5" tall and definitely need larger boxes.  Time to try to sell those locally.

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@pvcliff

I'm coming to the table a bit late for this discussion...nevertheless, having read the OP notes and the follow up pages,  I wish to add a couple of observations.  I ship items from here in Canada and our postal rates are truly outrageous...lol.   Nevertheless, I convert from CAD to USD to post the rate on my listings so they are comperable to rates I find in similar listings by other Sellers.  Oftentimes I am quite shocked that at times my rates are actually cheaper than others selling within the USA...even then it doesn't stop potential buyers from asking if that's the best I can do!!  Seriously?!  Surely when similarly listed items come up in a search the differences in shipping rates is obvious...isn't it?

I've just spent an hour researching listings for items I am interested in listing.  First thing I check, if it's available is the shipping rate.  I cannot even begin to count how many sold listings there were for items that went for a $3-$7 auction/bin price, yet shipping rates were averaging around $17-$18 for a smallish lightweight items, that I  could ship from Canada for much less (around $12-$14 USD with the conversion).  Color me confused!!  I see this anomaly every time I do listings research.  Yet here you had someone complaining over what I consider to be a reasonable shipping cost for a delicate, yet weighty item (the ceramic heart box right?), that needs to be carefully packed.  

It behooves me to understand why so many buyers are willing to pay outrageous shipping prices for items that can be shipped for much less (non-fragile things that need minimal padding, in a smallish box).  And selling thru well, at that.  Yet someone complains about the cost of shipping a larger delicate item that requires decent packing.   I'm starting to realize that the more I learn, the less I know, or perhaps understand about what goes on in the mind of a Buyer.  Am I missing something here?  Or is it that theoretically if you are selling a popular or desirable item you can pretty much get away with what seems like a pretty high shipping cost, because your item will sell regardless?

It's like the thing that I still can't understand about listing pics that are dark, out of focus, and the items are on dirty shag carpets, yet still selling for good prices on a regular basis...as opposed to items photographed nicely that sit and don't sell even at very reasonable prices.  I wish someone could explain that one to me...much like the discrepancies in shipping rates.  Cheers!

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Manny buyers purchase based on their total cost for the item.

Auction/BIN + shipping = total cost

They don 't care how it is being split up.

[yuzuha]

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@lookng2015 wrote:
Yeah, a boardie alerted me to the fact I'd fat fingered 7x7x6 to 167x6x6 once = )

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I've done something like that before.  Couldn't figure out why this one item wasn't selling when I'd sold almost a dozen of the same type of item before until I checked the listing... whoops.

[rustictrollop]

``Manny buyers purchase based on their total cost for the item.

Auction/BIN + shipping = total cost

They don 't care how it is being split up.``

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I do realize that many buyers base the purchase on the total cost and that there are a few creative ways to set up what that might look like.    And the subject of that has been brought up on these Boards often enough, and the debate about what entices a buyer...that is higher item price vs. lower shipping or vice versa.  I always the consider the total bottom line when making a listing.  Which is why I had to wonder that the OP`s potential buyer was complaining about an ``outrageous`` rate that seem reasonable to me when considering the entire bottom line.

In fact just this evening I had a question from a potential buyer about shipping costs, on items that were listed both lower on the BIN as well as the shipping rate than other similar listings.  And clearly it shows that I am shipping from Canada, yet a cheaper rate was still asked for when I know Sellers shipping the same within the USA have higher rates.