Ebay Standard Envelope Program

[packbuster33]

Everybody needs to quit sending a top loaded card pwe with 1oz shipping.  Yes, sometimes they get through with no extra postage required on the buyers end and undamaged. The USPS is wishy washy with this. I know my local post office charges me everytime someone sends me a card in a plain white envelope 1oz with Ebay standard shipping. I have called the post office and Ebay about this and nothing gets done about it. However, what I have found is, everytime I use Ebay Standard shipping I always use 2oz or more and I never have any problems at all. This also works if just use a 2oz stamp without using ESE. If you use 2oz or more then the envelope because non-machinable and does not get processed through the roller machines. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT BECAUSE THE ROLLERS ARE WHAT MAIMES OR DESTROYS THE LETTER AND TOP LOADED CARD AND IS ALSO HOW YOUR MAIL GETS LOST!!! USPS workers get **bleep** off when the rollers get jammed up because people send too thick or rigid letters through this system by using 1oz postage or a single basic stamp. EBAY AND USPS COULD SOLVE THIS TIRESOME ONGOING PROBLEM IF THEY WENT TO A NON-MACHINABLE PROGRAM. I SOLVED THIS ISSUE FOR BOTH PARTIES... DO NOT SEND ANY PLAIN WHITE ENVELOPES WITH TOP-LOADED CARDS UNLESS YOU USE 2OZ OR MORE AND YOU AND YOUR BUYER SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY PROBLEMS... BETTER YET,  JUST AVOID USING EBAY STANDARD ENVELOPES AND USE A 2OZ USPS STAMP (WHICH AUTOMATICALLY MAKES IT NON-MACHINABLE) AND YOU WILL ALMOST NEVER HAVE A PROBLEM WITH DAMAGE OR LOST MAIL. I HAVE NEVER HAD A PWE 2OZ STAMP GO MISSING, DAMAGED OR NOT BE DELIVERED IN 20 YEARS. THE KEY AS A SELLER IS DON'T BE CHEAP ON SHIPPING. USE 1OZ ESE SERVICE AND YOU WILL HAVE PROBLEMS.  ALWAYS USE 2OZ OR MORE AND AVOID THE PROBLEMS. CHARGE MORE FOR SHIPPING BUT STILL BE CHEAP. I ALWAYS CHARGE $1.50 FOR EBAT STANDARD AND THAT GIVES ME FLEXIBILITY TO SEND EXTRA CARDS AND USE EITHER 2OZ OR 3OZ FOR PWE. 

[stevekobb_art]

Interesting! Thank you. I will definitely start using 2oz rates for my cards that are sent in PWEs.

[onefootflipper]

I sell cards full time, at least 50 orders a day. I basically stopped using top loaders entirely. I only now use them on those customers who send me messages informing me how to ship their cards (and then I block them). I tried several different things at first and noticed for sure that top loaders created frequent exceptions, they never arrived, they arrived as empty envelopes, they showed back up at my house or they showed up postage due to the customer. The exception rate was about 1.5 percent

I now use gaming card sleeves with 2 or 3 extra cards in the sleeve.  I use double sided tape to affix the sleeve off center in the envelope so it can freely be bent in half. First off is that this costs about 2 cents instead of the 20 cents that a top loader costs. I would have spent $1800 on top loaders last year. Cutting up binder pages can basically do the same thing but is more time consuming than gaming sleeves are.

Second is that this has less problems than top loaders. I saved $1800 on top loaders last year and had all of $25 in damage claims, half those were obviously fraudulent to me (people intentionally wrecking cards or swapping them out), but the Standard Envelope insurance paid out on all of them.