Has high shipping costs ruined ebay sales?

[thingsuluv2havenow]

Been doing ebay for 20 years.  Always made some kind of money. But the more they "improve ebay" the less I make. I only sold 2 cheap items this month. Period. Completely unpresidented. It's wiping me out.  Both items were free shipping, so I ended up making very little after fees and all.  Shipping is costing me more than what I make on a lot of my items. I feel I am working to help out the Postal service.  Or worse yet working to go broke.  I know ebay must be changing. Can anyone shed some light on why there is such a lag in sales? I am not looking for anyone to critique my auctions. Just want to know if I am missing something. Thanks.

[usmc*usnmom]

If you are using "free" shipping, you should be adding the actual ship cost into the item price. That's what "free shipping" is - shipping is not charged as a separate price to the buyer. The proper term really should be shipping included, since I would hope everyone and his brother knows that shipping really isn't free.

You should be including ALL of your costs into the item price - Ebay and Paypal fees, item cost, shipping supplies, insurance, profit, your time...all of that good stuff, and also the shipping cost if you are offering "free" shipping.

[lja440]

Like already stated with Free Shipping your postage and costs should be added into your starting price.

As for the lag. It's summer, things are lagging everywhere. I only sold 8 albums at the B&M last week. It's garage sale season. The types of items both of us sell (I don't have a carrot for sale though LOL), are going to be at the garage and estate sales. It will pick back up once people get garage sale cruising out of their systems a bit.

[kattinsanity]

I know you don't want anyone to comment on your listings but you sold a pair of shoes as new with box, checked new unopened on the decription yet described them in the details as having only been worn a few times.  The buyer hasn't left you feedback but I hope they saw that the shoes were actually used before they bought them.

That said~~I used to sell large items and did very well at it.  With the high cost of shipping these days it's impossible.  Now I just take these big things apart and sell them piece by piece where I can offer free 1st class shipping and make a lot more than I could selling it in one piece.  They're a lot easier to ship too.