Shipping multiple boxes of one listing

[ohiostamp]

Hey eBay community. This is Toledo Antique and I have a question about shipping multiple boxes of 1 listing. To be more specific I have a listing of a 54 books collection. It is those Law collections of heavy hard books that need to be sold all together because it makes sense to get the entire collection instead of 1 book only. The problem is that to ship all 54 books I need 7,680 cubic inches, it is 6 boxes of 16x10x8 size. Unfortunately, eBay is not giving me the option to say "this item will ship in multiple boxes", and I charge shipping only by the size and weight of box in the listing, not using a flat rate. So what is your thoughts about how to best do the shipping in the listing?

[wastingtime101]

First determine if the set is valuable enough to be worth selling. If asking prices are low then you can probably sell locally - people will use for craft purposes at the very least.

If asking prices are high enough, then split up the lot into multiple boxes. Determine how much each box will cost to ship, list them with a flat rate high enough to cover all boxes. It's not possible to set up multi-box calculated shipping, but if using Media Mail, calc shipping isn't needed.

You can use up to 5 tracking numbers per transaction. Anything over 5 you'll have to send in an eBay message and buy the label off eBay.

It's not a bad idea to create a manifest that says which volumes are in each box and put a copy inside of each box, plus keep one for yourself. Sometimes boxes shipped on the same day are delivered on different days and it will help both you and the buyer to know what is in each box.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@ohiostamp wrote: ... to ship all 54 books I need 7,680 cubic inches, it is 6 boxes of 16x10x8 size. Unfortunately, eBay is not giving me the option to say "this item will ship in multiple boxes", and I charge shipping only by the size and weight of box in the listing, not using a flat rate. So what is your thoughts about how to best do the shipping in the listing?

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Unfortunately, the eBay shipping calculator has no way to calculate postage for more than one box. As noted in the other post, it is possible to set an accurate flat rate for Media Mail, because the postage cost is not zoned. Media Mail postage cost also is not related to package dimensions. 

Another potential complication: eBay has set limits on the flat shipping cost for many media categories. If you try to charge a flat rate and you are told that it's too high, just set up weight-based calculated shipping for one box and add the cost for the remaining boxes as a handling fee in the shipping calculator.

http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/maximum_shipping.html