I have two game used bats on eBay priced at $87.60 (because I want to clear $75 on them, which is actually only a fraction of what I paid for them ten years ago). I normally charge $18.65 to ship a bat, which is sometimes too much (in which case I will do a partial refund to the Buyer) or too little, in which case I just deal with it. If I ship a bat from Arizona to southern Florida, to one of the New England states or to Hawaii, I lose a little money.
An alleged potential Buyer offered me $40 each for the bats. I responded with a counteroffer of $58.50, which would allow me to clear $50, and I did the math on shipping two bats in one USPS Priority box to Virginia, which came to $27.75. I told him that in order for me to be able to clear $100 total on the deal he would have to pay $58.50 for each bat + $32 for shipping.
He first questioned my charging such a "high" price for shipping. I gave him the dimensions of the box and the expected weight of two bats (approximately 4.9 pounds) and politely suggested he go to USPS.com and calculate it for himself. He also claimed to (I quote) "buy bats every day from every state and only pay 10-20 dollars". I advised him that if that is true the Sellers he's dealing with are either adding what they're not collecting for shipping to the price of the items or losing money, and I asked which he thought was more likely.
He just responded by saying he would pay "$125 shipped". I responded by pointing out that after eBay added sales tax and then took their 12.55 % AND I still had to pay $27.75, I would be lucky to clear $40 for each bat - less than half of what they're listed for. Discussion over.
