Question - Any Tips To Improve Selling Your Extra Stamps On Platforms Such As Ebay?

@NSK I have just bought a stamp from America which has a postage cost of $1.50, and no tax applied because tax only applies to items over a certain price / weight, meaning it almost never applies to my stamp purchases. There is absolutely no reason for a strip of stamps for $1.50 to have $18 postage. This is from the ebay shipping programme, which forces extortionate shipping rates, rather than manually entering the shipping, ebay will keep most of that $18 for themselves. When I buy multiple items from different or the same seller using the cart, then tax gets applied, as long as it costs a certain amount, which I only noticed yesterday, since I am a very new ebay buyer and hadn't been using the cart feature up until that point.

I do think ebay does not discern between items under or over the threshold value. Mind you, PostNL sometimes still charges clearance cost and VAT if the sending is valued under € 21.

The cart does appear to use better code.`

When I buy from the UK site, there, always, is a 9% VAT charge, irrespective of the value. Fortunately, most UK sellers remember to turn off ebay's standard settings for postage.

Hardback children's books are large, thin, and readily available from thrift shops.

Hardback children's books are not postage stamps.

In reference to the different shipping costs for each of the ebay web sites (ie: USA.com; Canada=.ca; UK=.co.uk). A purchaser may think that you could visit the USA ebay website and benefit from the lower shipping cost by purchasing the USA listing. However, in Canada we can purchase from the USA website, but as soon as we provide the shipping address as Canada, then the increased charges are applied.

Thanks all for the heads up of the shipping price once those outside the US see my listing.

Parcelpostguy - appreciate your help but not your tone. Why? I recall NOT allowing this particular item for sale for international sales. In fact I don't sell internationally due to the very high shipping costs. It simplyu isn't worth it. So am alernate way to help Parcelpostguyy is to ask - did you check if you are offering this posting tp buyers outside the US? It seems you have and ebay is now hiking up the shipping charges.

Finally, if you wonder why some people do not go into stamp collecting it is the veyr tone of a few of your responses here. I have been doing this only for a few years, am NOT retired, and I have other interests - classical musician and special education educator as well as enjoying exercising. Consider that othgers posting also are in a similar situation and have using online platforms for a few years only. If I continue to get smarmy answers from a few of you I will report this to the moderators.

Postparcelguy - Also note that when I started selling on ebay, international shipping was offered as a CHOICE. Now ebay enrolls automatically into international shipping which I was unaware of. Please do not assume I do not know how ebay works --- I know something of how it works but I am not an expert. That was the reason why I came here.

So to opt our of international shipping one goes to their highlighted account name/click Account Settings/Shipping Preferences/Opt out of International Shipping. It wakes a little time for ebay to process but it works. Hope this helps all sellers.

I will first say ebay at times does not seem to understand how it works not including the times I have found software coding errors causing their own problems. I surfaced such an error last week.

That said, I point out I was correct that you did not know as you yourself pointed out. The fact that in your prior posts you indicated, likely without intent, that you were unaware of how your listings were appearing beyond ebay US. I also took the time to show how some of the listings appeared in the individual and distinct URLs ebay maintains in other country markets.

Here is a list of ebay sites around the world: https://www.ebayweb.com/ebay-international-sites/ and the only way to see how or if your listing appears their is to log on to each site individually.

For what you are selling, it seems free shipping is only cost effective for domestic US sales. Even Canada shipping is twice the current price of shipping within the USA and this is not even discussing next week's US postal rate increases.

As to tone, there was no tone as there were only letters and words, none spoken. What ever tone "received" was tone placed there by the reader. For example, lets stay factual, no spin at all, as I ask the question, "does the sun always rise and set every day?" Of course it does is the answer most folks will give while looking at the questioner as an idiot. Now when I correct those folks that the correct factual answer is, "NO" what tone is that? Without the need to discuss what is the mechanics are behind the perception of rising and setting, The fact is that the sun does not rise and set every day on this planet in the polar regions. "So?" some will say. Well it matters a lot to those folks living in the regions causing the answer to be, "no." Want another one? Yes or no, there are 360 days in a year. Of course there are 360 days in a year, also 361, 362, 363, 364 and 365 but after that it becomes dicey.

Somehow, I can't see that international shipping is the most relevant issue here.

Parcelpostguy - I think it best that I agree to disagree with your point about tone. But regarding ebay very enlightening.

Sorry, what I should have written is that children's books are a cheap way to protect stamps, covers, documents in the post. The ultimate protection against bending would be Vero board, preferably without holes.

Never mind the shipping question. You are never going to get anywhere trying to sell a 4672 #2222 PS5 for $3.49 when the SCV is $0.80.

Eyeonwall - Thanks for alerting me about that. Compared it to a seller such as Bardo. He charges $1. If that is all you get then you are charged a shipping fee of $1.25 plus sales tax. In some states that may be near 9%. So the actual cost to get that from someone such as Bardo is $2.34, or if no sales tax where you live, $2.25. To get free shipping from Bardo you need to order $50 or more in items.

So my original price is higher than it should be but not outlandishly so. Do you know what Mystic Stamp charges for a pane of 20 of Scott 3751 - $15 (https://www.mysticstamp.com/3751-20...lry-3749a/), before tax and shipping. Yes Mystic's price are sky high but there are ebay sellers not out to scam don't try to price that high.

SO greatly appreciate your ctitique but also realize the struggle it can be to price items on an online platform. Also a question is the SCV for the coil alone with no plate number and NOT in a strip of 5?

The down side of buying "free shipping" items is when you purchase more that one. Each "free shipping" item has the shipping cost built in. But when I buy over $50 worth of your "free shipping" items I am still paying for individual shipping on each one. Seller offering free shipping never reduce the selling prices when more than on item is shipped together. That is a raw deal compared to much closer to truly free shipping on Bardo's orders over $50.

Of course with free shipping I have no reason to let purchases build up. So paying for them spaced a day or even just hours apart makes the seller have to spend much more time packing and shipping to keep ebay happy and your ebay costs lower.

Edited to add, sales taxes are the same for Bardo or ebay purchases, except for "free shipping" the ebay seller causes me to pay sales tax on the hidden shipping costs while at over $50 Bardo does not cause me to pay sales tax on shipping overcharges.

You are trying to compare yourself to full service dealers who have a huge inventory. You list (if I recall correctly) just 6 lots.

And you Can't say Bardo prices it at $1.00 plus $1.25 plus possibly sales tax and then try to match the total of all that when you also charge shipping and ebay also charges sales tax.

You just don't get it and I give up.