Make Money Selling Stamps

John, in your listings you have these statements:


Is this an Australia thing? What is border tax fee?

I assume State Tax fee is what you as a company are required to collect for your state government.

I will be watching you eagerly to see how this works out for you.

Hi Puzzler tax what is that? ha ha ha yes do keep watching my store. I just put a bunch of Canadian FDC in. Lets see how that goes. Will dig out some more old US covers later on and throw them on to.

Hi Doug
Some countries charge stamp duty over a certain cost on imported goods and I believe in some states in the USA this happens as well.

But the real reason is when I went looking at what other Aussie seller (with many feed backs) were including in there mailing statement this extra tax fee disclaimer was a part of it.

John

I would thing this is the automatic notification ebay sends out with every item won.

The buyers can click on Pay Now in those emails, and if they do, the invoice total, if they had bought more than one item, will add the stated shipping charge on as many times as items have been bought.

I used to (haven't sold for a while) state in my listing to Please wait for my invoice so I could adjust the shipping to the correct amount, but not everyone reads the description, as John states, and frustrated buyers is not what anyone wants.

One way around this is Free shipping but most other sellers seem to have one shipping charge and then add on 10c to 50c per extra item bought. This method can run into problems also with disgruntled buyers being charged a lot of added on shipping for purchasing more from you.

You also get buyers who want to pay for every single item by itself with a separate PayPal payment and do not understand why their shipping total is so high. That's another story.


I ended up saying one charge and that's it except if the weight for books, albums, etc made it go over the weight. Then, with that statement, I could go in and change the shipping to the proper amount. Lots more work for me that way though.

Real curious how KGV will do with this.
Here is a free advert for KGV, since he is so nice to share his trials and experiments with us, a link to his ebay listings:
http://myworld.ebay.com/kg5collector/

Link for Duncan too:
http://myworld.ebay.com/duncanvr/




Ah, good then, best to copy those who are doing it right.

Yes, in Canada we are allowed to import $20 without paying Gods and Services Tax (GST)(5%) but over that and stated thus on the customs stick on form, we pay the tax.

If I have this right then ebay has stated in some guideline somewhere (I think I saved it) that you should state in your listing (looked, can't find it).

Looking at KGV's link sent kindly by puzzler I am wondering is KGV going to loose out on the postage cost? It costs $2.35 to send a letter overseas from Aussie and some items he is selling for 99 cents or less. If I were to cut out my shipping cost I would make a loss for sure. Consider that 56 X $2.35 is $131 that is a lot to loose in one day. KGV are you sure free shipping is going to pay off with low cost items?

Duncan, this is were you have to take a big deep breath and step off that mountain top. This would not have worked for us 12 months ago, that is for sure.

I have looked very hard at this free mailing and have adjusted my starting price.

The selling price, over all will be a lot higher, that is for sure.

People will bid against each other and with having early bids my listing are more to the front of ebays listing page and bidders are more likely to bid on something that already has a bid on it.

At this time I have 57 lots, bid on by 9 bidders.

1 has covered $2.35 already + $4.55
1 has covered reg mail + $6.35
1 has covered reg mail + $2.35
2 have covered 60c mailing.
2 have only 20c each for a 60c mailing
2 have only 20c each for a $2.35 mailing

The final selling amount is a long way off. 90 to 95% of our buyers are from Australia because we sell Australian stamps. We also have Top Rated Sellers status in Australia but not in the USA or in any other country.

A lot of people will put in 1 bid as a book mark and end up bidding on many items. I think it is to make a reference point to come back to when the auction is on.

We have adjusted our listings to suit this trend over the last 12 months.

Many bidders will bid with only part of a second left on the auction.

Many lots with the under a minute left symbol on them which I expect to relist but find out they have sold.

Some sellers start all there auction lots at 1c or 99c when the stamp or stamps are worth $1000. I am to new a seller to do a 1c listing but I will list at just a few cents above cost.

The time will come when I will list everything at 99c or less to beat listing costs. We are not there yet. It is like an apprenticeship and I can only do 2nd year work at present but one day I will be an experienced tradesman and be able to list like one.

After some thought maybe I send all Australian mail for 60c and start my own insurance fund.

The figures are there already!

Hi John (KGV) have you deducted all the ebay fees off your overall profit? Also stationery fees etc? I am sure ebay au has a listing fee of 40 cents for every item under $9.99. Even though the automatic ebay email is annoying, I still think you will be further ahead if you charge the postage. Unless you can get postage stamps for free. I'm not that keen to list things under my cost price + ebay fee + postage fee. The thing I would be worried about is listing something for 99 cents and it gets one bid in the last five minutes and sells at 99 cents. When it could have made 3 or 4 dollars instead. The only way I would offer free postage is on higher value items (say something worth several hundred) then I might include the postage cost in the start bid and mark it free postage. But for everything else especially those under $5 I would have to charge postage, based on the possibility there may only be one bidder. If I didn't charge the postage I am sure I will make a loss.

My example would be cost price 40 cents ebay fee US 35 cents sell price $2.50 then plus postage $2.35. Profit at least is $1.75 if only one bid. Then paypal will take out some fee as well somewhere along the pipeline. I need to do several hundred sales to make it worth while. I'm not there yet but things are increasing so that is a good sign, and am making some profit. Regards D

I have an ebay.com store. That is a USA ebay store. Because I list Australian stamps ebay.com lists them straight away on ebay.com Australia for no extra cost and advertise that I have a Top Rated Sellers status in Australia's ebay. But I am not a Top Rated Seller on ebay.com listings in the USA. Confusing is it not but it is really simple because 95% of our sales as a .com store are in the land of .com.au! ebay.com says I have not got enough sales in the USA to have a rating. Every month they promise me Top Rated Sellers status in the USA but it never happens. This has been going on for over 8 months now.

I do not want my buyers to know what profit I make. But I will say I have been buying bulk lots for 13 years. I do not need to win most of my auction lots I bid on. I will use a bid limit of say $300 and bid at res on as many lots as they will let me.
The way I am selling stamps at the minute my stock would last for well over half a million dollars in sales. All I could do for 10 years locked in silence because I could not talk and pain that was total horror because of a life changing accident was to buy stamps at public and postal auctions. I could not even talk to my family with any sense.
I have slowly become a new person over the last 3 years after finally finding a doctor that could help me. And look at me now. I never give in! I can now help my family in a big way. I am back again and a much better model than before my accident. I had 10 years of silence to make up with my family and it had caused a lot of damage. It is a distant memory now thank God! A bit to much truth? But that is me all over!

KGVCollector, I've yet to begin my permanent ebay adventure but I'm sure glad to have read your on-going ebay experience.

Reading ebay links sounds like they are doing their best to stop Fraud/Fakes by low life.

In one post here today someone inferred that ebay skulduggery was 'the only game in town', If that's the case, no-one can oppose ebay closing those sellers down permanently, to uphold integrity.

Yes, I do the same thing at times.



More people are using a bidding service which can put a bid in within the last 4-6 seconds of an auction. Some do it manually but I am too slow for that.


As always KGV, it is wonderful to read your story of how you adapt to changing circumstance and keep going. Your frustrations at some things are felt by many ad then you try this and try that and get through it and keep it going. You break it down into human terms and not big business ebay terms for the rest of us. Thank you.

KGV Collector,

Thank you for sharing your inspiring story and your selling experiences. It's always a pleasure reading your posts and observations.

KGV has learned well and the leap of faith to start low will pay off. I only on occasion will put stamps on ebay nut sell alot of my fishing lures through them. Shipping for me is a bit challenging since alot that I make are made of lead but I'm on equal ground with like items. Generally I charge a flat $5 for 1 item and $2 each additional -- I do take advantage of low cost postage lots to send items. What I have found with the 0.01-0.99 starting point--And it is a leap of faith!- If I have quite a few items listed I will do at least 25-50% with low starting and usually same or simular with buy it now- Many are content with flat out buying the item but many more want the auction frenzy - I have listed items at 1 cent that I would have been happy with a $5 overall bid and they have reached the $20+ mark and generally out profit what I expected. I have had a few situations where I've sold a $10 lot for 99 cents but the gains far out weigh the losses. It is a great way to draw attention to all your other listings. Just be sure to boldly link to your other items in all listings and tossing a few 99 centers in a mix of 20-50 items is same as quality advertising.