Free Shipping On Ebay: Does It Change Purchasing Behavior?

@Kevin504..

Most likely I would let it pass. $8 for shipping....what type of shipping costs $8?

To me "plus shipping" which is implied in this case should be exactly that. The buyer covers the actual shipping price.

If you shipping on your example is $1 then the seller should say that and make the sale price reflect the same total transaction price.

just a stickler for accuracy I guess.

warriorpoet, I can see cases from the seller's point of view where the shipping cost for one item looks high, but if you buy several items they can ship them all together with not much more cost.

Tracking for inexpensive items within the US costs $2.54, regardless if the item purchased is one stamp or a few dozen stamps.

In a similar way, adcaplan says he will charge $12 international shipping for one sheet (costs him $13+), but could probably fit several sheets in the same package for the same shipping cost.

As a buyer, if I want something that has a relatively high shipping cost, I always look to see if the seller has other items that I want. It really helps if there are Buy it Now items so I have no question if I will win another auction.

Do any of you do a Cost of Goods Analysis or an Order Margin Analysis on Sales to determine P&L? Or do you all live in a world where you make 100% pure profit on every item you sell and that's that-- everything you touch is profit and you never take a loss; you never have an overhead cost on anything … no cost of goods, no capital costs; no equipment or supplies costs, no supply costs… labor costs… everything you touch, buy or use is free…free…free.

(Gotta be Canada - Ain't that way here.) :) Joke guys - laugh!)

Hal, I am selling off duplicates that I have picked up over the years that I consider "sunk" costs. For example, I recently bought an entire Israel collection at the Harmer-Schau auction because it had a set of J1-5 tabs with certificate that I needed. The whole collection cost me $1400, and I was willing to pay $1500 for the one set I needed (which is a pretty good deal, since they typically go for more than that, especially when certified). I will likely be selling the rest of the collection on E-bay in pieces. If I am lucky, I will be able to get more than $1400 for it, thus making my net cost for J1-5 $0. I consider the cost of the rest of the collection as $0 to me, since I bought it for the one set, and paid what I thought the one set was worth to me. My only costs are the fees (E-bay and Paypal), shipping, and packing material (I bought 100 of the photo 8x10 photo mailers for less than $25 including shipping from Amazon). I am not doing this as a business, I don't consider the time I put in to listing (and packaging) the items as labor, but more of a way to clean up my stamp room to make room for new purchases.

Hi Mr. Caplan,
[quote:]I am selling off duplicates that I have picked up over the years that I consider "sunk" costs.[quote:/]
That's a most interesting way of looking at the subject, which I had not considered. I'm not a stamp dealer; however, being in business, I have a tendency to look at everything from that standpoint, including my personal time and hobby. Money is too hard to earn and too easy to lose… and perhaps I become too cynical over the years. Too often the term "Free Shipping" has been a weasel word used in direct response marketing pitches to catch the unknowing; the Shipping has always been baked into the retail price. Still, I see many ebay offers at $1.00, and many times I've purchased the same items for $1.00 with "FREE SHIPPING", knowing the combined price of: postage, mailing, ebay Charges, and Paypal Fees exceeded the price paid for the stamps, though the stamps area worth far more. I simply shake my head when I make a purchase as described…because I know there is no way the Seller has made a cent on the sale -- which is too bad.

Hal

Hal, if you look at e-bay as everyone trying to make a living at it, then you see a lot of things that don't make sense. When you look at it as people trying to get rid of stuff they no longer need and treating the money they get as a bonus (since throwing it out costs nothing, but gets you nothing in return), it makes more sense. That is not to say that there aren't people who make a good living off selling things on E-nay, only that not everyone is trying to do so. I have been very lucky the last few months in selling off my duplicates and unwanted items at an amount that far exceeds what I paid for them. This has enabled me to add a lot of items to my collection that I otherwise would not have been able to do, because all the money I make from selling stamps on E-bay goes right back into my stamp budget to buy items I need. The side effect of adding more items to my collection is adding more duplicates, which I then sell off to replenish the budget. We had another thread a few weeks ago where this was discussed as well. I think the big impact of e-bay has been to enable collectors to avoid the middle man (and the costs associated with them), thus the margin between what you can buy an item for and what you can sell it for is going down, and dealers with an old business model are getting squeezed hard.