Well, its been awhile since I last did a blog and I have really been wanting to write about the dreaded shipping and handling aspect of Ebay selling. It tends to be a fairly sensitve topic when it comes to how much to charge for handling an item.  So here are my thoughts on Shipping AND handling fees.

I think buyers(being one I can speak from this perspective)don't like to see how much you paid for shipping because they or I do not know the extra "cost" that went into delivering that item all I see is the seller charged me $5 and it only cost $2.50 to ship the item. Well, I am here to say though I am a seller, I get that so much!  The thing that buyers do not realize is are all the cost associated with listing, selling, and shipping a sold item. The following are all the things that the "handling" fee part of the shipping cost may "help" soften the blow on the cost of for a seller:

• shipping supplies (even if its free for the seller they still had to track it down, I have spent a few lunch hours in my time as a seller going thru recycling dumpsters, so it is it really free? I ask myself) bubble wrap, shipping labels(or paper), tape and other packing materials.
• Ebay AND PayPal fees(buyers do not know how much sellers are being fee'd to death by Ebay and PayPal, plus if the seller has to pay for extra services such as seller tools here on Ebay or even a third party it gets costly)
• Time (it takes lots of TIME and hard work making sure you do a good job for each item sold, respond to emails, bookkeeping, managing listings, listing items, packing it, shipping it out in a timely fashion, it all adds up and in turn cost)

I personally do NOT profit from my handling fee at all. It only softens the blow from all the fees I have to pay in order to sell on Ebay. It is simply not cheap or easy to be a seller on Ebay.  However, I do not agree with sellers who charge $8.95 to ship a CD or sellers who offer combined shipping but don't combine the cost of the shipping to save the buyer money. I actually ran into a seller who not only charges $8.95 flat fee for the first CD shipped but also charges $8.95 for each additional one shipped, even if they are shipped in the same package!  That is just nonsense, I know its not cheap to list and sell on Ebay BUT that is just not a good seller if they don't combine shipping to save the buyer some money, there is also a saying for that here on Ebay its called circumventing fees to avoid paying a higher final value fee and listing fee. I highly recommend not doing it as a seller and I highly recommend a buyer not supporting sellers that charge way too much to ship and don't give a price break for buying multiply items from the same seller.

I hope this helps some buyers out there to better understand what all is involved in the "handling" fee part of shipping cost.  Its tricky and sometimes difficult to be a seller on Ebay, but I like doing it and find better ways all the time that save me money and in turn save my buyers money. I appreciate each and every purchase and thank all my buyers for their support. Well I will do another blog here soon about different shipping services that can be offered to save the buyer money and make shipping an item a bit less complicated hopefully for a seller.

Thank you for visiting my blog and have a great weekend!!

 

 

Good evening! Well, I have been diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome. My hands have always hurt pretty bad but I could shake it off and move on, not anymore! Its horrible, I work full-time working on a computer and then I do Ebay, I guess its no wondered I have carpel tunnel syndrome though. Women are more likely to get it but men do too.  Its so unfortunate that I ignored the signs for so long and now I have it in BOTH hands pretty bad too. They hook some electric pulse thing up to a machine and zap you a lot, it doesn't hurt, until afterwards for me anyway but it was already hurting so it just aggravated it some more. It test to see if you have it, its hard to explain. I will be slowing down my selling some and may have to consider surgery, though I don't want to do it which will put me a out for a bit while I recoup so we will see. For now I have a lot of items up and I keep pushing on, I have a brace and I have changed my position of my computer keyboard and screen to try and relieve some of the pain. SO a word to others-if your hands are going numb ever, and often or you have pain that you have to "shake" off, go see a doctor!  other things you can do to relieve SOME of the pain and discomfort are change your position, take breaks, get an arm brace, get a better key board, and a better mouse.  Its not fun and since I absolutely LOVE to use my hands, it sucks big time for me! I so hope that I can resolve this big burden since I like selling on EBay, stamping of course, writing and so much more with my hands.Well thats all for this evening! I hope you have a good night and I won't be on tomorrow evening as I am going out for fun!! Have good one and enjoy!

Well its finally arrived, 4th of July! Its amazing how fast the summer is flying by these days. I wanted to post an updated blog entry for awhile now and unfortunately I am at a loss as to what to write for it.  So with that in mind, please feel free to drop me a line or two letting me know what you think a blog for Ebay should contain, I usually thank all my customers and tell about what I am selling but I can't do that everytime, can I?  Any help is greatly appreciated!  I think on this blog entry and to celebrate the 4th of July, I want to know what all you out there LOVE about the 4th of July the most? What does it mean to you? 

I would like to take the opportunity to discuss recent activity I have had on Ebay with regards to buyers not completing transactions and asking me later to wait 2 MONTHS to get paid. I DO NOT wait 2 months to be paid. Please do not bid on my items without FIRST making arrangements with me if you need a LITTLE extra time paying. A LITTLE extra time is NOT a month. Please DO NOT bid or buy it now if you need a month(or 2) to pay.  Also, DO NOT ask me to ship the item before you pay, that is NOT the way it works, you can't leave a store without paying so I can not ship your item(s) without payment first.  Also, unless you have a REAL question about an item I have on auction then PLEASE do not message me questioning the price I have it up for, if you do not agree with my prices then please do not bid.  Also, I would like to tell about a recent buying experience I had on Ebay. I was brousing rubber stamps a few weeks ago and I asked the seller a question and never got a response, but despite the lack of response, I went to bid on the item anyhow and discovered I was BLOCKED from buying any of their items now. How crazy is that, I guess some sellers don't like questions?  I have NEVER had such an experience such as that and so I asked the seller why I was blocked for asking a question about the item and of course no response. I thought that was so wrong, what the heck, block me for asking a question?? Can anyone tell me what the heck happened, I have never had that happen especially for asking a question.  I was mean, or rude, I was actually very nice and just want some more specifics that were unfortunately left out of th auction. So much to say I of course never purchased anything. Some sellers are just RUDE and unappreciative of a customer or they were trying to hide something or both. 

Well thats it for now, have a great 4th of July weekend!