If you are selling Baseball cards or anything related, heres how to keep shipping costs low (if you're interested):

1) Bubble envelopes are both expensive and inneffective. They do little or nothing to protect the card being mailed. 6x9 envelopes are much cheaper (aprox 6 cents if you buy from "U-Line" online - that's including shipping costs). 6 cents is much cheaper than the 50 cents - $1 you pay for the bubble mailer.

2) Cut up all cardboard you get - especially now that it is the holiday season. Sandwiching a Baseball card tightly between cardboard will protect the card much much much better than the bubble mailer. Cardboard is free. Total cost of shipping materials = 6 cents. Cost to mail will be the same.

3) This should give you the opportunity to pass the savings onto your customers. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that a low "actual" shipping charge is very good for repeat business. Lets not kid ourselves... it doesn't really cost all that much to mail a bunch of cards. 10 cards packaged and mailed securely will not cost more than $2. If you charge somebody $6 postage and the cards arrive in an envelope with $1.50 postage on it, that will turn your customers off. It would turn YOU off if a seller did it to you.

4) Honest shipping is the best thing you can do to set you apart from everybody else selling the same thing you are. Why should I spend my money in your store? It is your responsibility to answer that question for me before I spend my money with you. As the person with the open wallet, I have plenty of options on eBay. Make it worthwhile for me to shop with you. I heard somewhere that the most important sale you make is the "next one". It sounds a little cliched but it is perfectly relevant for the eBay seller. Do everything in your power to get me to come back to you. The beautiful thing about eBay is that you make money off me even when I don't buy from you, as long as I bid. Every time I bid, you make money. Make it worth my while. Repeat customers are worth ALOT of money on eBay.

5) Happy Holidays.

January 17, 2007

Am I the only one getting bombarded with customers asking for updates on packages that should have long since been delivered? This does seem to happen annually after the Holidays when the mail runs slow but never this bad. Every package gets mailed 2nd day after receiving payment. Why is this happening all of a sudden? Are any other sellers (or buyers) out there experiencing anything similar? I know the ice storms in the mid west have been real bad. I'm shipping from New York and the weather has been nice here but is it possible the storms are holding things up? Any Postal workers reading this? Any information would be appreciated. The past 2 weeks have been a real headache. Thank you in advance.

Let me start by saying that I think Barry Bonds is an embarrassment and a jerk. I would like to see him retire (or be suspended or jailed) before he gets to 755. That being said, I have to cut him a little slack because I think we are going after the wrong guy(s). This is the guy who was clearly the best player in Baseball and he was playing by the rules. Bonds was not cheating and did not cheat until he saw the glory that was bestowed upon the cheaters (McGwire & Sosa). Baseball knew what was going on and ignored it. Anybody with a pair of eyes and an iota of Baseball IQ knew what was happening. Major League Baseball did nothing. The media said nothing. The union allowed nothing to be done about it. Nobody called these two obvious cheaters on it. What happens when the best (honest) player in the world starts getting bypassed by the dishonest players? Especially when cheating is clearly being rewarded (money, glory, status...) The way I see it, if Barry wanted to maintain his rightful place as the best player in Baseball, there was no choice but to join the cheaters who were passing him by. I honestly believe that the majority of the people attacking Barry would have done the same thing if they were in his position.

P.S. Please don't insult me by saying that steroid testing has fixed this problem. I don't buy for a minute what Albert Pujols is doing. He comes out of nowhere to become Babe Ruth & Ted Williams rolled up into one suspiciously large package. I'm astounded that nobody questions the legitimacy of this guy's accomplishments.