Bend over

Sold two items on fleabay yesterday. Z1 Cylinder head minus cams, charged the buyer $45 to ship it , west coast. Actual usps ground cheapest was $58 bucks. I lost $13
Second was a rack of z1 carbs. Charged buyer $25 to ship actual usps ground was $35. Lost $10 on that. I should have shoved them in med flat rate box.
Guy behind the counter said the Post office raised their prices, I'd say

And I got it both ways. I bought some mirrors and the seller charged me $20 to ship and they arrived in a med flat rate box. $13 plastered all over it. lost another $7.

My new motto
I cheated the guy yesterday so I can pass the savings onto you !!!

It cost me $23 with the eBay shipping discount to send a set of front sportbike rotors (6lbs 1oz) to CA from the midwest. I folded a box flat and shoved them inside so it was 13x13x1 1/2" too. And of course the cheapest method anymore is Priority.

Later, Doug

If it makes you feel any better the USPS loses billions of dollar every year. So you'll pay them again thru your taxes...

ThatGPzGuy wrote: If it makes you feel any better the USPS loses billions of dollar every year. So you'll pay them again thru your taxes...

Thank you...I do feel much better now...

When shipping packages out to someone using USPS priority mail, paying online & printing your own labels seems to be the most economical method, but you have to know the package dimensions & weight. I shipped a pair of side covers priority mail last Oct. for $7.55 --- that's pretty cheap.

martin_csr wrote: you have to know the package dimensions & weight.

I bought a digital postal scale from Harbor Freight for not a lot of money. It has definitely paid for itself with the money I have save when I used to underestimate an item's weight. I can now get a fairly accurate weight (+/- .1oz) on packages before I get a quote.

Later, Doug

Fed ex ground is cheaper for me anyway.

We have noticed an increase in shipping prices too, we spent a lot of bread ( over 100) reshipping packages to our boys out in Oakland because my wife wanted to have presents for them to open when they were out for the holidays :pinch:

Doc Rot sent me some rims from the Bay area and got burned for a few bucks from what I can see, sorry Vic.

You would think with gas prices the way they are now that it would be cheaper to ship.

You have to be very careful of eBay's shipping rates that they calculate for your listings, of all the things I've sold on eBay I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the times the shipping actually comes to, and can be printed out at the amount it was supposed to be and the amount you got from the buyer. I usually add a bit to the weight when I list the item to give me a bit more lee way. Sometimes their system is so temperamental that I haven't been able to print shipping particularly with UPS that I've ended up having to go to UPS to send it, then you find yourself $10-$15 out of pocket. Often when the parcel is finally on its way and I'm licking my wounds, I wonder why I bothered to even sell something for all the work it was - and then a few weeks letter to rub salt in your wounds you get your eBay account bill

I sold a vintage skil saw. Ebay said it would cost $20 or so. I took it to UPS and it cost $41. I manually typed in the tracking # and lucky for me the buyer gave me a good review. In the discussion board there are horror stories of buyers filing a case though they got the item and in one case the seller got a box of scrap metal back instead of the item sent. It didn't even weigh close to the same. I've sold 4 vehicles on eBay but I had to relist at $50 a pop. 3 were off eBay but even though the deal didn't go through, I was marked as having sold $14,000 worth of items. They use to be a safe place to buy and sell. They are no longer, just like CL IMO.
I haven't sold anything there in over a year.
Steve

CL is full of tire kickers, guys asking 500% of what their stuff is worth, scammers, and the worst, super super weirdo whack jobs that I don't wanna meet in the walmart parking lot, let alone my home....and worse of all, the scam crap is getting better - their emails and texts aren't so obvious anymore. And the last doofus I dealt with (he was actually realy) used a lot of smiley faces and called me sir in the emails, which really led to me to believe it was a scam.

That being said, ebay can kiss my ass too. I can never find anything reasonably priced anymore, and when I do sell, it seems that I can BARELY get it to go, and with all the nickel and dime fees now, it's hardly worth it. One time I sold some buck horn bars on the cheap. I thought I figured a good shipping cost.... After I got gouged by USPS due to its size, I ended up PAYING $5 for someone to take my handlebars. ouch.

In my experience, Small packages (Anything from 12 inches linear dimensions in any way) I use USPS.
UPS/FEDEX are cheaper with anything larger.