Now this is excessive shipping

vipergts2
Good comments.
Thanks

 

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What's frusting is that when you bid on something that's just 0.99, and the shipping for some absurd reason is 15 dollars and when I look at the postage stamp to here Australia, it's a 90US cents. Ok, I might be happy to give a couple of dollars extra but 15??? And I'm supposed to get this registered and that's why I paid for it - oh well.

 

Another thing to keep in mind about high shipping costs. Many sellers will give you an opportunity to return an item if you are not happy , however this often does "not" include shipping costs , so you might want to think twice before you start bidding.

 

All so debatelable. I know it's not supposed to be a profit on S&H but then again, why not. All's fair in love and war, old saying. Similarly if you go to work and say make X/hour. Now do you really make X/hour? You have to wake up to go there, travel to get there, usually waste time for lunch, travel back home, etc. YOu have to wear cloths that need laundering and eventually buy more just for work. Many other extras and just for work. Now take an 8 hour work day and add the addtional few hours for the above. You know make much less than X/hour. Sort of the same with seling on ebay. Should you want pay for going out and buying shipping material? Time wrapping, going to the post office? Maybe receiving a check and having to go to a bank to deposit it? Entering the item in the first place. What part of that is similar to the 8 hour work day? My feelings are an ebay seller should get something for all that. More than just the postage for sure. Of course excessive S&H would be like asking for money to wake up in the morning to go to work. You have to get up eventually anyway. Still there has to be or should be some profit in all the preparations for an ebay life.
I do not sell on ebay or anywhere via the internet nor do I buy there either. Never have and hopefully never will. I live in an area where there are places to buy anything possible so no need for such things as ebay. Guess I miss all the fun of good and bad stories about that place. Still here there are people that spend hours shopping in stores to save a few dimes and blow dollars on gas, wear and tear on their cars. Spend many hours clipping coupons from the papers, sorting them, looking for more everywhere including downloading them from the internet. So which is better?
I just like coin shows.

 

Plus a small amount of packaging. Yes, it's great. Very smooth.

I just do the straightforward way - postage + insurance + small amount for packaging. No hustles on shipping - it's dishonest.

E-bay is not exorbitant. 3% fee for worldwide exposure ? Cheap.

I do feel paypal is a little high - they do less "value add".

 

another old saying - "Do for others what you would have them do for you."

 

Very true! Where else can you run a "retail" business and incur less than 10% of sales in overhead, including your merchant account?

 

It's not just a problem with eBay. There are groups of people that simply feel that there shouldn't be any form of "retail" side to numismatics. And not only with numismatics, but with a number of "collectible" items. The internet has created more of a peer-to-peer social interaction that previously was not available, nor possible, prior to the internet of today. As such, many in the online communities feel that everybody should be treated as a "peer", and thus, the collector has a certain "right" to receive the same bargains, discounts, and treatment of established relationships between "professionals".

When perusing many of the wholesale bid/ask listings, many people do not understand that these are prices that professional dealers are willing to buy and sell to other professional dealers that they have an already established relationship to. True, there are dealers that will refer to the bid/ask listings and offer established customers a comparable deal when buying and selling. However, the mentality that I have noticed says that everyone on the internet is a peer and thus should receive the same treatment and deals regardless of relational status (ie. whether you are a dealer or not). The same mentality says that you should have a right to receive the same deals as a fly-by buyer as the established customer who has bought thousands of dollars worth of business and years of faithfulness.

It used to be the day when "your dealer" was the one you trusted to give you good advice and a great deal, and relationships were established. Back then, you would trade between peers on your bid boards, or at the worst, sell directly to your dealer for a price that allowed him/her to resell the coin and have a profit left over to pay the light bill.

Today, however, everybody's a dealer and everybody's a peer. Everybody has a right to wholesale dealer pricing, and the good, trustworthy, legitimate dealers are becoming a thing of the past, replaced with the fly-by night buyer-seller, many of which are unscrupulous, with no need to establish relationships, as the whole world is in their reach.

This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem. And eBay is simply a symptom of this disease. Realistically, eBay should be seen more as the local bid board, where you should take great care and deal with those that you can verify a scrupulous reputation. And forums like this are the trustworthy advice side of your local dealer, giving you opinions on items up on the bid board, answering your questions to the best of his/her knowledge, and establishing a relationship.

Personally, I would rather pay a bit more money for the coins I want at a brick and mortar establishment and gain a relationship with the one I buy coins from than to take the chance with possible fly-by night (mostly) anonymous entities. But, unfortunately, the closest dealer to me is over a two hour drive and out-of-state. So, some of us have no real choice.

 

Really? I always thought that one said "Do unto others as they would do to you only do it first."

 

I alway preferred " do unto others BEFORE they do it to you." lol

 

I never knew what the formal eBay rules are. However, I've always felt that shipping should always be charged at cost and that it is unethical to make a profit on shipping. I agree with the principle that any profit or operating expenses should be built into the price of the item.

One business that makes excessive shipping charges a fundamental part of their business model is the mail order music business. They offer CD's at half price or buy 1 get 3 free, but they charge $4 shipping for each CD regardless of how many they send at a time. I'm surprised they haven't been sued over this.

 

Agreed.

That makes sense IF the seller is setting the price. But in an auction, he's not. The buyer(s) set the price.

 

However, the seller can set a minimum acceptable opening bid, or set a reserve.

 

Other Frank - I was going to say that, but you beat me to it!

 

So much arguing... I still think it's bad to have high overpriced shipping costs, but guys, all you need to do, just carefully read the terms of the auction as usually sellers that have overpriced shipping costs state it in bold.


cheers,
mik