A few months ago I started offering shipping to Canada on my eBay coin auctions. Up to this point, I have only sold single coins to Canadian customers, which costs me $1.30 to ship. Today I sold seven coins to someone in Canada. The cheapest way I can find to ship is $6.16, which is ridiculous in my opinion. The coins only cost $8, and I only charged the customer $4 for shipping because I thought $6 seemed unreasonable. Now I'm trying to find a cheaper option. Can anyone who ships coins to Canada more often recommend anything? The order is 1.8 ounces. I thought about splitting them up into two regular envelopes, but I don't know if that will go through or get sent back to me. The automatic shipping purchaser at the post office says it's for correspondence only with international shipping, and while I get away with one coin in the package I don't know if three or four will pass muster. I can take a hit on this if I have to, but I'm also afraid I'll have to ditch international shipping in the future if the shipping prices are so outrageous. What do I do in the future if someone buys three or four coins? Combined shipping can't cost more than it would to ship them singly.
When I sold on E bay I never offered free shipping or insurance ....the reason being that the cost of shipping is to costly to eat as a seller. Yes EBay wants everything for the buyer as it's not costing E bay anything. Just add it up insertion fee, FVF, Pay Pal fees, then shipping. Ha you are loosing money not making any. Besides if I buy something from you I feel I should pay for it to be shipped and insured. As I am the buyer and want to protect my purchase. Watch next when you'll need to collect sales tax for selling. you're basically working for e bay for nothing and rest assured if the buyer is not happy you're left holding the bag of snakes not eaby! I love my Canadian friends as well as the friends I have made on the other side of the pond....however shipping is so costly these days...I had reduced my shipping fee's somewhat when I sold...but it's a crap shoot...as a seller you try to be fair and good service. Good service cost me at least another $1.50 as I shipped within 24 hours of cleared payment. If the item was going out of country that meant not only a trip to the post office but standing in line for for ever how long and more forms to fill out. I sent a coin to a Swiss buyer one time that took no kidding 2.5 months to get to him! I was ready to refund him his payment and eat the coin. I always used USPS Prority Mail 2 reasons #1 it was cheaper than 1st class and safer ,#2 it was faster delievery time. I can't speak for the Canadians but I would believe they are well aware that depending on their locations the time needed to get an item to them will take alot longer. I also noticed if I sold a coing to a west coast buyer as I am east coast it took less time to deliver it than to send it 150 miles down the road south of me! Yup cross country 3 days and sometimes two ...an address less than 200miles from me would take a week and that was using USPS Priority mail.
They just upped the cost for international I think the end of January. I noticed that it cost me a couple bucks more to send things to Canada. I too got burnt on my last shipment, future listings will show the new cost. I think it is becoming cost prohibitive to send small dollar items north.
I have not sent coins to Canada yet but have sold other items that have shipped across the border. I just charge a lot of shipping (to protect myself) and hope the buyer understands that it is expensive to ship internationally. The charges are clearly stated... buyers choice.
I have not mailed anything to canada in a few years. But I used to do exactly what your proposing about splitting the shipment into seperate packages. If they are low value coins, stick 3 coins in a 3x5 letter envelope, sandwiched between index cards. I usually use two index cards on each side, 4 total. I feel as though thats ample protection, and have mailed thousands of coins this way, and have never had a problem, or complaint. But try this and deffinately call it a correspondance at the post office. They nail you with much higher fees if its anything other than correspondance. And to get an idea, I was always able to mail up to 5 lincoln cents per envelope, before the weight went over and required an extra stamp and the post office started to question if it was really just paperwork.
For shipping items to Canada, I always put "cost varies with buyer location" instead of a flat fee, because you're right, it does get pretty costly. Another issue I've had with this is that the USPS takes its SWEET time delivering items to Canada...sometimes 4 weeks for a first class package. Had a buyer open up a case on me - had to contact him to say, hey, here's the tracking info...it was shipped next day...eventually it did arrive. I do wish there was a better way, though. This is one reason why I decided to try to list ALL my Canadian stuff I plan to sell at once. I figured I'd get the headache of shipping there over with.
I appreciate the input from everyone, but is there anyone who knows specifics about the policies for shipping? Can I put the coins in a regular envelope or will that be classified as a package and charged $6.16? Flexibility seems to be one of the main criteria the post office uses. Another factor against me is that I have to ship them all in 2x2s because I said in the listing that I would, so that limits my options. I also wanted to avoid customs forms and waiting in line. I ship everything with either the eBay postage printer or the automatic postal center at the post office. I gather that the post office increased international package rates a lot recently because I was at the post office and there was a man complaining about how much it costs to ship to Poland now and how it used to be a lot cheaper. I'd like to offer my items internationally since I sell world coins, but I don't know if I can if it's going to be so expensive.
3-2x2s measures 6x2, with a 3x5 envelope, they should fit nicely. As far as what you can get away with, depends on how friendly you are with the nice people at the post office. A few years back, my girlfriend at the post office, let me mail 40 rolls of wheat cents in a flat rate envelope that was soooo wrapped with duct tape and only enough of the flat rate envelope showing to be able to tell it was a flat rate envelope. She laughed alittle bit and said just this once. And I mailed it for around $5 or $6 I believe.
I decided to just bite the bullet and pay the package rate, and then found out I actually can't buy the shipping on eBay. The reason is that the system insists that I enter the weight of each coin individually for customs, and it will only accept 1 ounce or higher for each coin. Since the entire package of seven coins is only 2 ounces, it creates a form that is impossible to fill out. Apparently no one has ever shipped anything less than 1 ounce to Canada. So frustrating.
