Today I ordered some needed parts from Tichy Train Group and was pleasantly surprised by the small shipping cost that was attach to the end of the order. This was a $3.00 cost for a package that will travel the “jillion” miles from Don’s location in North Carolina to me all the way down to Tampa. (standard delivery) I was thinking of the EBay shipping and handling costs I see online frequently, and felt much, much better! Cedarwoodron
I just received an e-mail letter from Don yesterday about the new Tichy website. In the letter mentions that any orders over $50 will receive free S&H. Given the rising cost of postage nowadays, that’s a nice incentive.
Tom
I checked Don’s website the other day and noticed that not only did he offer free shipping for orders over $50, it was extended to Canada, too! You rarely see that nowadays. I may have to take advantage of that free shipping offer.
Steve
eBay’s shipping calculator is a “guess” on what previous items have shipped for. When you sell on eBay, the page you go to for calculating shipping cost and printing the shipping label, has lots of options, and honest sellers calculate shipping by weight. An example: a typical freight car, packaging an all, comes to less than 8 oz, which is usually less than $3.00. A lot of sellers just go with whatever eBay list in the auction ad for shipping cost, and offer no refund. When I buy from an auction on eBay, I “remind” the seller what shipping cost actually are, and I usually get an accurate cost. Some sellers use the USPS “flat rate” boxes, which usually cost WAY more than weighing and shipping accordingly, unless your shipping a bunch of locos, or something really heavy.
Mike.
I have bought and sold quite a bit of stuffing EBay, a lot of sellers over charge for shipping as a helve against losing money on an item or just to pad there profits. Whether it be on EBay or an online retail LHS, it drives me crazy when someone tries to charge me big $$$ for something I know could be sent FASTER, for around $3.50.
We offer soap for sale on eBay, and we are the ones who set the shipping price. There is a calculator in there so that it will scale up for larger shipments, bet since we know how much soap we can put in each size shipping box, we make those our break points. We only charge what we know the postage to be.
It is perfectly within the right and capability of a seller to select higher prices “to cover handling” which would usually include packing materials and transporting the object to the post office or whatever. It is perfectly proper to charge the salary of your mail room staff to the shipping and handling costs. Some people perhaps make their money on the shipping. If I were to auction off my collection of Model Railroader, I know that the cost of the shipping will be well over $100.00 (I have 30 years worth–many heavy boxes stashed at the moment in the loom room.
I sell wine wholesale to churches, and shipping is per hundredweight. I am not sure how the freight company figures this: one box or six boxes they all come
Lion- you must use a hippopotamus or whale to find a palate big enough to ship something on. Unless of course, you are actually using pallets… [:D]
What he said. My spell check works either weigh.
Ebay fees to the seller are roughly 15% of the total amount paid by the buyer, and it is understandable for a seller to include those fees in the Shipping and Handling.
Plus, as Lion said, a trip to the Post Office can be costly expecially with the high price of gasoline. However, USPS will pick up Priority mail from the seller, and that helps in most cases.
USPS did raise ther postage prices recently, too.
Also, in the case of loss and damage, sellers often are stuck paying for problems even if it is not their fault. If they pay extra for insurance, that helps with this problem.
So, I wouldn’t gripe excessively about shipping and handling.
Don’t forget, Paypal whacks the seller a fee too & ebay requires proof of shipping which translates into item tracking & you might as well get it insured in case it doesn’t make it there. Plus you got the packaging cost, the trip to the post office, & the postage itself. All that adds up & I’m not going to eat those costs.
I sell a fair amount on ebay as well, mostly model train stuff. Yes I do charge a $1.50 for handling and I usually weigh the item I’m selling and round up to the next full pound when calculating the shipping. The $1.50 is to cover pacing materials and the trip to the post office. I don’t pad any profit into the shipping so to speak but my goal is not to make money on the shipping but make sure I don’t loose money.
One thing i never could figure out about shipping and handling was that some mrr websites charge you based on the price. Another words I order $100.00 worth of lead weights or order $100.00 of balsa wood the S/H is the same. Those lead weights have got to cost alot of postage.
(I’ve sold hundreds of my own personal HO trains on Ebay):
First of all, I don’t know whom some of you are buying from, but the majority of Ebay model train sellers (this is excluding a relative minority of big volume dealers) don’t actually make a penny on shipping. Those of us who actually pack stuff properly do use some bubble wrap–which is just one of the hidden costs that we eat…
Furthermore, any of those who still charge for shipping must use Ebay’s shipping calculator (or some flat rate fee guess)–which can be on the low side now (for those who print their own labels at home) and may not represent the actual USPS counter price–so right off the bat it is possible to be low. Then Ebay and Paypal both take their cut of the shipping charge–which averages out to be a 13% loss (on HO trains) for the seller who has to ship the item.
Basically, Ebay is currently trying to force the sellers to provide free shipping (I guess it does make checkout easier and faster for the buyer)–which is a total crapshoot for the seller. I have complied, but it’s a major pain in the rear end–as it’s possible to lose even more money than before they started taking their cut out of the shipping fees.
Real world example:
I recently bought a beautiful brand new Santa Fe Genesis FP45 for $90 plus shipping from another Ebayer. When I changed my interest slightly and decided to sell it in favor of buying SD45T-2’s, I listed the model at a reasonable $60 or so starting bid price including the Ebay strongly recommended “Free Shipping”. However with the economy, people just aren’t bidding–or they wait till the last second to hopefully get a steal.
Anyway, that Genesis
Regarding those shipping rate charges charged by the major mail order dealers:
I used to work for Toy Train Heaven. In the past, at least when I was there, they periodically did a simple cost analysis of what it cost them to ship the average package. They are not, or at least were not, at all interested in making any profit on shipping. In fact, they typically only raised the shipping price at the point when they determined they were losing too much money on the average package. Obviously there will be some people who occasionally feel they paid too much for shipping–but I know from my personal Ebay experience that the shipping costs have increased very significantly.
TTH kept every single decent quality box they got to reuse for shipping orders out. Additionally, they buy shipping peanuts, plastic, etc. At least back then, they still had to shell out money to buy some boxes. Sure the USPS will provide some–but there’s plenty of items that won’t fit in standard, available for free, boxes. Even buying boxes in large lots probably costs more than the average buyer would ever expect.
It isn’t a big leap to extrapolate the shipping cost numbers into price ranges, one range for orders less than $100 and so forth…
I can say that most of the reputable mail order dealers are not in business to make a profit on shipping. They are just trying to break (nearly) even on what they consider to be the average or representative package. The material costs and labor time necessary to ship all the packages are more than what the average person might realize. The larger or more reputable dealers want repeat orders, so in general they would never want the customer to feel they were getting "gouged&q
Hello Cedarwoodron,
I was interested to see that you are quite happy with the shipping and postal charges in the U.S
I was at the Springfield Show in 2009 and purchased Cylindrical Grain Car from PWRS. The car in question was not actually available at the show.
However, I paid for the model there, which was $36.95 and they agreed to mail it to me when it became available It duely arrived in April 2009. The shipping cost was $30.27 and when it arrived in the U.K. the postal service over here charged me £14.72 about $22 inport duty.
That amounted to a little over $89, I think that most people would agree that this became a very expensive Grain car!!!
Needless to say I will not be buying anything by that method again. Once bitten, twice shy
Regards Colin Cambridge U.K.
UP-4-12-2,
As an ebay customer,I appreciate your post. I admit to being one of those ebay complainers. A few weeks back I posted a thread over on the Atlas Rescue Forum regarding, what seemed to me, a jump in shipping prices for HO passenger cars. I’ve never been a seller on ebay, so I didn’t have a grasp as to what it’s like for the seller. From the posts on that thread and this one, I’ve gained a much better understanding.
I agree that ebay, lately, has become a model railroader’s “Buyers Market” (with some exceptions, like the GO passenger car). I’ve gotten some good deals on old-run Walthers passenger cars as well as Rivarossi units but still keep in mind that the Buyer’s/Seller’s market is cyclical and is always a temporary state.
When I buy stuff on eBay I always account for the shipping charges in my purchase decisions. If I do not like the shipping charges I do not purchase the item. When I sell something on eBay and I have charged too much for shipping I usually refund the customer. The fact that it costs me or them money for packaging or trips to the Post Office is part of doing business on eBay.
Common [2c] if you ask me.
Shipping charges on Ebay need to be used in the equation, when making a decision to buy an item. If the shipping costs look like the seller is “Gouging” I simply pass on bidding.
Whether you use USPS, FedEx, or UPS to ship packages, the cost is determined by four factors:
- Location to be shipped from
- Location to be shipped to
- Dimensions of package
- Weight of package
Whenever I sell something on eBay, I prepare the item for shipping in advance, selecting the appropriately sized box, and testing the amount of necessary packing material to protect the package.
I then use the web sites of the various shippers to determine the approximate cost to ship by testing various zip codes on the west coast, east coast, Florida, Texas, and Minnesota. That takes all of about one minute, and I get a highly accurate estimate of the shipping cost.
I have never yet had an eBay buyer complain about the shipping cost.
Rich
It is nice to see the rare complaint about paying LITTLE for shipping.
So…would you like to pay more for the item{s} in question? or pay a fair shipping cost based on actual expenses to ship in a safe box with good packaging to be sure the items get to you in one piece?
Bags cost a business money and can be a "cost of “doing business”, but now stores are either doing away with bags entirely or charging for them, or even giving a rebate if you supply bags…
Credit card costs are a “cost of doing business”, but now stores can charge more for credit card purchases.
want lights to see what you are purchasing? want heat or A/C when you shop? next they will add to to cost for THAT- you watch!.
Bought a washer or dryer lately? you have to buy SEPARATELY the hoses, the electrical cords, etc, which are all a cost associated that should be with selling a washer that will WORK. BUT now have to be purchased separately.
Point is: ANY costs of “doing business” gets passed on to the customer.Whether they disclose it or not.
Want to buy something online? you are GONNA pay for shipping somehow. Or don’t order online! There is the gas to get you to the hobby store, the time to go there also associated with in store shopping.
Want to know how it is on the other side? TRY it…sell something as noted above and see how well you do. THEN complain about the actual costs of shipping ONCE you have done it several times and have lost money doing it.
I used to work for a book seller. We shipped UPS only, primarily within the state. The books were shipped once a month for orders standing.
the last I knew, It was $4.50 to ship up to one pound, and incrementally went up from there. Typically one or two books went for that one pound charge.
We had to also purchase tyvek envelopes. regular large envelopes, boxes and bubble wrap. We also saved every box and foam packaging that came "free&