Discussions: Figuring out S&H for eBay

Eric: What’s the easiest way to find out shipping costs for an item that I’m going to list on eBay?

Jason: Well, in a nutshell, USPS shipping costs are based on four factors: speed of shipment, size of shipment, weight of shipment, distance of shipment. If you have a scale handy (one that does both ounces and pounds), you can use their website. Otherwise, I would recommend going to the post office and using one of their self-help machines. You can get a postage rate but don’t actually have to buy a stamp for it. All it will cost you is time.

Eric: Damn. I don’t really want to package this stuff up and weigh it. I was hoping I could look at similar items on eBay and match their shipping. That has flaws, though.

Jason: What are they types of items you are selling? I’ll try to help you figure it out based on my experience.

Eric: Dish network receivers, logitech quickcams, XM adapters… junk like that. The eBay Turbo Lister is really nice, BTW. A lot less agravating than the website.

Jason: TLister: good to hear. For all the stuff I sold (mostly bike parts and small items like that), I had an average shipping cost of $6.13 with a min of $3.85 and a max of $12.65. Given the weight of some of your items, I would not charge anything less than $8 for shipping… and probably close to $10. One suggestion: make sure you list your items as shipping world wide using USPS Global Priority Mail or something like that. For the cost of this, I would put something like “buyer to pay actual cost for overseas shipping.” You will not believe the number of inquiries that will come in from overseas… especially Austrailia. What is your method of payment?

Eric: PayPal/money order

Jason: Don’t forget that PP charges a fee to sellers. In figuring out your shipping cost, I would factor this: I sold $591.02 worth of stuff… eBay fees: Avg $0.96, Min $0.05, Max $3.44 (for a item that sold for $109.80). PP fees: Avg $1.13, Min $0.00, Max $3.48 (for that same $109.80 item). eBay LISTING fees: Avg $1.31, Min $0.55, Max $2.50 (Again, for the $109.80 item) You mileage may vary, especially on the listing fees (if you are going to host the pictures yourself).

Eric: I’m creating a subdomain to host my pictures. I’ll just FTP all my pics into there, rather than pay eBay.

Jason: Good idea. That’s pretty much all the advice I have. Let me know if you need anything else. Hope this helps.

Eric: Thanks, preciate it!

Jason: n-e-tyme