eBay selling strategy?

[LoveItCards]

Ok lets paint a scenerio.

Say I have (100) pack autographs to list on eBay. They are lower end $20 and under.

Now to increase my overall ability to sell and create efficiency how do I handle the shipping part?

Do I....

1. Offer FREE shipping upfront..... some may view this idea as a first impression that they are getting poor service even if it isn't true right?

2. Charge near actual cost to ship in a padded envelope... like provide a flat shipping cost of $1.99 or so.... then manually take off $1.99 from the buyer's invoice when they purchase multiple items? Yes this will take a little extra time each sale.


I am in a position to list a good many cards on eBay and was thinking of an effective strategy to get the most for the cards while keeping the shipping fair and pretty streamlined.

Any thoughts or ideas of what to do? Is there a real solution? Anything work for you?

[87hokie]

Let me preface by saying I am primarily a collector and use Ebay to sell cards in order to support my collecting - basically selling cards to buy more...(probably not the only one in the forum to do so,
1-a single card in a padded envelope generally ships as a package at $2.32 - purchasing through ebay postage drops to $1.93 and tracking is included free. Postage fees on ebay are now subject to their percentage and Paypal has their "cut" so there is overhead.

2- flat rate shipping can be an upfront add on to a purchase. as a buyer on ebay I have paid single card shipping up to $3 (some auctions charge this for a $0.35 card as well as the higher $ ones. I don't begrudge the retailer - like I said it's overhead just like lights in a brick and mortar store...

3- free shipping sometimes ends up a toploader in a PWE...not usually a big deal on base cards but some inserts...
anyway If you offer Free shipping and SPELL out in your description that you don't use PWEs you should be okay
if you do charge shipping just spell out the same way that you combine shipping to the degree possible - you can use it as an incentive to buy more at a time. (I have sold several items this was)

Ebay;s invoicing feature allows you to adjust shipping amounts quickly - just have the buyer wait for an invoice (again spell it out in the listing)

I hope this helps

Le

[LoveItCards]

Thanks Le I found a way to set your eBay preferences to where eBay automatically subtracts in the invoice whatever amount you deem fit when buyer's buy multiple cards.


Here's the way...


In your ACCOUNT tab on your MY EBAY page (near the top half), you can click on the SITE PREFERENCES, then under the Selling Preferences you will see the title SHIPPING PREFERENCES. To the right click on SHOW. From there, you can edit the line that reads Offer combined payments and shipping to YES and calculate whether you want to offer free shipping for additional purchases as long as the items are paid for together. Ebay will automatically adjust the buyers invoice to reflect the shipping discount.