Flat rate and Calculated shipping for the same listing?

[smallj53]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post here even though I have been a member of Ebay since 2003!   I retired recently and I'm enjoying the challenge of selling as something to keep busy and get rid of clutter around the house.

I'm really impressed with the professionalism and knowledge of the people who answer on this forum.  Complete answers are common here.  People really know how to write clearly too.  Impressive.

Anyway, here is the point of my post.  I have shipped  two art items to British Columbia and the shipping cost is punishing, it approaches the amount being asked for what is for sale.  So I have been investigating using the Canada Post flat rate boxes.  I sent a flat rate box just the other day in fact.  But that is not the problem, really.

The problem is that flat rate is great for long distances and/or heavy items.  What about Toronto, the GTA and Ontario?  It doesn't seem like a lot, but stuff goes from where I live here in Niagara Falls for about $15.00 to those places.  A Canada Post flat rate box is a minimum of $20.49.  And there is of course no Shippo discount too.

So is it possible to have two domestic shipping services that the customer can choose from, flat rate and calculated?  It would seem so simple, but as soon as I choose calculated shipping for a listing, flat rate for a second shipping service cannot be selected.  (or at least I have not been able to do it)   Any ideas?

[pjcdn2005]

No, there is no way of using flat rate and calcualted shipping for domestic.   I don't have a suggestion on how you could handle that on the listing itself, perhaps someone else will.  You can of course still use a flat rate box if your listing doesn't specify that and then give a partial shipping to the buyer if the postage plus fees was quite a less than what they paid.  Unfortunately, the buyer wouldn't know that postage might be less expensive until after they had already paid.

[femmefan1946]

Use Calculated Shipping for any parcel.

If the Flat Rate box is cheaper than the calculated rate, use the box.

If not use the discounted Shippo/SnapShip/Paypal/eBay rate.

Put the savings in your Cookie Jar against the day you underestimate shipping.

[rosscd57]

I have used flat rate shipping for years with good sucess. I live in Alberta and I figure my Canadian Shipping rates to Ontario and my US rates to Texas. Overall it usually balances out. If there is a significant overage I refund the buyer that amount.

I can also manipulate the shipping rates and build some of it into the item price - that way I can compete with US seller shipping prices. Acutally mine are usually bettrer which help sales.