eBay

laststop3h · ‎06-04-2013

Greeting Canadians,

Ive been a part time casual seller in the U.S. for about 10 years. I moved to Newfoundland (The Rock) for a job last year and I'm trying to sell a few items from here. Trying being the operative word. Basically without going into large detail I simply want to know how to have success selling from here. I know we are all competitors so I am not looking for selling tips but more or less:

How to combat Canada Post insane shipping fees and how to attract more views for your items. I have 4 baseball cards for auction right now and similar cards have sold for $20-50 and I can barely get any views, let along watchers. Not sure if it cause of where I am selling from. Thanks in advance.

Gigs

doglover550 · ‎06-05-2013

Hi, welcome to Canada. I am on the opposite coast in British Columbia. My personal opinion is locale isn't the issue. My experience is auctions often don't get any action but I don't sell baseball cards. I would imagine that there are a lot of baseball cards up at any given time. Some people only want BIN. If there are 20 pages of cards before yours then you aren't going to see much action until the last day or even the last few hours. I see you still have 4 days left on the auction so that may be why you're aren't getting the action you're hoping for.

I wish you luck and this might be a bit of an experiment for you. My experience is that sometimes I get nothing on an auction, I list it for BIN and it sells within a few days.

rose-dee · ‎06-05-2013

Welcome to the *GWN!!

You've obviously discovered (very quickly) the two biggest struggles we Canadian sellers seem to have - shipping charges and visibility. The best thing I could recommend is to read through some of the threads on these boards that deal with these issues.

Shipping is an unending theme since for most of us the majority of our customers are outside Canada. Different sellers have different ways of dealing with high shipping costs, and you'll see some of these views (along with not a few complaints!) if you read through the discussions. It does depend primarily on the weight and value of what you want to sell. Americans are used to inexpensive, fast shipping, so they will expect the same from a Canadian seller. Europeans are quite happy to buy from Canadian sellers, and I have found they generally understand that shipping is not going to be cheap.

As for visibility, well, all I can say is "welcome to Canada". We try to get people to notice us, but ... it doesn't always work well. I do sometimes envy U.S. sellers on eBay their enormous domestic market. Still, I must say I've managed to stay afloat on eBay for some years. Being here, you just have to think more strategically as an eBay seller, from all angles of selling.

The main thing I would say is to have patience and try different approaches until you find one that works for you from here. I think it does take a little longer to get established as a Canadian seller on eBay.

Welcome, and best of luck from a "neighbour" in Nova Scotia!

[*GWN=Great White North]

inuk_the_polar_bear · ‎06-05-2013

Why are you charging $5.49 to the USA? Bubble mailer and that will fit through the 20mm slot and go for half of that. If it goes that cheap, and Canada is free, why not free to the USA as well?

I have no issue with CP rates. For international, they are competitive with Americans and with their last rate increase, Americans are backing out of the market or upgrading to the hideously expensive services.

I use flat rate shipping and price pointing. In a category saturated with "free" shipping, I go along with that. Ya gotta watch yer weights. I can ship cheaper to Hawaii, Alaska, PR, Virgin islands, Guam, etc than the Americans can.

It is all in how you approach it.

laststop3h · ‎06-05-2013

Thanks all, for the welcome and advice. I will have to respectfully disagree with you, inuk_the_polar_bear. CP rates are outrageous, well they aren't brutal to the US., but as an Amazon seller too, rates inside of Canada are easily 3-4 times that of that rates are inside the U.S. The local post office here in St. John's, NL is filled with nasty workers so I choose the offices at the local Shopper's stores. I get friendly, but inconsistent service. I charged $5.49 for the cards to the U.S. because other than letters and paper thin books, I have yet to ship ANYTHING, anywhere for under $5. Some sales clerks are different and more "strict" than others. They will ask what is in the package and often feel it to make sure they are documents. If not, well we all know what happens: $2.20, becomes $12. I sold a DVD on Amazon the other day. The clerk was having trouble fitting the package through the slot and she tried to charge me $13.60 to ship a 6 ounce DVD from NL to ON. FOURTEEN dollars. Other times I've shipped DVD's to the US for less than $8. I once shipped a 4 pound book to Colorado for $20 and the next day a book that weighed slightly less went to Manitoba for $25; yes it's more expensive to ship a heavier book to the U.S then one to the same country. So perhaps it unknowledgeable clerks or faulty scales or simply unreasonable shipping rates.

Now, I've taken action to solve the problem and ordered a postal scale online which should arrive this week. While I am here, I have been hearing varying responses to the discount you get by shipping through Paypal. I was originally told 22% now I understand its more like 8%? Also is expedited the cheapest way to go? The few times I experimented with regular parcel shipping, I did not notice a difference or if anything the rates seemed to high.

Sorry for that CP rant there. I am sure there have been many posted before me. Thanks again and glad to be here on the Rock.

pocomocomputing · ‎06-05-2013

PayPal shipping discounts are

Tracked Packet USA and International 14%

Expedited Parcel Canada and USA 18%.

Xpresspost Canada 8%, Xpresspost USA and International 9%.

These discounts are compared to over the counter full rates at the Post Office. If you have a Canada Post Venture one card, then the over the counter rates at the post office are discounted 5%. So the PayPal rates are less 5% savings when compared to Venture One rate.

No discount on Small Packet, Light Packet with PayPal or Venture One.

pocomocomputing · ‎06-05-2013

If you are getting a scale for weighing items at home and using PayPal shipping, you can drop your items into a corner mailbox near your home if it fits in the mailbox slot. This will avoid having to go to the post office. It will also avoid having employees check your items thickness when items are close.

I would also suggest making your own 2 cm thick slot to test packages or you can buy one online from Canada Post website for $9.95. You will need a Venture One card to order online.

pierrelebel · ‎06-05-2013

I suggest you take a few minutes to check your competitors. Thousands of them on eBay.

Take a good luck at "completed" listings. They will give you an idea of what sells, at what price, and what does not. Your competitors will somehow help you understand how to sell Sport Cards: auction format, auction with Buy-it-Now option or fixed price.

When I look at Baseball cards, I find 1,757,000 listings. As expected 1,704,000 are offered by sellers at fixed price (not auction). In other words sellers (your experienced competitors) use the "fixed price" format for 97% of their listings!

Follow the trend.

As far as shipping is concerned, "free shipping" within Canada makes sense as these cards can be mailed very cheaply domestically. It would also make sense to include the USA with "free shipping" as the cost of mailing to the USA is not that much more than domestically for these items. And we all know the American market is where the money is - ten times bigger than the Canadian market.

I also suggest you change your return policy to 14 days or 30 days instead of 7 days.

Your listing reads: "I also include insurance and tracking with many items". You cannot get insurance and/or tracking in Canada unless you pay Canada Post for an expensive shipping option. For those low price items, it is NOT worth it.

Welcome to Canada and Good Luck.

inuk_the_polar_bear · ‎06-05-2013

Laststop, I respectively disagree with yer disagreement. I have been doing this for quite a while and postage is the least of my concerns. Right now it "sounds" like you are fighting the system and getting a wee tad frustrated. Yer never going to win.

Adaptation is the game. I have adapted, re-adapted, invented, re-invented, started, re-started many times. I find new economies, new processes, ways to stop bottle necks.

NL to MB has little to do with weight and more to do with geography. MB is on the other side on the ON MB divide. Getting anything to "The Rock" or off of it, surface, costs a lot more. You have physical isolation working against you. The EXACT SAME as PR, HI, AK.

ALL of us here sell from Canada. There is nothing you can say that we have not already adapted to, changed, figured a work around.

Craft a 20mm slot. Set yer scale to grams. Learn the 0-250, 251-500, 501-1K weights and the effect they have on pricing. Selling from Canada requires greater attention to detail.

No question you may have is too trivial for us to answer. Do not be afraid to ask.

laststop3h · ‎06-06-2013

Will do. Thanks inuk. By the way, is it possible to ship via letter-mail via Paypal or is the best option to get a 2cm slot and stick postage on it myself?

Fixed pricing is something I never had to use before. 10 years casual selling and I'm still learning. Thanks again and I'll be checking in again soon I'm sure.

pierrelebel · ‎06-06-2013

"is it possible to ship via letter-mail via Paypal"

No.

pocomocomputing · ‎06-06-2013

No, PayPal does not support Lettermail within Canada or Letterpost USA and Letterpost International.

Regarding postage, you can lower your shipping costs by purchasing "discount postage" at 20-40% off face value of the postage. Discount postage is mint unused stamps from stamp collections that are no longer of interest to stamp collectors. Stamp collecting is a dying hobby with more collections coming up for sale with not enough stamp collectors to buy them.

The stamps are sold at discount because it takes a lot of stamps to make up a postage rate today. So typically for Light Packet at $2.65, you might use from 5 to 15 stamps. The issue is with space on the package to put the stamps on. You can use the front and back of the package to put on stamps.

If you Google search discount postage, you will find a dealer in Kingston who sells such stamps at a discount. You can buy small lots of different amount of denominations at 25 to 35% off face value.. You can also buy discount postage on eBay but it is a little harder to do without some experience on knowing what to look for.

inuk_the_polar_bear · ‎06-06-2013

Poco, what about the esteemed member from Belleville? He has been known to sell the odd stamp.

Well, Poco, have you just managed to reduce the OP's mailing costs from $5.49 to $2.65 which might as well be "free" shipping? Have I heard this somewhere before in this thread?

pocomocomputing · ‎06-06-2013

The $2.65 is for Light Packet USA up to 100 grams. The $5.49 is the rate (actually $5.53 Can) in US $ for Light Packet USA 250 grams.

Using discount postage with 30% as the discount you might get means $2.65 costs you !.86 and the $5.53 would cost you $3.87 saving $1.66.

Of course, there are several stamp sellers reading and posting in these forums who may offer discount postage on eBay. I only mention using Google search with keywords "discount postage" so that a new discount postage use can find explanations of what discount postage is and get a few sources.

As mentioned, you can search on ebay.ca for discount postage but it is a little tricky to get the right keywords to bring up the correct listings. You also have to avoid the listings selling used stamps for reuse as postage (not allowed).