Thinking of selling again...a couple questions

[kashka]

I have been gone a couple years(sold pretty well weekly from 2001 to 2015) and thinking of selling again...but I see there has been some massive changes.My questions are mostly about shipping..from what I have been reading,Shippo seems to be a disaster..so I am curious can I still ship thru PP and is there still a discount?..Have been looking at the CP rates for US/Domestic/Intl..and OMG...are they ever crazy now..$25 to ship to some places in Canada???..So I am thinking maybe just building the shipping into the price and offering free shipping(which I have never done)...I can afford to take a bit of loss on shipping and plus I think it won't scare off potential buyers/bidders as much putting the real cost out front.So I guess my questions are is there any shipping services left that have a discount?..I know CP has that bare minimum discount which to me is basically nothing...Thanks in advance...Lisa

[momcqueen]

Welcome back.

I have good news: Shippo is not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination. I've been using it from the beginning and any issues that surfaced at first have been ironed out. Plus their technical support is outstanding.

If you are opposed to Shippo for some reason, Paypal Shipping is still an option available to you. As is a new service called SnapShip from Canada Post directly. All will require you open/create or link an existing Solutions for Small Business (formerly called VentureOne) account. 

[momcqueen]

As to Free Shipping, ebay never ceases telling its sellers that buyers love free shipping. If you can do it, you should do it. You'd want to add a minimum of $15 CAD to your asking price to cover the inherent cost of 'free' shipping. Remember, that's a minimum average now for Expedited Parcel going most places within Canada. Expedited comes with insurance and a delivery guarantee.

[reallynicestamps]

I don't think Shippo is quite a disaster. It certainly is having teething problems and it's possible that some of those problems are the eBayer.

The biggest problem was that postal outlet (and some post office) employees were unable to process Shippo labels because they were paid by Shippo and not the sender and the computer was having a hissy fit about that.

I  THINK the problem has been solved, and in the meantime, sellers were putting their parcels into the postbox instead of over the counter, since the postal terminals were fine with the labels.

Shippo does seem to have slightly better discounts on shipping.

More important, and not a Shippo problem, Light Packet has disappeared, Canada Post is now looking for HS codes* on exported products,  and you may be surprised to learn that parcel rates have risen.

*  https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/wtz/business/findHsCode?execution=e1s1

[momcqueen]

As to changes, depending on when you departed in 2015, ebay may now measure its Seller Performance in a different way. We are rated not on feedback dots and DSRs now but Cancelled Orders, Cases Resolved Without Seller Cooperation, and Late Shipment Marks. The former cause defects and are the worst thing you can do here, the latter is a black mark on your OnTime Shipping metric and you can accumulate a few before ebay starts to ask what your problem might be. In terms of sins, it's worse to cancel an order for being out-of-stock than it is to prompt;y ship the wrong item. Yes, you'll have to pay Return Postage for screwing up an order, but a Return does not get a seller into any actual trouble.

[momcqueen]

One final thing before I leave you to the advice of other users, ebay is currently running webinars on selling so if you are serious about it, you might want to look into them at https://www.ebay.com/rpp/mso-webinars

The ones on Performance Standards might be of interest to you.

Also, they are geared to ebay.com as opposed to ebay.ca.

Oh, and ebay.ca is all CAD now, there is no option to do listings in USD. You have to move to ebay.com for that. 

[kashka]

Thankyou everyone! Great info!..Really appreciate the advice and links.Momcqueen...yes..actually thot that $15 or so would have to be factored in and the webinar may have to be watched 🙂

reallynicestamps..I will look into Shippo a little more thoroughly...I just remembered reading here when it was introduced that there was alot of confusion and glitches being reported.I like the idea of better discounts but not at the cost of more hassle.And thanks for reminding me of the codes..I was using them before I left and totally forgot about them.

So..one more inquiry..of all the shipping methods..PP,Shippo and Snapship..which has the better discounts? I will remain a smaller seller..not as intense as before..with maybe 6-10 items every couple weeks in auction format..looking for less hassle/frustration so what would you recommend for shipping format (shippo/pp/ss)?

[reallynicestamps]

As a totally unbiased seller, I might mention that there are postage stamps available here at some reallynice discounts.

This may work better if you are shipping LetterPost than if you ship a lot of parcels, but you can use stamps to pay for shipping at the PO counter.

[ypdc_dennis]

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wrote:

...of all the shipping methods..PP,Shippo and Snapship..which has the better discounts? I will remain a smaller seller..not as intense as before..with maybe 6-10 items every couple weeks

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Extra eBay discounts through Shippo are available for:

Expedited Parcel (Canada)

Tracked Packet (USA)

Expedited Parcel (USA)

Everything else Shippo/PayPal and Canada Post SnapShip should have the same rate. With over-the-counter being higher.

If having scanning issues with Shippo, you may have to remind the clerk to select Supplier Account (SA/CF) rather than commercial to get the right computer screen.

...

One change this year is how volumetric weight is calculated for Canadian parcels -- it is now possible for a regular parcel to cost less than a discounted expedited parcel of the same size.  So you might save a little bit more with some parcels by using regular, but expedited does include $100 insurance and has a shipping time guarantee or money refunded.

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As the stamp maven pointed out another way is to use discounted stamps (bought on eBay, at auctions, etc).  But -- it does require some effort and arithmetic skills and you can not buy labels online when you use stamps -- but it is great for oversize lettermail (less than 2cm thick, under 500g) sent in Canada (lettermail stamp prices haven't changed since 2014).

...

If you are in the right parts of Canada (I'm not ) there are companies that let you drop off mail and you get to pay less to ship.  ChitChatsExpress (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax), StallionExpress (Toronto), RunninRed (Winnipeg), DYKpost (Calgary, Edmonton).  All 4 do the USA, first 2 also have discounts for  Canadian provinces.

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[kawartha-ephemera]

Use Shippo, I personally never had any problem with a POST OFFICE scanning parcels right from launch. Some services may not receive better discounts than PayPal some do...discounts have been shifting all over the place lately. One thing I've noticed since January 15 is that CP counter rates are astronomical for Tracked Packet International but they are extending larger discounts than previously.

[zee-chan]

I personally haven't had any problems with Shippo either. I find it quite straightforward and convenient to use.

[pocomocomputing]

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wrote:

I have been gone a couple years(sold pretty well weekly from 2001 to 2015) and thinking of selling again...but I see there has been some massive changes.My questions are mostly about shipping..from what I have been reading,Shippo seems to be a disaster..so I am curious can I still ship thru PP and is there still a discount?..Have been looking at the CP rates for US/Domestic/Intl..and OMG...are they ever crazy now..$25 to ship to some places in Canada???..So I am thinking maybe just building the shipping into the price and offering free shipping(which I have never done)...I can afford to take a bit of loss on shipping and plus I think it won't scare off potential buyers/bidders as much putting the real cost out front.So I guess my questions are is there any shipping services left that have a discount?..I know CP has that bare minimum discount which to me is basically nothing...Thanks in advance...Lisa

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@kashka   Please edit your community setting to remove the image from your signature which shows the Photobucket update your account. Photobucket went from free to pay fee structure months ago (a year now?) so it shows that annoying image now at the end of your posts.

Click on your eBay id top right, then some info about you pops up, click om My Settings in the bottom right, a screen will open with settings, click on Personal and then Personal Information and then you will have the signature option as the third one.

[kashka]

lol...well,I would hate to be annoying...lol..will change it as I was unaware of the image as it looks good at this end.Thanks for the heads up.

[kashka]

Thanks again,everybody!..Will explore all the options..I'll see if I can find somewhere how to use Shippo and check it out in more detail.Feel like a beginner again..lol

[rose-dee]

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wrote:

So I guess my questions are is there any shipping services left that have a discount?..I know CP has that bare minimum discount which to me is basically nothing...

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I find Shippo quite reliable now that some of the kinks have been worked out, and of course we get the eBay discounts through Shippo. 

One tip about Shippo -- if you find the shipping charge delay irritating, contact Shippo and ask if they can re-set your processing to the shortest possible time (which I believe is within 24 hours).  I did this, and it made a huge difference in eliminating the accounting aggravations of having to track payments several days later.  Now the shipping payment stream is almost as quick as it was with Paypal. 

However, the one remaining irritation (at least from my viewpoint) is that the whole fulfillment/shipping process is far less coordinated than it was prior to eBay's switch to Shippo.   Now I find it really  awkward to have to sign in to Shippo, lose my connection to eBay, then have to sign back in to eBay, then sign in to Paypal separately to print/download the Paypal transaction details.  In other words, Shippo isn't seamlessly connected to eBay the way Paypal was, directing you back automatically to eBay after a label was printed.  It all used to be so streamlined, now I find each order takes me significantly more time to process than previously.  

As 'momcqueen" said, there are now really only 3 big metrics for seller performance.  Two of these should be fairly easy for any seller with integrity and intelligence to avoid ("out-of-stock" seller cancellations, and unresolved cases), but for us Canadians the on-time delivery policy is the real difficulty.  I hate it.  For me, it has made what was a viable shipping strategy into a bit of a game of Russian roulette, i.e. where should I best choose to lose money on upgrading to a tracked service in order to protect myself from too many late deliveries? 

Exacerbating our problems have been eBay's unrealistic delivery standards in some instances, and of course Canada Post's never-ending price increases.  In a very real sense, these changes, combined, have made selling anything that is relatively inexpensive and might otherwise be reasonably cheap to ship, much more risky for sellers.  Essentially, without tracking, our seller performance status is dependent on the performance of the postal systems involved in shipping our parcels.   My advice: increase your handling time to 3 days (but no more than 5, or that will downgrade you too), and use tracking strategically and selectively.   Fortunately it takes a few late delivery black marks for eBay to punish you as a seller, but if you expect to sell a fairly low volume, you need to be even more careful to avoid late deliveries.  Unfortunately, the trade-off (in my case at least) is usually losing some money on tracking upgrades, unless you sell high-value goods that can absorb the cost of premium shipping. 

Best of luck to you, things have gotten tougher around here in the last couple of years.  Oh yes, and do read the discussion thread on the new payment processing system eBay will be introducing.  Although it will apparently take a while to be fully implemented, it's a major shift: 

https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-to-intermediate-payments-on-its-marketplace-platform/?utm_...

[rose-dee]

I thought I'd add a bit more about the "on-time delivery" policy, because I think it took most of us a while to work out how to cope with it and develop the best shipping strategies to protect ourselves (against eBay!).   

A point I didn't mention is that if you're using tracking, as long as you get the acceptance scan/input scan on your parcel, you can't get hit for late delivery, even if the parcel arrives late according to eBay's timelines.  If you don't get an acceptance scan, then eBay will use the tracked delivery date to determine whether the parcel is on time.   Failing all of that, eBay uses the buyer's feedback response. 

One last note of irony from the eBay Black Humour department:  Since so few people leave feedback anymore, and since the only way you can actually get dinged for a late delivery on a non-tracked parcel is if a buyer leaves FB (including answering the "on-time" question), if you're a low volume seller using non-tracked shipping, you actually want to hope for fewer  FB entries.   FB doesn't count for much anymore anyway.  

[kashka]

Rose..thankyou so much for all your advice and "things to know" reply! I appreciate you taking the time for describing on the changes and the stuff to watch out for.The more I hear from all you the more I think I will give Shippo a shot..It's funny how much has changed in the time I have been gone...in the old days..lol..yes.."the old days",I loved the simplicity of the site..take good photos,have a great description and provide great customer service..it was you and the buyer.Now everyone has their hand in the pie..and want their little piece of it..So..I will give it a shot again..and if it doesn't pan out and is too much hassle..I have other avenues that have proven themselves..Again..thankyou everyone for taking the time to respond and share your ideas 🙂

[rose-dee]

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wrote:

So..I will give it a shot again..and if it doesn't pan out and is too much hassle..I have other avenues that have proven themselves..

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It's incredible how quickly things can change around here, so you'll have a bit of adjustment to do for a while, but you're an experienced seller so I'm sure you'll do fine.  Just read through the last few Seller Updates and other items on the Announcement Board to catch up.  Best of luck to you!