CP Shipping Discounts / Non-Amazon Fulfilment?

[83northsurplus]

I'm still fairly new to selling any volume on Ebay.ca - we've always been mostly retail.  But I'm curious for opinions and ideas from others about shipping.  Right now, we are a level three small business shipper.  We were a level five commercial shipper earlier in the year but couldn't maintain the volume needed. 

I've played around with what it would cost to use fulfillment, but we seem to be slightly cheaper doing it ourselves. 

So my questions... what is typical for small power sellers for shipping?  Do most people just use the small business program - and at what level? 

And... is there anything out there that is cheaper for fulfillment?  We are currently refurbishing one of our old retail locations in an "Ebay Centre" with the idea of stocking a bunch more product and driving up the sales.  Before we get too far into that, I want to play with the number some more to make sure that its a better deal long term than paying someone else to store and ship our product.

When would others consider fulfillment useful? 

It would be nice to find a few other small power sellers to work with to get us all into level five or six shipping discounts. 

[reallynicestamps]

Are you near chitchatexpress or one of the other freight forwarders who carry shipments to the USA for shipment through the USPS?

Even with their (small ) fee, you may find using the American post office cheaper than the Canadian post office.

Tell us your location- someone will know a forwarder.

Generally the cheapest shipping is the postal system.

I find it telling that for non-urban deliveries, most couriers find it profitable to sub-contract to Canada Post.

[pjcdn2005]

I think that many of us small sellers are just at level 2 in the small business program, especially those who use often  lettermail since that isn't put through the program.  I noticed that you don't sell to the US. I think making that one change would  help to increase your volume sold on ebay and perhaps help you reach a higher CP small business level.

Using stamps can save money in shipping costs as they can often be purchased for less than face value. However, it does take some extra time as you are using multiple stamps on a package..not just one or two.

Some sellers in certain areas use services such as Chitchat express who will ship their items using USPS.  But I doubt that such a service is available where you are.

I've never looked into fulfillment as I don't often have more than a couple of each item so I can't really see it been worthwhile for me at this time. I've never thought of a group of sellers getting together to use the same small business account...I have no idea if that would work considering we are all spread out across Canada.

[pjcdn2005]

Hah! I beat you to the stamp suggestion! 🙂

I don't think that the op is near any major centers.

[83northsurplus]

Sadly, we aren't near major centres at all - Regina is four hours away, Winnipeg is six.  I did the flat rate box trial for a while on some items - sure worked well for air drop communities.  I keep a stock pile of the boxes for use when something is going to an air only community.  Thankfully I have a lot of the ones from before they raised the prices.

I did check into the old stamps thing a few months ago.  It looks good for lower volume, the discount we can get from Canada Post is about as good as the stamp solution - without the extra work.  Plus, we get 30 days to pay with Canada Post and only pay what we use instead of stock piling ahead of time.

I think from what everyone is saying, we've probably maxed out what we can do to get cheaper shipping.  I'm going to keep poking around incase I find someone it would make sense to buy labels with to get to level four of the small business savings.  I know its only a buck or two a box, but still... that adds up.

On the USA front - we did at one point sell a bunch into the USA.  I found it wasn't worth it.  Most of what they were buying wasn't big enough to ship in a tracked package and we had a run of people who realized that and took advantage.  Nintendo Switches went well there for a little while, but we focus them more on Canada now too. 

[hlmacdon]

At this point it sounds like your best bet is to focus on one carrier and hopefully drive enough volume to get a volume discount. As far as the carriers go, UPS is the cheapest with a volume contract (just be aware the acronym United Parcel Smashers holds true), then Canada Post, then onwards from that. 3PL starts to make sense when you have serious volume and your inventory turns fast, otherwise your just going be sitting paying minimum monthly charges. Those usually start in the thousands of dollars as they want high turn product to generate the service charges to justify the usage of their SQF.

[greatdeals4healthyliving]

That is a good idea... A company who assemble group of Canadian ebay sellers so we can leverage this and get better price for shipping!

[ypdc_dennis]

ZOMBIE thread from 2018

[kh-leslie]

Hello Everyone,

Due to the age of the thread, it has been closed to further replies.  Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thanks for understanding!