eBay

coulect · ‎05-13-2013

Ever since the Canada Post new postal rates came into effect my sales on Ebay have evaporated. I am wondering if any other sellers are experiencing the same problems? Who is going to pay $25.00 for an item when the postage can cost $20.00?
I think the people at Ebay and Paypal 'dropped the ball' when negotiating with Canada Post.
Lewis

cumos55 · ‎05-14-2013

The key word in this whole process is insured with tracking.

I sell books... and my sales to the US have dropped but they do continue...

I do use Tracked Packet USA, and Expedited USA for parcels to the US and sales have continued.

Internationally, other than the US, all sales have been mailed with Canada Post International Parcel Surface... but even with international sales I sell only to a select group of European countries

Postage to the US and elsewhere is costly ... However, people do continue to buy.

In 2012 Canadian sales were about 60 % of the total number of sales..

Since the postal increase this past January Canadian sales have been 70 % of the total number of sales. ... With no reduction in dollar value of total sales worldwide....

and with a continued increase in number of listings on eBay it is anticipated that the number of sales will increase.....

also there has been a removal of dead inventory and the selling of old non-book inventory, from many years ago, at a local auction.

My main topic in books is Canadian history... and since 2008 inventory is directed towards the topic of Canada.....and everything Canadian... Inventory covering other minor topics have also been added to the store.

Things such as the higher cost of shipping from the US to Canada, and the many negative aspects with respect to the GSP will most likely have a positive effect on sales to Canadians....

I am also expanding into inventory, books and topics, that Canadian buyers may want and is not provided or not shipped economically from the US to Canada.

In retrospect, my choice of selling Canada and everything Canadian in 2008 has put me in a good situation...

It was also in the fall of 2008 that eBay introduced a cap of $4.00 for shipping books, and as a result the store was moved from eBay.com to eBay.ca ... something that was never regretted....

I continue to add inventory to the topic of Canadian history, and that will continue to be a most important part of sales on eBay.

toff3 · ‎05-15-2013

Cumos's post does not address the issue raised by Coulect, that is, Canada Post's exorbitant rates. What it does illustrate is how CP's high rates combine with one eBay seller's obssession with insurance and "tracking" (actually, delivery confirmation) to that seller's customer's disadvantage.

Cumos doesn't use Small Packet because it has neither insurance nor tracking/DC. So presumably he sends a package weighing between 500 g and 1 kg to the UK by International Parcel Surface at a cost of $37.80 (including the current fuel surcharge). This parcel is likely to take at least a month to reach its destination and may well take two. He could send that same parcel as a Small Packet Air for $35.69 and have it in the buyer's hands in two weeks or so.

Let's look at a parcel weighing between 1.5 kg and 2.0 kg to the UK. Small Packet Surface postage would be $23.56. The International Parcel Surface rate is $42.32, a mark-up of 79.6%! That's the surcharge Canada Post slaps on for the privilege of having the shipment insured and delivery confirmed.

And the point of all this? To protect Cumos from the occasional INR claim.

Or dare we hope that Cumos charges his customer the lower rate and absorbs the difference?

Tom

cumos55 · ‎05-15-2013

Small packet with insurance was a painful experience.

Shipping a book valued at $50 and higher using small packet air with no insurance would be an extremely painful painful experience.

Shipping surface with insurance and tracking for a few dollars more is working.... so far.

Over the tears I have learned which countries are problem countries to ship to..

Last year I had two European buyers specifically ask for Xpresspost, a costly option.....about $65.00.

and if necessary shipping outside Canada and the US can disappear very quickly.

I would like to get it to the buyer faster using airmail... but at what cost??? and without insurance....

pocomocomputing · ‎05-15-2013

Try using third party insurance with Small Packet Air. Very inexpensive but you may have to have proof of mailing which was discussed about in some past topics.

cumos55 · ‎05-15-2013

Perhaps we should look back to what was...

1971

bought a 1971 Datsun for about $2,000

Gas was 44 cents a gallon

2013

Bought a new car in 2009 for about $18,000

and today the price of gas went up to $1.29 a litre.... and that is about $5.80 a gallon

I remember whan a letter was mailed for 4 cents.... Today that same letter would cost over 60 cents to mail

Things have changed and will continue to change... Canada Post, the USPS and other postal services have to make adjustments.....

and we, the sellers on eBay have to make adjustments appropriate to what we sell and to whom we want to make those sales...

The question is ...Who is going to pay $25.00 for an item when the postage can cost $20.00?

The answer is ....Not everyone... Only a select few

end result.... mail order selling will become even more selective.....first with respect to inventory being sold... and second with respect to the buyer's choice

cumos55 · ‎05-15-2013

I have had to make choices....

What I sold 10 years ago... I do not sell today...

Mostly it has been the availability of inventory, and the cost of inventory

More importantly ... It was learning how to deal with the cost of shipping....Constantly changing each year in January...

What next???

cumos55 · ‎05-15-2013

And finally...

There was a stutter step in sales to the US from about the middle of January to the middle of February.

So far in 2013 ... Now it is less sales to the US than last year.... buyers have adjusted somewhat but it will never be like it was....

queenpalmer · ‎05-15-2013

I am still making sales of parcel items but.....monday I mailed a small box to Toronto maybe 6"x '4" x 4" from a town in southern Ontario. I was charged about $8.50. With the new rate I got insurance and Tracking. A good thing!

From the same small town yesterday, I mailed a smaller parcel to Calgary. It cost me about $12.75. I got the insurance and tracking.

I have FREE S&H listings within Canada. Both of these items were sold for about the same money to the buyer. On one sale I made money, on the other the buyer paid for the actual S&H charge and I made pennies while Ebay and Paypal got their share.

Very maddening.

I wonder if it's possible to have FREE S&H within Ontario (where I live) and have other provinces contact me for S&H quotes?

pocomocomputing · ‎05-15-2013

That is the problem with Free Shipping within Canada when using a Parcel service. The rate varies too much because it is based on destination. You have to build into your price a higher shipping cost that will cover shipping from Ontario to Vancouver BC and St. John's Newfoundland. Closer buyers will pay more and farther buyers will pay their fair share of shipping costs. This still runs the risk of someone in a remote area (Yukon, North West Territories) with higher shipping costs buying and you paying more for shipping.

Otherwise you will have to drop free shipping and go with calculated shipping within Canada.

I see that you list with Regular Parcel as the shipping service. Use Expedited Parcel to save 18% from Regular Parcel rates.

cumos55 · ‎05-15-2013

I use flat rate shipping.

For my heavy weight, more expensive books I have also decreased the cost of shipping by $3 and increased the price of a book by $3 to $5..

and...

Then I compared the total for shipping all parcels, the total amount paid by all buyers and the total paid for postage for all transactions.

In the long run my balance for postage is based on that paid by all buyers... and not just one transaction.

I have had buyers from Nunavut... where shipping was quite expensive because of an airmail component.... the same for remote areas of Newfoundland or BC.... and in spite of these situations there is a very good agreement between the total what all buyers have paid for postage and the actual total cost for postage.

So far in 2013... All buyers have paid close to $100 more than the actual total cost for postage...

Calculating flat rate postage is based on shipping from Winnipeg to Victoria BC....Very few sales are made by buyers east of Quebec..... and if flat rate shipping is too high I have made partial refunds of postage... for buyers that live closest to Winnipeg.

Some Canadian buyers get a refund, while some buyers pay a handling fee.... and in the long run the total postage paid by all buyers is very close to the actual total cost for postage for all transactions....

Flat rate shipping to the US is based on shipping to Arizona... Area number 4 in the US for Canada Post... There are 7 areas for postage to the US.

treasure.hunter.d · ‎05-15-2013

The bottom line for me is that I sell a lot of items to simply make up the volume required to maintain my Top Seller/Power Seller status and get my fees discount. it just so happens that the majority of those items, once safely packaged, fall into an area where Tracked Packet and Small packet air are basically the same price within a few pennies. What that means for me is that items that used to cost me $10 to ship via Small packet Ground (to the US) now cost me $16.00. I've looked at every option and there is nothing I can do to shave the price down. So I get hit with a 60% increase in shipping costs and now have things like collectible mugs, which I don't really want to sell, but help me make up the volume as mentioned, that sell for say $12-$25 and I can't do anything but ship them for a cost of $16. And that's just postage, forget about bubble-wrap, paper, boxes(when I can't recycle one).

Plain and simple, Canada Post has screwed us so they can maintain their ludicrous wages and other wasteful practices. I see absolutely no improvement in service/value but am paying a boatload more.

Ebay is going to have to do something to help out Canadian sellers or there are going to be a lot fewer in pretty short order I think.

coulect · ‎05-16-2013

Reading the responses to increased shipping fees it seems to me that the removal of the $100.00 insurance is the main problem that Ebay negotiaters should address when renegotiating the postal rates for Ebay users. They must renegotiate, it is way to expensive to ship small items to the USA and impossible to ship a 250 gram item worth $40.00 to the UK or Australia (I have lost a large % of my sales).

Instead of tweaking, with no improvement, the website, Ebay should concentrate on the business, and the business is "MAIL ORDER". Ebay needs people that understand the relationship between selling and shipping.

pocomocomputing , please tell me more about

third party insurance with Small Packet Air

Lewis

pierrelebel · ‎05-16-2013

"Ebay negotiaters should address when renegotiating the postal rates for Ebay users."

???

eBay has very little influence on the postal rates as determined by Canada Post officials.

The reality is simple: Canada Post is much more important to most eBay sellers than eBay sellers are to Canada Post. The total volume of postage purchased by eBay sellers accounts for a tiny percentage of the overall Canada Post volume. eBay sellers have little if any leverage. The same situation applies in the USA where US eBay sellers have little influence on USPS rates.

Things would be different if all sellers shipped from a central location, all pre-sorted by zone and postal codes, etc...

When Canada Post decides to remove the $100 loss/damage indemnity coverage on some services, without lowering their fees, there is nothing eBay can do about it.

cumos55 · ‎05-16-2013

Something more to think about....

The Exchange rate between the Canadian and US dollars.

--- 10 years it was about $1.40 Canadian to $1.00 US

and... $16.00 Canadian was about $11.40 US

--- Today the Canadian and US dollars are very close to equality

--- and not too long ago the exchange rate was in the range of $1.00 Canadian equal to about $0.95 US (and lower) Making that $16.00 Canadian equal to about $16.85 US.

cumos55 · ‎05-16-2013

Canada Post is only a part of the whole picture... for Canadian sellers on eBay...

toff3 · ‎05-16-2013

Treasure Hunter,

You catch on fast but the situation wrt postage rates is even worse than you make out. For overseas, there's a huge gulf between rates for Small Packet Air and Tracked Packet. The former are ridiculous, the latter are ludicrous.

To the US, Tracked Packet service is essentially superfluous and certainly unnecessary. There's already a service in place with delivery confirmation and insurance. It's called Expedited Parcel USA. People like Cumos, who can't sleep nights if he ships uninsured and without DC, are welcome to use it. Others who are satisfied with the reliability of the postal service should be given the option of using basic ground and air service at reasonable cost.

Tom

cumos55 · ‎05-16-2013

I used Small Packet to the US when insurance was included...

Today all we have is Small Packet Air to the US with no insurance... but for a few dollars more Tracked Packet USA is used ... mainly because of the value of what I ship.

Last year, 2012, about 100 purchases were shipped using Canada Post Oversize Lettermail with no insurance.... That worked well for books weighing less than 500 grams and less than 2 cm thick. I continue to use uninsured oversize lettermail.

It is a deliberate choice on my part to use insured options beyond the first 100 low weight books sold.....

The tendency is that lower priced books are the lower weight less than 500 gram books

And it is the heavy weight books that are the books with higher prices......

The balance is between weight of book, price of that book and ultimately the cost of shipping using Canada Post.

I am also getting fast shipping with Tracked Packet USA, that is about the same with Expedite parcel USA something that gets better as the year progresses.... Buyers are happy...

This works for me... based on what has happened so far in 2013.... was not too sure early in January....