I'm back but I'm a little confused

[dyeing]

I use to sell a lot of stuff on EBay 15 years ago....so much so that my wife's best friend thought I was getting ready to leave her.  LOL!!!!  I finally got so tired of the scammers that I left the selling and only bought on EBay.

I just started to sell again and put up 10 listings as a test.  Things have really changed.  Shipping has gone way WAY up!!  Prepaid postage lables through Paypal and Canada Post make things a lot easier.  Listing has also gotten more complicated.  I hope I have my test lists are right.

Expedited Parcels only with tracking

Listing on both Canada and the United States.

Good until cancelled if Buy it Now.

Can somebody check one of my listings and see if I have this right and give me any suggestions, please.  Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

[tyler@ebay · Accepted solution]

Hi @dyeing - welcome back! A lot has changed, to be sure, but folks here are great at getting you advice! 

To that end, I'm going to move this over to Seller Central where it will get a bit more exposure.

From what I can see you have some good products - my only suggestion is to consider your title on the toner cartridges. Your FX-7 cartidge doesn't have a lot of extra detail. The first 5 words of a title are the most heavily weighted in search, so I would make sure that your titles are set up to reflect that. 🙂

[pjcdn2005]

Welcome back 🙂    You might want to enable combined shipping. When I put 2 of your hats in a cart, it charges the full shipping price for each hat rather than charge by the weight of 2 hats in one package.  It doesn't allow me to request an invoice either.

If you go to account - site preferences - shipping preferences you can set it up so that with calculated shipping it will combine the weights. For some reason that section is not working for me right now..I click on edit and nothing happens..but hopefully it will work for you.

The one problem with doing that is that the calculator doesn't know if you are going to be using a bigger box so it only takes into account the added weight which means that if dimensional weight kicks in, the price charged will be a bit off. That wouldn't affect Tracked Packet but it would affect expedited.

Have you signed up for a Canada Post small business account (venture one)? You'll need that to use shipping at Paypal and at Shippo.

[dyeing]

I have signed up for the Canada Post small business account.  Finally figured out how to hook the PayPal /Canada Post/ EBay label maker stuff to work together and printed the first shipment up and it all went well.  That was not easy to figure out for a 60+ old dude who is EXTREAMLY tech challenged.  I'll look into the combined shipping option this morning and set that up....if it allows me to.  Good suggestion.  Thanks

[kawartha-ephemera]

I will chime in with my two cents regarding your shipping choices.

When looking at your first item, the Coors banquet hat from the perspective of an American shopper the shipping service offerred is CP Tracked Packet USA quoted at $ 22.36 CAD. 

May I suggest that your competitive position in the USA would be greatly improved by offering CP Small Packet USA Air as the first option.  Offer CP Tracked Packet as the second option.

I have never sold ball caps but it would seem a reasonable goal to aim for a packaged weight (cardboard box) of .5 kg or less. At the lighter weights Small Packet USA Air is much much cheaper while providing virtually equal delivery speeds. In my experience American buyers do not care or probably even notice that there is no tracking or insurance included with CP Small Packet, they just want the merchandise quickly ans as cheaply as possible.  On those rare occasions where there is a delivery issue then that is when self insurance comes into play.

Examples

Shipping from Ontario to California 90210  24x14x12 0.500kg

CP Small Packet USA Air @ 11.37

CP Tracked Packet USA @ 18.45

CP Small Packet USA Air @ 16.92 constant rate between 0.501 and 1.000 kg

[rosscd57]

My thoughts on what others have not covered: your descriptions are a bit vague could use more actual description. I am not a big fan of: "make an offer". It just lets buyers know that your price is no good and you will take less. Other than that - yr good.

[femmefan1946 · Accepted solution]

And here comes my inevitable chat about Cookie Jar Insurance.

USPS has incredibly cheap tracking- less than 25 cents for domestic posting when purchased online.

Canada Post doesn't.

https://www.canadapost.ca/cpotools/apps/far/business/findARate?execution=e1s1

(bookmark that- it will be useful)

And our best Seller Protection against unwarranted non-delivey claims is tracking.

However.

We can put a few pennies, or dimes, into a virtual Cookie Jar against the very occasional but sadly inevitable non-delivery claim.

When we hear that a purchase has not been received , we can cover the loss from the Cookie Jar.

Yes, those pennies are a premium for self-insurance.

And Cookie Jar Insurance covers situations postal or third party insurance doesn't.

• The item is damaged in transit.
• The item is damaged in transit from poor packaging.
• The seller sent the wrong item
• The buyer has Remorse and returns the item, but removed the tags on a NWT item.
• The buyer bought a red sweater and got a scarlet one when he wanted a crimson one.

This also removes stress, since the Dispute moves from an expensive personal attack to a business expense.

Things you send parcel rate often will have built in tracking and even insurance, but  the Cookie Jar is still useful.

BTW- No Returns does not mean No Refunds.

If you take Paypal, you make refunds.