eBay

matdy_3275 · ‎02-17-2020

Apologies for the mouthful in the title, so let me clarify.

I'm trying to find the total, shipping inclusive prices people are willing to pay for things, but whenever I browse sold goods to get a feel for prices, it seems like it's always displaying whatever price + shipping that I (being in Canada) theoretically would have paid, had I bought the item.

Unfortunately, I did not buy the item, nor did anyone in Canada necessarily. It's showing me that the cost to ship some $40 trinket is $60 (to Canada), which implies people are willing to pay $100 for it. But that doesn't help since the person who actually bought it, isn't necessarily in Canada, and may have only paid $40 with free shipping to the US.

Now, I can go in item by item and check each ones shipping details, but that seems like a fairly laborious process.

In short, Is there any way to see how much shipping was charged to the actual buyer calculated based on their location?

femmefan1946 · ‎02-17-2020

You can change your location.

Virtually.

To see the US price use the zipcode 90210 and for the UK SW1A 0AA (House of Parliament). For Canada, when I need a central postal code I use K0A 0A6 (House of Commons in Ottawa).

The USPS website for international shipping is :

https://postcalc.usps.com/?country=10440

And a little playing will also give you US costs.

Note that most US sellers are unaware of the Canada pricing and use the overseas one. They also tend to go with Priority International which is presented first instead of the harder to find First Class International Postage which also give Air Mail transit and Confirmation of Delivery.

The Canada Post website is

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

However.

Certain sellers get better rates because they do more shipping.

Some use freight forwarders like the GSP which offer them Seller Protection but include the buyer's duty and sales taxes in the shipping costs.

Some sellers have access to discounted mint postage stamps which reduces their costs if not their labour.

Now, I can go in item by item and check each ones shipping details, but that seems like a fairly laborious process.

Really? How can you do that, since the buyer's identity, including location, is masked?

More important to my mind, is how you will present your own shipping costs.

Are you going to ship from Canada, or are you using a forwarder like RedStallion or ChitChatExpress? Are you using Canada Post? Are you using Free Shipping (which means including your cost of shipping in the asking price for the item), are you signed up for Solutions for Small Business and using SnapShip, Paypal or Shippo to print your labels?

Because there is no point in knowing what a US seller charged a US buyer if you are a Canadian seller who has to deal with either higher postal charges or (slightly) longer transit times with a forwarder.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-17-2020

Since you don’t know where the buyer lived, there is no way to see what they paid in total. When pricing out items I always compare it to what a US buyer would pay. When looking at a listing change your location to the US with s US zip code and click on see rates. Your next few searches should continue to show your location as the US.

teenytrinkets · ‎02-20-2020

I always assume free or very little US shipping when I am researching this way.

An very easy method is to have a US Shipping address in the app and just swap it over (via settings) before you do your "sold" research.

There are a number of sellers that ship overseas, so it can get tricky to know exactly what was charged. I always assume items that sell for really high prices (or simply higher than mine...lol) are being shipped to locations I don't ship to, so I don't include them in my research.