how to give away an item "at cost" only but buyer pays shipping only and minimum handling.

[fotonsales]

How to give away an item "at cost" only but buyer pays shipping only and minimum handling?

Ie:  I want to declutter my storage and have tons of collectible books. How do I ship a"LOT" of books  and (effectively) give them away for free. THe buyer would only pay the shipping, and any duties.

I though I'd price the "LOT" at 0.99  and set the shipping as usual  by whatever the shipping service would charge to send to the buyer. I would not charge an exorbitant handling fee but only enough to cover boxing costs.

Any advice?

[femmefan1946]

So you want to have the fun parts of selling,  describing, photographing, inventory control,describing, uploading,  packaging, shipping, and handling claims and returns,

but not the boring annoying parts like making money.

Interesting business plan.

You already know what to do.

Set your price low.
Use Calculated Shipping.

Don't use a Handling Charge.

Use any surplus to pay eBay fees and refunds on Claims.

Wouldn't it be easier to donate the books to any nearby book drive?
Schools have them. Church rummage sales. Friends of the Library. Charity thrift shops.
Actually a lot of apartment buildings, especially those more expensive ones, have a public meeting area with bookshelves where the tenants leave unwanted volumes. So do assisted living facilities.

[pjcdn2005]

Just to clarify, when a listing sells, the sellers pays a percentage of the total that the buyer paid.   The selling fees for books is 14.95%.   Selling fees are based on the total that the buyer paid for the item, shipping and taxes.  
Let's say the buyer in Alberta purchased  20 books at $1 each with $20 shipping. ($20 shipping for 20 books may be less than what it would cost)

books - $20

shipping - $20

GST -  $2

TOTAL Paid $42

14.95% eBay fees x $42 = $6.28

you would owe eBay $6.28 + hst/pst/gst in your province for that sale.  

It could get very expensive for you, 

So if the buyer paid $1.00 for the book, $15 for shipping You would have to pay eBay 14.95% of the item, shipping and taxes.books the 

[msau4301]

I have to agree with femme, you'd be better to donate them. You may not want/need to make any money on them but I would think you wouldn't want to be at a loss. Aside from your time to take photos and do listings as femme mentioned books are very, very heavy (we've probably all overfilled a box of books when moving...doesn't take much to make it very hard to lift). That heavy box will not have a cheap shipping cost even with no handling charge but eBay will still charge you the fee percentage on shipping as they always do.

If they are collectible books I know you want to make sure they get to someone who'd appreciate them so if you do try here, I'd say break them up into several lots to lower the shipping cost and instead of .99 at least do a low amount that would make it worth your while.