Selling Toys - Horror Stories & "Happy" Customers

I always just put the service I'm using, and usually make a guesstimate on the price and weight. I'm 99.999% of the time accurate. Anything less or more than that, whatever.

Less, I'm out a buck or two. More, I consider the "handling" part of shipping and handling. Again, we are talking about couple of bucks at most. Generally, nobody says anything.

But there's always the annual one guy that pitches a bitch over it. Never, of course, if I have to pay more than I thought...but I had one guy spend 2k on my complete Joe Classified lot bitch over the $2.35 I pocketed on the shipping.

I gave him a "Are you fucking serious right now?"
 
I actually weigh and measure stuff as I list it so I'm not even guessing. At the same time, I recently sold a couple things to forum members outside of ebay and HOLY SHIT.... it was twice what I'm used to paying on ebay!
 
I don't know- every so often I'll run into someone just a few states away and it says the shipping is like $80 for a Black Series sized item, and it's not even overnight shipping or anything. Ain't no way! I can't remember off the top of my head if ebay lets you just set a shipping price- I know some platforms do (Marketplace, maybe?). Regardless, I've seen some pretty egregious shipping costs, so I have no doubt that some folks fudge the numbers, but it's definitely a minority.

I've gotten those folks who knock a star off for shipping costs, but I don't let it bother me. Maybe next time I'll send them a video of me begging and groveling at the feet of my mail person- "Please, good mail person, who clearly sets the prices, find it in your heart to knock $2 off of this completely unfair shipping cost for BaristaBeauty2xx2! She's gotten similar items before and says it's never been this much! Think of the children!"
 
joshsquash729 said:
"Please, good mail person, who clearly sets the prices, find it in your heart to knock $2 off of this completely unfair shipping cost for BaristaBeauty2xx2! She's gotten similar items before and says it's never been this much! Think of the children!"
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Next, you offer cheeseburgers...

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While we are on the subject of shipping services:

I fuuu-hucking HATE FedEx.

With the fire of a thousand suns. The amount of packages they've lost for buyers is unacceptable. Two, and that is two too many. But aside from that pain, where I have to get a refund for the buyer and then bitch to FedEx to get them to then to cut me a check-- because *I* sure as hell am not going to lose out on 350 bucks because of your shit service...

...aside from that, they are never, never, ever, ever, right about their shipment dates. Not once have I ever gotten anything on time when shipped through them.

Ordered some Black Friday deal Legends off of Target. Of course, Target uses FedEx primarily. Well, my stuff is supposed to be here today. I click the tracking, it says today.

As of an hour ago, it is still the next state over. 1:46 PM, sitting in Martinsburg, WV, which is damn near in Maryland, whereas I am 5 hours away in NorthEast Ohio, near Lake Erie.

Yeah, something tells me it's not arriving today, fellas.

Never have I had these issues with USPS or UPS. Or hell, even DHL, slow as they are. At least their arrival dates are accurate.

First world problems, I know.
 
Don't even get me started on FedEx. I already told my recent headache over in the complaint thread, so I'll spare ya'll again, but I feel like I'm still getting over that headache. But on the plus side, I've never been more honest in the "How did we do?" email they sent afterwards. 😂 Used lots of big words and didn't even need a Thesaurus!

Even Amazon delivered my package to the wrong address recently. Customer service said to "refer to the proof of delivery photo for where to look". Problem is, it's the inside of a building that I've never been to in my life and nobody knows the address of; being in NY, I could be knocking on doors for years and never find it. Ahhhh, the holiday season. Don't get me wrong- I feel for the poor underpaid delivery workers, but the shipper as a whole needs to get their shiz together.
 
I found an email alert from Amazon tonight that said "delivery attempted at 6:42pm - will retry tomorrow" for two different items - not a single phone call was missed or made, or did they use the callbox to call me. Just straight up lied - unless they knocked on the gate at the front of the complex.

I've been using FedEx a lot lately because now that rates have gone up anything over 1lb exactly is almost always cheaper with FedEx. It's crazy that it's at least $10 to ship a McFarlane figure now, if not $12.

Had a buyer recently continually try to get me to accept $25 for an item listed at $30 - "it's fair." I finally told him "message me again and I'll block you". I sent offers to likers and turns out he bought it for 5% off.
 
Has Ebay been prompting anyone else to start adding the price we paid for items -"visible only to you".

You can now add your cost
Enter your per-unit acquisition cost to see your earnings when it sells. This helps with your bookkeeping, as well as your pricing and inventory strategy. This info is never visible to buyers.

But Ebay can sure see it and my initial thought is this is a way to find out how much profit/loss buyers are making/taking so Ebay can take an even bigger cut. Or is that my pessimism showing and this will be a useful tool?
 
Schizm said:
But Ebay can sure see it and my initial thought is this is a way to find out how much profit/loss buyers are making/taking so Ebay can take an even bigger cut. Or is that my pessimism showing and this will be a useful tool?
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With a for-profit company? All data gathering is used to fill their coffers.
 
I don't know about that, but I can tell you one thing: no one is buying ANYTHING. I am having a tough time selling right now.

I'm not sure if it's because the holidays are upon us, or if it's this lovely Trump economy and tariffs (because I have sold a lot overseas in recent years), or if it's COVID Collectors backing away from the hobby...or if it's a combination of all of the above and more.

But something is up that is causing trepidation in buying stuff.

My wife is a big plant buyer/seller/trader, and even she is noticing that that hobby is dying off. We are talking rare cross breed Hoyas that were quite literally going for thousands in seconds previously-- now sitting for weeks on end.

So, would it surprise me to see eBay gathering info to net themselves a nice little profit of what people can actually sell while business is slow?

Not one bit.
 
RicksNerdLife said:
I don't know about that, but I can tell you one thing: no one is buying ANYTHING. I am having a tough time selling right now.

I'm not sure if it's because the holidays are upon us, or if it's this lovely Trump economy and tariffs (because I have sold a lot overseas in recent years), or if it's COVID Collectors backing away from the hobby...or if it's a combination of all of the above and more.

But something is up that is causing trepidation in buying stuff.

My wife is a big plant buyer/seller/trader, and even she is noticing that that hobby is dying off. We are talking rare cross breed Hoyas that were quite literally going for thousands in seconds previously-- now sitting for weeks on end.

So, would it surprise me to see eBay gathering info to net themselves a nice little profit of what people can actually sell while business is slow?

Not one bit.
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Yeah, I've noticed this too. I've had trouble even with hard to find / in-demand pieces. At a local toy show a few weeks ago, I made maybe 60% of my usual take-home after table and hotel fees. Same number of shoppers, but they seemed to be much pickier than they were at the last show 6 months ago. I think people are just having a tougher time, especially if they're on SNAP.
 
Ru1977 said:
I actually weigh and measure stuff as I list it so I'm not even guessing. At the same time, I recently sold a couple things to forum members outside of ebay and HOLY SHIT.... it was twice what I'm used to paying on ebay!
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Did you not use Pirate Ship? 🧐
 
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