Selling Toys - Horror Stories & "Happy" Customers

So, my frustration isn't with any other Ebay user... just the process. After being stunned at how much my Toynami Thundarr the Barbarian figures sold for (Ookla sold loose for nearly $200), my wife asked me to sell off some stuff she put in a closet a while ago.

She handed me one bin of old Beanie Boo's (at least 50 of them), a box of old Cowboy theme Avon bottles and a box of Pomeranian Dog collector plates. I don't know what any of this junk is worth. So now my part time job is looking this stuff up to see what a reasonable price is, putting together auction descriptions (thank goodness for the AI tool for that), and monitoring auctions.

I always do auctions for my action figure stuff - with lots of success, but it is already clear to me that I need to just post with buy it now prices.

Also I'm aggravated about the cost of shipping buyers want the seller to eat. A small box now costs almost twelve dollars to send across the country - I'm in California and just shipped like 10 boxes to the east coast - but buyers do not want to pay actual shipping costs. I resign myself to taking a slight loss on shipping most of the time, but using a standard $10 shipping fee on an auction is a death sentence for alot of stuff, since the value of the item is less than the cost to ship it.

But I'm also done breaking even on a transaction where after ebay fees and shipping costs I sent the thing away for free.

I wish Dejoy hadn't destroyed the post office and sent shipping costs through the roof.

Sorry, just venting.
 
I do a flat shipping cost for all listings, but that cost varies per item - packaged McFarlane figs are expensive to ship because they are big while MLs fit in the normal sized Amazon boxes. My default for shipping a loose ML fig was $5.50 but the last two I've shipped have both ended up at $5.52 - so that price has to go up. It was $4 just a few years ago.
 
I have not shipped through eBay in years, but I remember when it was $5 flat boxes at the post office. Sigh.

Another reason I never deal with eBay as a buyer now is I'll notice someone will be selling a high-end figure that I expect should probably cost about 100 bucks. That's the hobby. I'll eat it. But then they want $40-80 in shipping. And that seems to be a normal practice.
 
I never quite understand those, but they'll pay less tax on the overall transaction since shipping isn't taxed. Ebay taxes it, but not the government.
 
Yeah, it has to be gaming the system, as most of them total up to what I would expect the real asking price to be at a show or marketplace.

It's probably psychological. At first glance someone thinks they're getting a deal on rare mezco.
 
PantherCult said:
So, my frustration isn't with any other Ebay user... just the process. After being stunned at how much my Toynami Thundarr the Barbarian figures sold for (Ookla sold loose for nearly $200), my wife asked me to sell off some stuff she put in a closet a while ago.

She handed me one bin of old Beanie Boo's (at least 50 of them), a box of old Cowboy theme Avon bottles and a box of Pomeranian Dog collector plates. I don't know what any of this junk is worth. So now my part time job is looking this stuff up to see what a reasonable price is, putting together auction descriptions (thank goodness for the AI tool for that), and monitoring auctions.

I always do auctions for my action figure stuff - with lots of success, but it is already clear to me that I need to just post with buy it now prices.

Also I'm aggravated about the cost of shipping buyers want the seller to eat. A small box now costs almost twelve dollars to send across the country - I'm in California and just shipped like 10 boxes to the east coast - but buyers do not want to pay actual shipping costs. I resign myself to taking a slight loss on shipping most of the time, but using a standard $10 shipping fee on an auction is a death sentence for alot of stuff, since the value of the item is less than the cost to ship it.

But I'm also done breaking even on a transaction where after ebay fees and shipping costs I sent the thing away for free.

I wish Dejoy hadn't destroyed the post office and sent shipping costs through the roof.

Sorry, just venting.
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I totally feel you, my friend. eBay and their shipping has boggled me for years. In fact, I was just thinking about things the other day after I sold something there- I was looking at the breakdown of things to see how much I'd be getting, and even though shipping was factored into that, when I went to get the shipping label through them, it took out even more money. I've had people explain it to me in the simplest of layman's terms, but I still don't get it. When make math, Josh brain no do work.

Not that it makes that big a difference (usually), but if you haven't looked into Pirate Ship, I would. It sometimes only saves me a buck or two, but every now and then it'll save me more- sometimes as much as $10, and that's including the 50-ish cents it costs me to print the label at FedEx Office.
 
Thanks for the tip. I also should probably upgrade my home printer so I can print shipping labels at home instead of having the P.O. do it. I think its a little cheaper that way too.
 
PantherCult said:
Thanks for the tip. I also should probably upgrade my home printer so I can print shipping labels at home instead of having the P.O. do it. I think its a little cheaper that way too.
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It's worth it as a time saver alone. I shipped something yesterday that happened to fit in my mailbox. The Post Office is only a mile from my house, but when you factor in putting on real clothes, potentially waiting in line, and driving there and back, I probably saved 20 minutes.
 
The self service kiosk at my post office will print the ebay labels, which i only recently learned. Hell, maybe I learned it here, but im too lazy to scroll back right now.
 
Ru1977 said:
Oh damn, how do you do that? Is there a code or do you have to do a flash drive or something?
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I think in settings you choose for them to email you a QR code. Then there's an option at the kiosk to scan that. The scanner doesn't work on mine, but I can input the alphanumeric code manually to make it work
 
That is a great tip. My closest post office doesn't have a self service kiosk... but the bigger Office a few miles further away does, so I may use that .
 
PantherCult said:
That is a great tip. My closest post office doesn't have a self service kiosk... but the bigger Office a few miles further away does, so I may use that .
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I went to a smaller one yesterday that didn't have one, but the clerk at the desk was still able to scan and print the label with the QR code. Not that it helps avoid lines though
 
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