Archive for the ‘Shipping’ Category

Dear eBay Queen:

I am a seller but also a buyer.  I bought and paid for 4 different pairs of jeans from a seller and asked for combine shipping.  The seller gave me an invoice for all 4 pairs of jeans, but the invoice did not have a discounted shipping rate. I emailed the seller and asked once again for a combined invoice, and a discounted shipping rate.  She sent me an email back and told me that it is not stated in the listing that she gives a discount.  I wrote her an email back and explained to her that I hope these jeans are shipped individually since she would not give me a discount on the shipping.

The seller shipped the jeans out, and they were of course shipped together in a Tyvek type envelope. I looked the jeans over, and I noticed that one pair had a tiny hole in them. I went and checked out the listing and noticed that it did not say ANY WHERE in it there was a hole in the jeans.  I emailed her to let her know, and she emailed me back saying she did not take returns!

I do not think I should have to pay individually priced shipping rates when a seller ships the items all together.  The seller charged me 34.95 for shipping each of these jeans individually and really paid 14.50 to ship them all together!

This seller has 100% feedback rating, but if I have anything to say about it, she won’t for long.  Do you think I should leave negative feedback for this seller?

Rebecca; Dallas, Texas

Dear Rebecca:

From everything you’ve said, I would be pretty miffed at this seller as well! Negative feedback is probably warranted in this situation, but I believe in giving someone every chance to do the right thing.  Before leaving negative feedback on the jeans I would send her an email similar to this:

I purchased four pairs of jeans from you.  Three pair are as described, but one pair had a small hole in them.  I see from your listing that you do not accept returns, I am hoping in this case you will make an exception as I they were not as you had listed them.  I am also unhappy that you charged me for shipping each one individually, when in fact you shipped them all together.  I requested that you ship them individually to me since your shipping charges reflected that.  I am not as happy with this transaction as I should be, and hope that you will rectify this.  The other 3 pairs of jeans are perfect, and I really like those. 

I hope your seller will do the right thing.  If she does not, you can always open a “not as described case” though eBay.

Dear eBay Queen:

I’m pretty new to selling. My sales have been steady and consistent for the last couple of months, but here lately my sales are in a slump. What can I do about this? Wait it out? Revise my auctions? I know it’s been only a short time, I just need some reassurance, and to see if maybe you have experienced the same thing.

Currently I’m running just auctions.  I don’t have a store yet (sitting on the fence until I learn more).  I try to have at least 20 items listed at any given time.   I’m listing several times a week.  My current inventory is dolls, books, rubber stamps and scrapbooking supplies.  Recently, I added some Christmas ornaments.  I think my listings are pretty diverse, to say the least.  Do you have any advice for me?

Lilly; Ottawa, KS

Dear Lilly:

I’m impressed with your 20 listings each week!  Selling slumps happen no matter what you sell.  It maybe the wrong time of the year, the price may not be right, the photos may not show a good representation of the item, or there may be no discernable reason as to why it hasn’t sold.

An eBay Store is a great way to go if you have the product to put in there. To have a basic store, I would say you need at least 100 items. This is a nice amount of inventory, and will make for a more successful store.  Do you think you have that many items to list?  A basic store is 15.95 a month, plus the listing fee.

If you send me a link to one of your auctions, I would be happy to check out your listings to see if there is something you could do spruce them up.

Strange eBay item of the week: eBay item: 220870022893 (enter this number in the eBay search box in the top right corner of the home page.)  Do you have any Dinosaur fossil in your backyard?  Check out this Hell Creek Dinosaur Fossil Large Ugly Tyrannosaurus Rex Tooth SOLD $660.00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HELL-CREEK-DINOSAUR-FOSSIL-LARGE-UGLY-TYRANNOSAURUS-T-REX-PREMAXILLARY-TOOTH-/220875219456  

Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul. Do you have a question for the eBay Queen? Email: questions@asktheebayqueen.com

Dear eBay Queen:

I was in my local thrift store and found a few little things to sell on eBay.  When I went to check out a volunteer, was processing some new stuff that had been dropped off.  We struck up a conversation, and he showed me the rhinestone costume jewelry he was pricing.  The jewelry was in a large plastic grocery bag. I’m not sure why I did this, but I asked how much it would be if I bought it all, and he offered all of it to me at a price I could not refuse (24.99).

Now I have no idea how to sell these! I’ve gone through the bag, and have noticed that some pieces are marked, and others are not.  Some of the names are: Monet, Haskell, Trifari , Juliana and Eisenberg.  A couple of the pieces are marked Sterling.  I have a total of 19.5 pounds and maybe 112 individual pieces. How should I sell this?  The jewelry is beautiful.  I hope I did a good job.

Sonja L.

Dear Sonja:

WOW! I’m just a little bit jealous! There are several ways to sell this. Your first option is to sell it in a lot.  There are many sellers that choose to get the big bucks by selling it in a lot.  I’ve seen some lots go for $200 to $1400.00 when being sold in all together.  Your other option is to sell it by the piece.  Some Juliana and Eisenberg pieces can sell for upwards of $100.00 to 800.00 each!

The way I think I would go, is selling most of it by the piece.  I would invest in a good costume jewelry book or at least check one out at the library.  When you look through the book, try to get the costume jewelry “lingo” down.  The prices in the book are just a guide, and not what the current market will bear.  Since you don’t have a lot of money in the pieces I would start them between $9.99 and 14.99 each and see where the auction takes you.

Dear eBay Queen:

I think I need to vent to someone who understands.  I’ve mailed off 214 packages in the last month, of those 214 packages only 142 have been delivered!  These were all sent First Class Mail. I have buyers complaining left and right. Most of my buyers are being extremely patient, but I’m not sure how long I can hold them off.

There are AT LEAST 18 packages that I know of, most of whom are going to first-time buyers.  I shipped these within hours of their payment, and they still haven’t gotten their stuff. I went to my local PO twice and they keep showing they are at the “Processing Facility”.

It really ticks  me off that I had to spend three hours last night checking these things on the USPS website to make sure they have arrived.  With customer service like this, it’s no wonder the USPS is flippin’ broke. I’m so TIRED of tap dancing with my buyers, I’m not even a good dancer!  I am just watching and waiting to see my DSR ratings go down.  Not to mention the new negatives and/or neutrals that I will receive.  To top those off, you know I’ll lose my Top Rated Seller status along with it!

If I get through this without a negative or ding’d DSR, it will be a miracle!  Do you have any advice for me?

Mail King

Dear King:

This is totally unacceptable! I would contact your post master immediately, ask if you can meet with them and go over the tracking for the missing packages.  Hopefully they will be able to help you figure out what exactly is going on.  If your post master doesn’t seem too interested in helping you, I would contact the customer service number for the post office: 800-275-8777 or 877-876-8777.

Once you contact the post office, I would email the customers that have not received their items.  Let them know what is going on, and that you are on top of the situation.  Ask if they will be patient for the next week, and if they still haven’t received the items you will refund their money.

I am really sorry this has happened.  Let me know how this turns out.

Strange eBay item of the week: eBay item: 160646826541 (enter this number in the eBay search box in the top right corner of the home page). Do people still listen to the radio?  Check out this Art Deco Blue Bakelite Astor Football Valve/Tube Radio  SOLD $3,199.95  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&nma=true&rt=nc&item=160646826541

Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul. Do you have a question for the eBay Queen? Email: questions@asktheebayqueen.com

Dear eBay Queen:

What is the deal with people these days?  In the last three weeks I have had offers on my items that were simply unnecessary! One of those customers offers a super low offer, and I am like, ok I’ll take that, accept offer.  I send them an invoice, and I get the following message.

I love this item, but your shipping is ridiculously high.  I don’t understand why you can’t throw it in a bag and just send it for a couple of bucks. Why do sellers like you need to make money on the item and the shipping?

Why do buyers thing this way?  What can I do to make this situation better? This is an item with shape that would be ruined if crushed if I sent it this way. I thought maybe I should send them a copy of the USPS shipping rate chart, or maybe I could just cancel the sale.   What do you think I should do?

Yesterday I went to the post office and saw something unusual.  I paid for four First Class Parcels at the post office. I didn’t add Delivery Confirmation to any of them (I know, I should have, but I didn’t have time to make the labels). The system generated a small, bar-code sticker that says “tracking” on it. The clerk didn’t know exactly what these new stickers were for — some sort of “internal tracking system,” he thought. I reached for one of the packages still lying on the counter, saying I would write down the number and see if it was trackable. The clerk — a sweet guy who’s been there for years — actually swept it up out of my reach and said customers were not allowed to do that.  I emailed my customers asking them  to make a note of the numbers and email them to me so I can see if they are trackable in the usual way. Do you know anything about this?

Courtney

Dear Courtney:

I have also fell victim to the buyer that refuses to pay shipping.  One way to get around this is to offer free shipping.  I started doing offering free shipping 3 years ago, and have found buyers complain less about the cost of shipping.  In this particular situation I would email them back, and let them know what exact shipping is on the item.  Let them know you cannot ship this in a bag because you are pretty sure it will arrive broken.  I’m sorry you have to deal with this.

I have never heard of the post office doing that. I will do a little checking, with my post office friends and see if they can shed some light on this issue.

Dear eBay Queen:

I met you a few weeks ago and asked you a bunch of eBay questions. I forgot one.  This one has to do with shipping charges.  So, now that eBay is charging fees for shipping, are the fees based on the shipping stated in listing or the actually amount the buyer pays? I ask this because I just sent a combine shipping invoice to a buyer and I would like to know if I’m being charged for the shipping discount.

I’ve taken your advice and I am going to start listing all my items with free shipping starting August 12^th. I figure after that date I won’t need to worry about combine shipping discounts.

Thanks for looking into this for me, and for chatting with me a few weeks ago.

Ann C.

Dear Ann:

The fee is based on the shipping price you have listed and NOT the actual shipping. One of my GTC listings rolled over after 30 days and now there are two separate charges when the item sells. One line shows the FVF for the price of the item. The next line states shipping for that item and it’s FVF. For me, it’s 11%.

eBay has this really cool thing called a fee calculator.  You can enter all the information in for a sale and it will list the fees out for you.  You can check out the fee calculator here: http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/Feecalculator.html   Let me know how your new venture in free shipping goes.

Strange eBay item of the week: eBay item: 110719930386 (enter this number in the eBay search box in the top right corner of the home page):  This week I’m on a Mission Trip in Joplin Missouri with 30 junior high and high school kids. Check out this Janis “Joplin” Black and White Photo SOLD $760.00 Check it out HERE

Suzie Eads is a nationally known eBay marketer and eBay trained Education Specialist. She lives in Rantoul. Do you have a question for the eBay Queen? Email: questions@asktheebayqueen.com