Gotta sell it in lots, then. Make bigger auctions with more items to drive the price up so it's not so bad from a percentage viewpoint. Otherwise, just don't worry about the US bidders and get the less expensive (shipping wise) Canadian bidders.

I do it with my international shipping. It's gotta be Priority Mail to have any tracking number, and that's at least $20 for any item. Sucks when you buy stuff out of the country, and there's not much you can do about it.

As far as packaging materials goes, the only free stuff in the US is Priority Flat Rate boxes. You have to ship it that way, which costs more, to get any use out of a free box. I buy all my shipping supplies via eBay, and eat the costs. If you offer free shipping, the bids go higher. If you don't, the bids are lower, but either way you get about the same amount of money. So, what's the point of risking bad DSRs on shipping, when you make it free and they can't even rate you on it? All told if I ship a module, (in a bubble mailer) packing materials are about a buck. If I have to use a box maybe two bucks. It's just the cost of doing business.

I also sell D&D Minis quite often, and for those I won't even put one up for sale if it's worth less than $5. Between the box, free shipping, and fees it's just not worth it to me. So I bundle the cheap figs all together and sell them for more. Back to my first suggestion.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck cleaning out your attic!

Zen

benjoshua wrote in Shipping ideas/best practices:

Zenfinite wrote in Shipping ideas/best practices:As far as packaging materials goes, the only free stuff in the US is Priority Flat Rate boxes.

In the US, almost all Priority Mail materials are free.  Just go on the usps.gov web-site and order what you want.  They'll deliver it to your door in one to three weeks.  On rare occasions, as with Badmike's Priority tubes for the art project, it can take months.  Still, free boxes and envelopes are nice.  Personally, I use the "shoe box" Priority Mail box and the #0 (7"x 7" x 7") boxes the most.  The Medium Priority box (not flat rate) is best for many modules and manuals in my opinion.  

That only too so long because they were switching out old priority mail materials for "new look" priority mail materials and let their inventory run dry....since the switch has been made it shouldn't happen again for years.  

Unfortunately Demios is shipping from Canada I suspect and can't take advantage of our subsidized postal service for free materials and such...

Mike B.

Badmike wrote in Shipping ideas/best practices:Unfortunately Demios is shipping from Canada I suspect and can't take advantage of our subsidized postal service for free materials and such...

Yeah, I was just correcting Zenfinite on what was free.