Are Shipping Prices Outrageous or What?

[Gregory DG]

Jeez, I was just looking for some cheap MMC cards on Ebay for the Cuttle Cart 2 and the shipping charges for two different sellers were $9.00 and $13.00! How much does it cost to ship a postage stamp!? Talk about fee avoidance!

 

(And before you say it, no, I don't like it, and no, I won't buy them! )

[Stingray]

I'm getting pretty disgusted with all of the shipping gougers out there. It's gotten to be pretty much accepted practice to sell one game with a shipping charge of $6 or more. We all know Priority is $3.85 and media mail is what? A couple bucks? Pisses me off.

 

-S

[deathtrappomegranate]

 

[Susuwatari]

I've passed a few deals because of outrangerous shipping. Often time other similiar product would be $2 or $3 more but when you factor in the shipping, other ends up a lot cheaper than those with low auction price but high shipping charge.

[jetset]

 

 

 

WHO.....MMMMMMEEEEEeeeeeeeeee ????????

 

Nah! I wouldn't want anyone to accuse me of whining...it's not helping anyone or anything.

[deathtrappomegranate]

Actually, I agree.

 

Some "folks" are just...

[MegaManFan]

The odd thing is it's the honest sellers like me who get the shaft. I charged people only $2 to mail out Dreamcast games, despite the fact the padded envelope and postage probably cost me over $2 in each and every case, and yet somebody STILL got p.o.'d that I wanted another $1 to process his credit card and neg'd me. I mean come on. Any other seller would have charged the same guy $5 for shipping, wrapped it in newspaper, and slapped a couple stamps on it. I know I shouldn't still be mad about it, but this maroon didn't even give me a chance to let him pay cash, check, or money order. I honestly hope the next guy charged him $6 to ship it and his game arrived broken in half.

[pmpddytim]

When I sell on e-bay I charge actuall shipping. If I make a mistake and charg'em more than I should I enclose a refund in the package for the amount I over charged. I also let'em know if some of that is going twords packing material so they don't think I'm trying to screw'em.

 

I was going to buy some DC VMU's the other day and found two sealed ones for $9.95 which I thought was a good deal since they go for about that much each. But they wanted $9.95 shipping. I wrote and asked the guy if he would open'em and just stick'em in a priority mail box w/ some newsprint for $3.85 and the guy wrote back and told me to F&*K off and that I obviously didnt know how much those things cost to ship. Um....2 things about the size of a large pack of chewing gum each that weigh alot less than a pound shipped priority mail ($3.85) in a free box..........

 

3.85

+ Free box

-------------

Damn I was never good at math.

 

-Tim

[MegaManFan]

You always know a seller is practicing fee avoidance when they ignore your reasonable shipping requests, and or tell you to F off. I point blank told a seller once I knew that shipping a 2600 cart and a manual only cost $1.42 in postage because I send them all the time, and that he was really soaking me by making me pay $6 shipping +and+ pay with a money order (an extra $1 to me to get one). So his response back was "a check will be fine." In other words, come hell or high water, he wanted his $6. And guess what? When the package arrived, just as I predicted, it had $1.42 in postage on it.

[jetset]

The odd thing is it's the honest sellers like me who get the shaft.  I charged people only $2 to mail out Dreamcast games, despite the fact the padded envelope and postage probably cost me over $2 in each and every case, and yet somebody STILL got p.o.'d that I wanted another $1 to process his credit card and neg'd me.  I mean come on.  Any other seller would have charged the same guy $5 for shipping, wrapped it in newspaper, and slapped a couple stamps on it.  I know I shouldn't still be mad about it, but this maroon didn't even give me a chance to let him pay cash, check, or money order.  I honestly hope the next guy charged him $6 to ship it and his game arrived broken in half.

 

You know, this presents an idea in my head.

We need here at AA some way to have a list of everyone's Ebay/Bidiots/yahoo username and whether they are a seller, buyer, or somewhere in the middle.....

Yes, I know there was a thread about this, but Im talking an accessible, updatable page so we know who we're dealing with. I'd go out of my way to try and buy from the members here. That is to say, sometimes I buy a game based on the first one that comes up in the search, or whatever ends soonest. If I know MMF or CPU or Mac were selling an item I wanted I'd prefer to buy from them first.

I bought a TON of Atari stuff before I realized some of the members here are sellers. Of course some of them that I bought from may have been members....Im not sure.

 

Am I making sense or do I sound like I'm just babbling?

[Zaxxon]

I usually offer free shipping on CD's, DVD's, CD games, loose carts etc. It only costs me about a $1 to ship it. Even if I have to eat the $1-$1.50 in shipping, I make it up by gaining more bidding action from bidders who don't want to pay $6-$8 shipping for a DC game.

[deathtrappomegranate]

Jetset, I know where you're coming from.

 

CPUWIZ's "sticky" in the Marketplace forum is a great place to start.

 

I've been stung many times by inflated shipping charges, as a buyer.

 

On my most recent auctions (as a seller), I've had to charge more than the plain cost of shipping because of Paypal's policies. They insist on having on-line proof of delivery and tracking. From where I live, that doubles or trebles the cost of shipping to the USA, but Paypal can effectively stop you from trading if you don't comply. For the last 8 items I've sold, I've actually charged less than actual cost, and just eaten the loss.

 

I'm very happy to charge actual shipping (or less) on my auctions for buyers I know, but I have two friends who've lost their Paypal accounts because losers have tried to get items for free by making false chargebacks. That makes it very difficult to keep the costs down.

 

That is one of the reasons I prefer to trade. I want to keep shipping costs down on my auctions, but it doesn't make sense to take too many risks.

[jetset]

I usually offer free shipping on CD's, DVD's, CD games, loose carts etc. It only costs me about a $1 to ship it. Even if I have to eat the $1-$1.50 in shipping, I make it up by gaining more bidding action from bidders who don't want to pay $6-$8 shipping for a DC game.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about...Zaxxon and I haven't always seen eye to eye on every topic here, but I never knew he sold on Ebay and would still buy from him off ebay...Every once in a while I get bored buying Atari and search for Xbox games, or maybe the sega, or....the Dreamcast.

Not because he eats the shipping charge (trust me, I bitch about excessiveness but I dont expect people to lose $$ on the shipping either) but I would make it a point to see what he has up for auction first.

[bjk7382]

I also found the same problem when looking for a mmc reader/writer from ebay. all of them have a 3.99 BIN and $13 shipping.

 

I ended up finding a reasonable seller for the reader/ writer. And I got my MMC from an online store suggested by someone in the first cc2 discussion thread.

[Kenwood]

Just got ONE cart in the mail today. I paid $5 shipping. It came in a padded envelope with .83 cents postage.

[bcprs1]

We should have Albert make a new forum category just for bitching about shipping costs. I've been screwed a few times and just can't understand why some people have to be dishonest. I don't mind paying extra if the item is properly packaged, but don't charge a forture and stick a few stamps on a plain envelope.

[Mindfield]

Well, hey... in the words of two sellers that I bitched at recently:

 

shipping is $2.99 first cart USA and $4.99 CANADA. These are our standard rates. If you no longer want this game let us know. You should have emailed PRIOR to bidding if you had any questions. Canada rates are always higher than USA. If you want cheaper shipping we can send just in a paper envelope unprotected for $3.99.

 

Ah... the bullshit approach.

 

The other seller (who charged me $6 shipping for a single cart), however, took the sob story approach:

 

Not only are you being charged for shipping.Their is also a handling fee as well as my time spent driving 10 miles to drop off your package isn't free. Not only that I have to buy boxes and bubble wrap as well as tape.  So I very sorry if your not happy with the shipping charges but add it all up and you should understand why?

 

...and I guarantee it's going to arrive bare in a padded envelope with $1.10 worth of postage on it.

 

Oh sure, I'd have asked beforehand, but these two were last minute finds that I didn't have time to wait for a response on, so I just grinned and beared it. I still had to get my shots in, though. With the shipping I'm being raped with, it's the least they owe me.

[Albert]

We should have Albert make a new forum category just for bitching about shipping costs.  I've been screwed a few times and just can't understand why some people have to be dishonest.  I don't mind paying extra if the item is properly packaged, but don't charge a forture and stick a few stamps on a plain envelope.

 

We can make it a subforum in the new forum software, this way people who don't want to see all the posts complaining about shipping costs more easily can ignore them.

 

..Al

[jetset]

Just got ONE cart in the mail today.  I paid $5 shipping.  It came in a padded envelope with .83 cents postage.  

 

What's sad is there are users who would tell you "The shipping cost was stated in the auction so tough shit". Unfortunately that argument is BS since when you see $5 you are being tricked into thinking that is how much it costs.

There should be a disclusure required or something.

I charge a fee of $5.00 to ship this item.  .83 cents is the actual shipping,  the difference is to cover my expenses.

That way, it's not deceptive. You know what you're paying for. .83 for shipping, and $4.17 is basicially extra profit on the item.

 

 

We should have Albert make a new forum category just for bitching about shipping costs.  I've been screwed a few times and just can't understand why some people have to be dishonest.  I don't mind paying extra if the item is properly packaged, but don't charge a forture and stick a few stamps on a plain envelope.

 

Great idea, but there are a lot of ebay sellers here at AA. Some are honest, but there are some that gouge (they're usually the ones who say "the cost was stated in the auction, if you don't like it don't bid, blahblahblah".) I don't think it'd work as well as negging the seller or reporting them to ebay before hand. I do it all the time. It takes about 10 seconds. Time well spent imho.

[Xot]

I got negged for this before. Charged some outrageous amount for shipping, I left feedback that said "I paid $x.xx for shipping, item arrived in a torn envelope with only$y.yy postage. If you resolve this issue I will upgrade to a positive."

 

My feedback changed from "Super fast payment excellent buyer" "To CAN'T READ AN AUCTION DO NOT SELL TO" or some shit like that.

 

Bottomline, I think you should state "SHIPPING AND HANDLING" if you're adding to the shipping cost. That's how I always word it, quite frankly, 'cause I'm too lazy to get an exact shipping figure so I guesstimate it. Usually I guess low and I eat the difference, but if I guess high I don't refund the difference, either. I figure as long as they're up front about it , I know I'm gonna get gouged, and I place my bid accordingly.

[wrldstrman]

I always look at shipping as part of the price if I see a game Im willing to pay 10.00 dollars for I bid what ever the shipping and cost of the game add up to...if I see a game and shipping is 5.00 I only bid 5.00...To many have the I want it now syndrome...I have been bidding on fun with numbers picture label for over a year and until I win it for what I am willing to pay I just wont have it...The only way shipping will come down is if people quit bidding on the stuff with high shipping...but that wont happen..cause there is to many that want a atari collection right now that they dont mind paying up to 50 percent over what normal shipping would be...plus in some cases shipping is high I just sent a nintendo with 15 games from the east coast to the west cost and it was over 21.00 dollars...I ate a few dollars because unless you want to run to the post office with every item you cant get an exact amount..I never bid on an auction that I can not have a shipping total up front...I got burned once an I learned my lesson..anyway thats my 2 cents