Shipping help/tips and general info

[arexcrooke]

Hey all,
I am looking to begin selling on ebay and also through other venues and wanted to get advice, tips, tricks, and general help I can get. And if along the way it helps others, well then thats a bonus!

I really would like advice to start on what is the best way to ship out complete sets. this would be the larger sets ie Topps' 660+ card sets and the like. What is the type of box you ship them in? Is there an option other than Priority? Of course I want to ship quickly and safely but I want to balance those with offering free shipping on ebay to help protect star ratings.

Any other tips tricks or advice?

Thanks up front!

Arex

[autograf]

You can ship via Parcel Post slightly cheaper than Priority Mail. Especially as the weight goes up. Free shipping on heavy items like full Topps sets is a risky proposition. Unless you're selling older sets, it frequently costs as much to ship the set as it would bring on ebay. You'll have to find a balance on pricing for sure. I'd search out a lot of the sets you're looking to sell on ebay and the 'completed' or 'sold' listing to see what the most successful shipping strategy is on them and the pricing structure.

[arexcrooke]

True on all counts and thanks for the info.
What type of box do people ship sets in? The few I have shipped have been sent with priority boxes and they dont really fit length wise.
Any suggestions?

[tschock]

True on all counts and thanks for the info.
What type of box do people ship sets in? The few I have shipped have been sent with priority boxes and they dont really fit length wise.
Any suggestions?

There are (at least) 2 different medium size priority flat rate boxes. One is more square and the other is longer (but thinner). The longer one will fit (3) 660 count boxes (side by side) just fine. They even have a longer one that can hand 800 count boxes, but that's a large size flat rate. You can actually order these from the PO and they will drop them off at your house if your local PO doesn't have/carry them.

https://store.usps.com/store/browse/subcategory.jsp?categoryId=subcatMSS_PriorityMail&categoryNavIds=catGetMailingShippingSupplies%3Asub catMSS_PriorityMail#%23q_docSort%3D%26q_pageNum%3D %26viewAll%3Dtrue%26q_facetTrail%3D%26categoryId%3 DsubcatMSS_PriorityMail%26nsraction%3DcategoryProd ucts

If you are looking to just "dump" some sets cheap in order to reduce inventory or make room, I would recommend pulling the $ cards from the sets, listing those cards, and donating the rest to charity (specifically for anything post 1980). For all but a few sets, it really does cost more to ship than the sets are worth, which minimizes buyer interest.

Another option is to sell 2 or more sets as a lot, that way it will save on the seller's shipping cost by spreading it out across a couple sets. (I've tried both methods with varying success, FWIW). It's another way to move an '88 Donruss set with an '84 Donruss set (for example) and maybe get some buyer good will. :)

[arexcrooke]

Thanks for the advice. Ill take a look at the flat rate boxes and see what works best.

I think i might go the way of a "pick 3" or "pick 5" and put up 10 or so cheap sets and let people pick from those.

Again, thanks for the info.