Let me get this down: $19.86 to ship a single $300 item? Oh, wait! I got a better idea. Instead of that, how about I send you a hobo's **** cheese?

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...grossman_1.jpg

In the mean time and as usual, go **** yourself.

W600 Wagner
 

Went way cheap at 19k. A SGC 50 a couple yrs back went for 52k. Someone stole this!

That same card sold in a B&L auction for 20k. I think it's overgraded. The stain detracts from the card.

W600 Wagner
 

Good point

mansco,
That Brouthers is gorgeous! Great pickup!
JimB

Yes, weight costs you money

Does that include insurance?

Insurance $5.00 shipping $5.00 , about $9.00 too much.

If cards were expenxive , not excessive. Joe

As you can see from my posts, I think everyone should consider the insurance and weight of cards.

Joe

Shipping
 

As the owner of the software company that powers Legendary's web site and shipping calculator, I can tell you accurately, how it is done.

We base the shipping fee based on three data points;

1. weight,
2. value of the invoice
3. zip code of the ship to address.

Once, those data points are supplied, our software bases the shipping costs by going to the shippers database (USPS, DHL, UPS or FedEx). Legendary will then provide to the shipper the method of shipment (i.e. For FedEx it may be Next Day overnight or Ground by UPS). All of this is done automatically, and using actual shipping costs.

I hope this helps and, if the shipping costs are too high, I urge you to call Legendary and ask them to have a look at the issue as they have always been reasonable when approached.

Interesting and helpful information. Thank you for posting that!

Bob,

Thanks for the explanation but I think people rather come here and bitch as opposed to trying to fix what they do not like. No fun writing something nice about someone. Let's just be happy Jeff L is not posting on this thread.

I think most auction houses charge too much for shipping but then again on eBay I have been forced into not being able to charge more than $3 to ship cards of any value or weight or suffer the wrath of a low DSR.

Greg

One way to combat people from complaining about excessive shipping is.... not to charge any!
Its not that radical of an idea, especially w/ the higher buyers premium.

I got topped on my Legendary bids, but I did win a lot from Baggers on Thursday.
It was free shipping if sending a payment via the mail, which I did. Sterling did the same thing.
And last year REA offered free shipping to winning bidders as well.
Hopefully more auctions houses will use this approach.

Here's an idea: offer cheap people like me the option to use USPS. They could cram most of the items here into priority mail flat rate envelopes or small boxes with delivery and/or signature confirmations and private insurance at half the price of a private carrier.

And don't give me that nonsense about pilferage. UPS is far worse than USPS for theft. I ship and receive hundreds of collectibles every year via USPS and I've had maybe one or two items go missing over the years, and one of them was an overseas shipment sent registered that went missing in the customs house in NY. And if you don't want USPS insurance I know for a fact that private insurers cover USPS shipping as long as there is a tracking method, because I have it.

seems unlikely that these are the only three points that influence the price of shipping, imho. i ship a ton of stuff and receive a ton of stuff. I just sent 2 baseballs to a guy and it was under 10 dollars. one graded card for 18 dollars is silly.

from legendaryauctions.com:

Guys, the top execs of Legendary are under indictment for ripping you off for more than your shipping costs -- I'd be less concerned about losing a few bucks down that avenue.

Sorry to ruin all the fun.

Party-pooper.


.

poop
 

Jeez Jeff that just ruined my whole day!;);)

Yes but it still hurts.

Great concept.

I agree Greg. I think, for many, it's more fun to bitch than try to get resolution. While Legendary certainly has some issues that look to be far more important/serious than potentially a few extra dollars on shipping and handling, I feel I must at least put in a good word for Doug and gang concerning shipping charges. The few times I thought mine were out of whack and called Doug (or Legendary otherwise) I have always been taken care of as to what I expected. They have always been very accommodating operationally speaking. I would be remiss if I didn't at least say they have always taken care of my concerns to my satisfaction. I personally like all of the folks I know at Legendary and hope the whole debacle of indictments and court cases will be over with in the near term (even though I know that probably won't happen) and we can get back to the great hobby of collecting our little gems. I also appreciate the fact the authorities are continuing to have an eye on the hobby. Long story short, Legendary/Mastro has always been one of my favorite auction houses and have always bent over backwards to help me. (again, I realize the other issues at hand and if bad stuff took place, well, that will be taken care of too)

Condition problems. Nonetheless, an interesting team.

Gary,

I very much like that CDV, great early team picture. The presence of Hardy Richardson is what I most like about it. Enjoy it!

+1

Legendary
 

Leon, well said.

I too, have only good things to say about Legendary/Mastro. I'm sure if you called their office, and questioned the shipping fee, they can at least review the amount for you. It's possible it may have been a computer error.

In 2007, when I won the Lionel Carter E90-2 set from Mastro, I asked Doug Allen as to why the cards weren't slabbed by SGC or pedigreed with Lionel's name. They were being sold raw. He told me that it may have been an oversight, and Mastro sent the entire set to SGC for me to have each card graded and pedigreed at no cost! That is great customer service in my book!

Tony

Agreed that Doug always takes care of things when called - all you've said mirrors my experiences with Doug/Legendary. I enjoy their auctions, I respect the huge concerns that some have, and I'll keep bidding.

The issue is not their customer service, and not just Legendary, but rather that almost all auction houses send out invoices with ridiculous shipping charges. I could list several that have sent such invoices, just as blatantly ridiculous, and that I've called and gotten quick resolution. So what? It's still an unnecessary hassle for BOTH sides. Eliminate this problem, save some money on processing complaints, use that money to improve your company...unless the extra shipping is being construed as a revenue area. I'm guessing the lost customers and complaint-processing probably kills such extra revenue.

When you have hard revenue at odds with intangibles such as loss of customers and increased cost of processing complaints, it usually means that at least two different departments are involved, with conflicting goals. I ran into this for 30 years working for large US companies - it's a rampant problem.

If an auction house is using software to do the shipping calculations, and it's coming up with ludicrous estimates, then they should consider replacing their software (not just Legendary, but apparently all of them). Seriously, $19.86 to ship a single 7X9 $210 photo is ridiculous, and such a number, if spit out by a computer program, would have me checking out the code. There could easily be a subroutine to use size, weight, and value to calculate a 'reasonable' number, and if that number varies by more than X% from the calculated actual, add it to an exception report.

Again, not just Legendary. I've gotten tired of calling auction houses over high shipping, and won't be doing it as often (if at all). Instead, I factor the extra shipping into my bidding - in this case, it did not matter because I got what I considered to be a great deal. Also, Legendary shipping is not generally so out-of-line when lots are heavier and more valuable.

Finally, I realize that Legendary has bigger things on their plate, and that the telephone or email is the way to solve the problem at the moment.

Okay, rip my post apart :)

+1 - my favorite affordable item in the auction. Really hem'd and haw'd about bidding on that one.

While that is good customer service, you did spend a Decent amount of money on, like a dozen cards. I'm also sure Legendary gets a great grading deal, so it wasn't a big deal on their part.

Just saying.

Scott...i agree with you 100%. Why should i have to call in the first place?

Not to say this is the case...but...if a business decides to overcharge everyone by 5%(arbitrary #) and when someone complains...they say "oops...must have been a glitch in the computer system!". And the mass majority who dont complain...get screwed. Not good business practice imo.

These auction houses send out literally thousands of items a year, do they not get some sort of discount with their shipping service?

Scott-how are your Legendary winnings typically shipped? When you go into the FedEx or UPS web site, what does it come up with for shipping costs?

Peter-what did you buy and what were the shipping costs? You are obviously incensed at your treatment but you have provided no details as to what the issue actually is.

Jake-that seems to be a question for Bob. Is the auction house program that calculates shipping using their corporate rate or the rate that you or I walking in off the street would pay? I would hope that it is the former.

I wouldnt say im incensed at my treatment...i guess when you pay 14g's for a card...then i see the 19.5%bp...then 100 for shipping...it just seems excessive to me...i presume its mainly for insurance?!

It's partially the insurance:

Wouldn't they have a blanket policy that covers anything they ship?

Most likely, but they still have to pay for the blanket policy itself. In hindsight I shouldn't have made my comment about high shipping costs, as in reality, they weren't that high....it just seemed high to me at the time and someone made a comment about me getting special charges, which I don't think I generally do.
As someone who co-runs a small auction house I can safely say that we are happy to just pay for all of our shipping costs with the shipping/insurance we charge. I doubt any company in our industry is getting rich off of the shipping...and no, that doesn't mean I like to be overcharged, I just think, in retrospect, this matter is insignificant compared to other things going on in the hobby. If there is an issue with shipping on an invoice it's best to contact the company you are doing business with and try to get it worked out. If you can't, and you don't like the situation enough, then don't bid with that company anymore (this doesn't have to specifically do with only Legendary). best regards and happy collecting!!

+1

I recently shipped a baseball I sold for $2,000 to a fellow board member. With priority shipping, insurance, and delivery confirmation shipping costs came close to $40. It gets expensive even at the post office.

Postal insurance is over 1% of the value of the items shipped, unless you go registered mail. If you do it takes forever for packages to get anywhere. Adam, if you won $500 worth of cards and they were shipped in a priority mail box the insurance and shipping would probably be over $10 if it was the smallest box and over $20 if it was a bigger box.

I don't remember, but I generally win a bit more when I bid with them, so the packages are justifiably larger than this one should be. I'll re-post here after it arrives.

Jay, that is correct if the auction house is paying for insurance via the USPS. However, any business can purchase a policy that covers shipping on a blanket basis, not item by item, under any carrier that provides delivery proof [USPS, Fed Ex, UPS, etc.]. No well-run merchant would spend money per item when a blanket policy would provide the same coverage for a far lesser price, unless a decision has been made to externalize the costs. However, Fed Ex Ground's insurance [its Declared Value surcharge] is not the rate stated in the post in this thread--it changes every $100 [I just ran a cost analysis with Fed Ex on its web site to ship from LA to NYC on a 1# package at values from $100 to $1,000 and it doesn't match those figures]. What I suspect is really going on is one of two things:

(1) The auction house is externalizing the cost of the insurance by using a formula that doesn't represent actual costs of insurance actually purchased; or

(2) The auction house is externalizing a flat cost of a blanket insurance policy by utilizing a formula in its cost accounting.

Neither is per se "good" or "bad" in and of itself, but both are strategies designed to externalize a cost that may be non-existent or internal and unrelated to the rate charged. Now, whether that cost is real or not depends on the precise nature of the coverage that the auction house has. Normally, a policy that covers the consignments while in the hands of the auction house will either have a bulit-in shipping coverage or a rider that covers it for a separate flat fee.

I for one honestly believe this is a source of revenue for the auction house, unless someone has direct proof otherwise I'm still gonna believe it.

Adam-I'm sure they have blanket coverage and are just using the third party calculators to come up with a reasonable charge. Their actual cost should be less, after allocating some pro rata share of the policy cost, but when you add in the cost of running the shipping department, including materials and labor, I would guess that they are not getting rich on what they charge for the shipping. My guess is that they are just trying to break even on the whole shipping process. If they can achieve this then the roughly 20% buyers premium covers the cost of running the rest of the auction house and yields whatever profit there is. This profit must come out of the buyer's premium since very few consignors pay consignment fees(many auction houses offer negative consignment fees).

I've never sold through Legendary, but according to their website they have a 15% consignment fee.

For comparison SCP charged me around $23 for a decent sized framed piece and one card. The total value was around 700. It was shipped UPS with Signatute including insurance.

I didn't bidded on this recent Legendary auction. I am worry I won't be able to receive my items after I paid in full due to their recent lawsuit results. Am I worrying too much?

Yes

Matthew

You feel there is a risk that we will not receive items paid for?

Matthew

Sorry, strike that. I spoke incorrectly.