How Much is too Much Shipping Charges- Auction Houses

[keithsky]

The whole problem with the shipping costs I find with auction houses is you don't know what they will charge for shipping till you get the invoice. It's easy to say just allow for it but you never know. I have won a single autographed bat from different auction houses for around 100-150.00 or so and prices ranged from 8.00 to 25.00 for shipping so there is to wide of a range to try and figure what it's going to be. Some houses are good if you ask them to lower it others not. I find it's just another way to make a few more bucks off ya. Granted there is cost for a guy to package it but with a 20% sellers fee and 20% buyers fee there should be enough there to charge a reasonable amount for shipping. On a 300.00 item I had one place charge me 35.00 for shipping my item. Never bidded again there. You can try and guess what it will be but chances are it will be way more than what you figured.

[chipperhank44]

Yeah, I agree. Shipping is all over the place with auction houses. The best you can do IMO is to assume an exorbitant amount. If they charge you less, that's a win. If they charge you an exorbitant amount.....at least you accounted for it.

Trying to get a pre-auction shipping estimate is impossible, so you're really at the mercy of your own educated guess.

I guess my rationale is: It's much harder to be disappointed when you assume the worst...

[ibuysportsephemera]

Thanks for the responses guys...to be clear, I do assume the worst when bidding.

I am more curious if all auction houses do it and at what point you get so fed up that you stop bidding with that particular house.

Jeff

[jcmtiger]

This comes up almost every time an auction ends. I guess you have to expect high shipping charges on most auctions. Bidders probably make out better when they buy high priced items.

Joe

[ibuysportsephemera]

Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice shame on me. Last night, I won a $15 program from Mears. They are charging me $14.95 (including $2 of meaningless insurance) for shipping. I think that I will stick to eBay going forward. At least the shipping costs are advertised and there is recourse for items that are not as described.

Jeff G@rf!nkel

[keithsky]

What gets me about the 2.00 insurance they charged you is insurance is FREE with UPS, FEDEX up to 100.00 and now the PO up to 50.00 with them so the 2.00 is a total ripoff. I would contact them and complain that they are ripping you off since your item only cost 15.00 there should be NO cost for insurance.

[earlywynnfan]

I'll let MEARS defend themselves on this one, but I must share that I was speaking about shipping insurance with another company this past summer, and they said that their insurance company makes certain shipping policies mandatory, including postal insurance. Now, obviously some common sense would help, but we all know that there's way too little common sense out there.

Ken