Free post or not free post that is the question....

[grannyblythe]

Hi,

I usually put the postage as additional, personally I would prefer to buy from someone who combined postage rather than buy items that have postage included in the price.

I recently discovered that you have to go into your store settings to allow buyers to combine postage, I had been wondering why this hadn't been happening for me as I try to list groupings of authors so that I could possibly increase sales.

I have been here selling again since July, I didn't know you had to do this, what a waste of possible sales!

My question is, am I alone in this?

Should I be listing my items with the postage included in the price, which works better?

Jenny

[digital*ghost · Accepted solution]

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@grannyblythe wrote:

which works better?

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There is no one postage model that is certain to work better for someone as it depends on a lot of different factors, most particularly who your target market is, but there are multiple ways you can approach it.

If you're selling to bargain hunters whose priority is to get the best deal possible, separate postage often works better because they will be trying to maximise the cost-effectiveness of the postage through buying multiple items. 

If you're selling items where people rarely - if ever - purchase more than one in any given transaction, free postage can work because there's nothing to gain by having separate postage costs (from the buyer's perspective). 

These are two examples, but are by no means the only situations where postage can factor in to a buyer's purchase decision.

I personally do flat rate postage - one separate postage amount, $0 extra for all additional items. This works for me because I sell lower value items that are small and light enough to usually mean several can be posted at the same price, and having the postage cost built into the item price would nearly double some of my prices, making them look really expensive. Often people will still look to maximise the cost-effectiveness of my postage charge, and I have found myself spending $30 on postage for an order where only around $3 was paid by the buyer, but that also means the order was so large I can more than afford to do so. 

The other option is free postage, but setting up multiple item discounts through promotions manager, either a percentage or dollar amount discount for each additional item purchased.

If having separate postage, I do recommend having postage rates set up to automatically apply in the cart or at point of purchase wherever possible, rather than asking buyers to request an invoice before paying - this will make the buying process so much simpler for buyers and is more ecouraging for multiple item orders as well. 

The best thing to do is experiment a bit with different postage strategies and see which one works best overall - I see you have a bit over 350 listings currently, I'd probably test out one strategy and let it run for at least 2 weeks on around a third of the listings. 

[grannyblythe]

Some interesting ideas to work with! Thank you, I will have to look into the cart set-up, I am just getting my bearings again, many things have changed since I last listed here.
Jenny

[chameleon54]

Another simple way to handle it is to charge postage seperately, but have a note on your listings saying you will combine postage for multiple purchases. This works well with larger items where postage can be a signifigant part of the transaction cost. 

It does mean that buyers will often buy multiple items and pay for them, just expecting that you will refund the excess postage, rather than waiting for you to send a combined invoice. This creates a few extra small paypal fees for each purchase but if your profit margins are reasonable it pays to just cover those yourself and be thankful for the larger initial sale or you can just add them to the buyers postage bill. Your choice..

I use this system and send buyers a simple message each time I refund as follows

" Thankyou for your purchase, $XX.XX  dollars refunded to your paypal acc. for combined postage, mailed today "

This covers buyers who may not be familiar with the icons for refunds etc. and is well recieved by many buyers. The briefness of the  message works well for those who use their mobile phones for everything and busy people who just want to buy stuff and are not looking for a new penpal. ( many of my clients are like this ) 

[chameleon54]

Granny hope you don't mind these thoughts, 

I just took a quick look at your listings and noted most where books. I,m not sure if you are buying these in to sell or simply selling your own books once read. The very common, big name novels and Michelle Bridges type books are everywhere and so are very low value and competing with a huge number of other sellers. This means profit margins are slim and turnover slow.

With ebay, the secret to success for small sellers is to steer clear of common stuff and specialise in unique items. Books are no different. There is A LOT of money to be made with selling books, but it is more centred around obscure, non fiction titles. These can still be purchased for a few dollars, but sell for anything from $20 to hundreds of dollars for rare collectible items. Often the more obscure the title, the better it sells. 

Examples are things such as " indigenous soldiers in the WW1 " or " Historic Paddlesteamers of the River Murray " or " Training Llamas as pack animals "

Any one of these titles would sell quickly for $25 or $30 for small paperbacks and more for glossy hard covers.

[grannyblythe]

Hi,

I mostly sell stuff I have read and sell so that I can buy more :0)

Occasionally I will spot something while I am looking for new stuff to read that would sell so I will pick that up too.

I don't think there is a huge profit to made selling books any more a lot of online bookshops that can offer free postage and write it off with their tax as expenses, would take up most of the profit margins I reckon, over hobby sellers like me.

I had three bookshelves full of cookbooks and was fast running out of room so I have put a lot of those up here and the local op shops made a real killing when I did a major culling last year.

I am a bit of a hoarder, I have some cool ornaments and such that I want to list but then I get all attached all over again and can't do it :0)

Taking photo's of nick nacks is a bit of an effort but is definitely on my to do list this year.

Jenny