How do sellers ship for so cheap in Australia ???

[99office]

How do so many Australian sellers ship for so cheap? They sell items that will not fit in a letter (thicker than 20mm) for way cheaper than the cheapest Australia post contract parcel rates.

For example, search ebay for "USB car charger", select "Australia Only" in location, and there are heaps of people selling chargers (including shipping) between $2.50 and $4.00. HOW DO THEY DO IT?? Do they just sent it in a letter, and hope no one checks it is thicker than 20mm? All those items are way thicker than 20mm

[lyndal1838]

Why do you need to know?   You have presumably received the item that you ordered at the price that you wanted to pay.

How or why the seller sold and posted for that amount is surely up to them.

It could have been a loss leader where the seller hoped that you may buy other items from him.

[heihachi_73]

"6) Some big ebay sellers ship the products themselves believe it or not. I learnt of this at PESA internet conference. if your doing millions in shipping each year why give it to a courier."

I do this myself on the odd occasion, it's far cheaper to get the next train around the city than pay Parcel/Express Post costs! And unlike Australia Post which takes every single day off when possible and runs the bare minimum hours to be legally defined as a business day, trains actually run on weekends and public holidays. In fact even buses do, and in Melbourne no-one ever catches a bus because it's usually an hour to the next because the timetables were seemingly last updated in around 1945!

[lyndal1838]

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@heihachi_73 wrote:
And unlike Australia Post which takes every single day off when possible and runs the bare minimum hours to be legally defined as a business day, trains actually run on weekends and public holidays. In fact even buses do, and in Melbourne no-one ever catches a bus because it's usually an hour to the next because the timetables were seemingly last updated in around 1945!

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Are you suggesting that the AP contractors and couriers who work 14 hours a day are working the bare minimum hours to be called a business?

And AP contractors do work on Saturdays.  If the customer is prepared to pay a premium AP couriers will even work weekends and holidays but most customers are not willing to pay for that service.

[saarzi]

I send almost all my tops for $2.10 (large letter, under 250gms) or $1.40 (large letter under 150gms).
I use large letter sized flat tough bags or a smaller more rigid envelope I found online to keep the tops flat and under 2cms thick.

I buy in bulk so tough bags and the others cost about 15cents each.

Sometimes I add signature delivery - still cheaper than a parcel.

Thats not cheaper than usual... thats how much it costs...

[saarzi]

Soz, my post above was in reply to you, not Syd stock 😄

[heihachi_73]

Not quite - I know the AP posties, couriers, truck drivers and the like are operating as many hours possible...

* Points to the Australia Post shop, which is currently closed and in complete darkness as of 6:09PM while the rest of Eastland Shopping Centre is still open, being that it is late night shopping tonight and tomorrow night).

Checking elsewhere, nope, Mitcham Post Office is closed too, as is Ringwood (Bedford Rd) LPO, as is Heathwood, Ringwood North, Ringwood East, Vermont, Vermont South, Forest Hill, Blackburn, Blackburn South, Blackburn North, Laburnum, Box Hill, Burnt Bridge, Heathmont, Croydon, Croydon Hills, Croydon South, Mooroolbark, Chirnside Park, Lilydale, Mount Evelyn, Montrose, Kilsyth, Ferntree Gully, Belgrave, Bayswater, Boronia... Shock horror, Croydon North LPO is apparently open seven days and until 7PM on Thursdays!!!!! Unfortunately I didn't make a cent today so nothing to send anyway.

[*tippy*toes*]

My local PO is open from 6.45am to 6pm weekdays and 7-11am Saturdays. I work full time and have no problems getting there during their opening hours. Do you expect PO's to be open 24 hours? If you do, why don't you open a PO and operate it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What's that? You need sleep and time at home? Don't they deserve that luxury too? If Aust Post bother you that much, you can always use a different option. There are plenty around. No guarantee they'll be reliable though.

[heihachi_73]

You must be lucky. Unfortunately, most post offices around here (east suburban Melbourne) are 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, with Saturdays being either 9-1 or not open at all, and closed all day Sunday like 1980s Adelaide - if they actually stayed open until 6 every day it would be an absolute luxury!

If Australia Post shops (as in, the real post offices, not LPOs, general stores or whatever) were open even 12 hours a day it would be a million times better. Either that, or give the supermarkets a few of their self-service terminals, they are already practically identical to the ones used inside Coles and Kmart. Speaking of Coles, if they can manage to stay open from 7AM to midnight in almost every single store in the country, surely Australia Post shops can stay open later than 5 o'clock in the afternoon. LPOs and the like can keep their "family-friendly" hours as much as they want, just like a small IGA can open until 7 five nights and be closed all weekend. Australia Post as a company is not a tiny family business working the same shift day in and day out struggling to make a few quid every day, they are a multi-billion dollar corporation backed by the Australian Government (albeit leaking money like a sieve).

As for opening up my own post office, where can I sign up? I would love to start a rival mail service, but our lovely hammer-and-sickle comrades in parliament made sure that there can only be one mail service in this country by making it illegal (or near-impossible) to compete with the Australia Post under the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989.

Note that I mean "mail" as in letters rather than parcels. Just about everything I send falls under the large letter category except for video tapes - because of course media mail doesn't exist in this country. No-one ever pays parcel post prices on top of a second hand DVD or game they can get at a bottom-feeder like Cash Converters with no postage costs (good luck finding a disc that isn't completely ruined though, or missing entirely for that matter!), or four times the postage price to send via a rival postal company or courier, nor would I give out free parcel post on such low-value items either. The $8.25 prepaid satchel groups on eBay also give me a good laugh, I have to admit. "What's that, $2.99 Buy It Now? Ahhh, eight-twenty-five postage, never mind, hahahaha!"

[*tippy*toes*]

It's actually my LPO that has the extended trading hours. The main PO is 9-5.....although I did notice recently they are now open Saturday mornings from around 9 to 1 I think. They have skeleton staff on, so you still have to wait an hour to be searved. My LPO saw a market in the extended trading hours, catering to the miners and other shift workers. It has most certainly paid off for them. Their busiest times are first thing in the morning and last thing of a night.

What I like even more about them compared to the main one is, they have a collection at 5pm, then they come back at 6.10pm to do a second collection. So that means, even if you post at 5.45pm, your parcel is still going out that day. They don't advertise that, I overheard them telling someone. Takes the pressure off in the afternoon if I have a lot of things to package thinking I had to get them there by 5.

I think the difference between the PO's and the supermarkets is, the supermarkets employ a lot of young people which cost much less to pay. Therefore they can stay open a lot longer due to the much lower wages.

[247newdeals]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

Why do you need to know?   You have presumably received the item that you ordered at the price that you wanted to pay.

How or why the seller sold and posted for that amount is surely up to them.

It could have been a loss leader where the seller hoped that you may buy other items from him.

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I think the questions is 'why would we NOT want to know?' this is a seller forum and knowing how other sellers operate is important to enabling us to make a good decision on what stock we should and should not sell. It also highlights some of the pressure Ebay sellers are put under. I do not understand why you seem to have a problem with the question.