Why I Use FREE SHIPPING When Selling LOW END Sports Cards
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- čas přidán 25. 02. 2023
- To charge or not to charge on shipping... That is the question. Now while both options can be successful, it is ultimately up to the seller on how they want to operate.
For me, I prefer to go the free shipping route. The reason being is that my goal is to entice buyers to buy more than one card in a single order. While it may seem like you lose out on some profit by offering free shipping, if you are able to sell multiple cards in a single order, then that will add up.
When selling low end cards, it really is all about volume. You want to try and sell as many cards as possible and preferably as many cards as possible in a single order.
In this video, I talk about my reasoning as to why I choose to go with free shipping. Now there is no right or wrong choice on whether you choose to charge for shipping or not. Both ways work, it's just comes down to what your selling goals are.
Interested to see what's in the store? Here is a link to my eBay Store (affiliate link): ebay.us/fZ92MT
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DISCLAIMER: **** This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links or eBay Store link, I’ll receive a small commission. This is an additional way to help support the channel. Thank you all for your continued support!
#sportscardscollecting #lowendsportscards #sportscardflipping
Works on me, I have ordered twice from your store and both times at least 10 cards. Price points and free shipping make it super simple to pick out a lot to buy
Thanks for your purchase! I really appreciate it. As you said, it makes the decision easier for the buyer to pick out a bunch of cards to buy without having to worry about asking for a shipping discount. Thanks again!
I love buying and selling on ebay, keep the market flowing fellas!
That’s idea for pushing sales I never thought of!!! Thanks Josh! 👏🏻
Thanks! Glad you were able to find some value in it. Free shipping can help, but it does eat into the margins a bit because when I used to charge for shipping, it at least helped cover some of the fees. However, switching over to free shipping helped increased my sales as well.
Great content again bro! I also do free shipping. There is also just a psychological appeal for some reason when a buyer sees "Free Shipping." (It appeals to me when I shop anyways!) I offer 15% off 3+ cards purchased, but still don't really get a lot of multi-card orders so far. Not sure what other tactic to use, but I love your point about how Free Shipping can impact that! Keep up the good work and thanks for another solid content video bro! Most recent purchase...snagged a 530 card lot on eBay for about $113. Already flipping some of those...I love low end flipping!🤙🏻
That psychological appeal is so true! It's something that makes a buyer feel like they are saving as well. Also takes out the mental math of having to add shipping to the equation when buying lots from one buyer. I think offering promotions as you are can help. There are a couple of things that can help and it's things people may not think about... I put emphasis making accurate titles and item specifics to help increase the chances of having my listings pop up in the first page. Not sure if really works, but it can be something I can dive into in a future video.
Great information Josh!
Thanks Brad!
Super smart choice here. I’m going to try this for a bit. Setting up my eBay store for the first time actually. I have about 500 cards in inventory of players people actually know
Not a bad way to start! I found that free shipping helps a little bit, but it does eat into the profits some. However, I find that the amount I end up selling and the rate in which it sells, offset that. Good luck!
Dude... you're A GENIUS
Thank you, Ben. Glad you enjoyed the video!
I've had success both ways. However, the reason I went to free shipping is the difficulty of calculating combined shipping to be paid by the buyer, especially since you can't use fractions of ounces when having eBay calculate the combined weights. You either end up paying the difference anyway or having the buyer pay for first class for a mere 4 cards.
Both ways definitely can be successful. I charged for shipping in the beginning and was still able to make some consistent sales. I ran into the same issue as you in terms of calculating combined shipping too. Going with free shipping cuts that out. Great point, Mike!
I never used calculated shipping, only flat rate shipping which costs the same to everybody. Each additional card purchased is sent out at my cost no matter how many cards they buy. So they can buy 5 or 100 cards at $1-$2 each and still only pay 99 cent shipping. I will either use ebay standard envelope or first class package. This way, I make a profit regardless if a customer buys one or multiple cards. That combined shipping I have entices people to buy more than 1 card.
thanks for the great video
Josh love all your content homie! I had a question…do you use the auction or buy it now method?
Hi David, thanks for the comment. I'm glad you are enjoying the content and finding value in it. As for your question, I strictly use buy it now. I haven't ran an auction in a very long time.
You offer 25 percent discount if you sell 10 card or more. You can even sell all common cards. You can use variations listing for all complete set for sports cards.
These are great points you bring up. Setting up a promotion can help increase sales as well.
Hey Josh, just wondering if you’ve done or can do a video about when you made the jump to start paying to have an eBay store versus not having one and the benefits that come with it? Love the videos, just posted my first cards up today!
That's a great idea for a future video. I haven't done one yet, but I have had some people ask me that question in a few of my videos. Definitely will plan on making one on this topic soon. Thanks for the idea!
Good stuff
Yes
Question: when first starting brand new how many of my first cards should I promote or should I not promote at all?
This makes sense unless, 1 person orders 10+ cards then you lose all profit due to shipping costs
Not necessarily because you still save when someone makes a larger order. You only get charged one $0.30 transaction fee for a single order. So if someone orders 10 cards, you can save $2.70 in transaction fees. Plus you only end up paying around $0.40 a card (assuming you have to pay for first class shipping.) for shipping as opposed to paying $0.60 a card for eBay standard envelope for shipping out an individual card. So at the end of the day you still save some money. So I’m this scenario you still save $0.50 a card.
Right now, I charge shipping. I have around 1k cards listed. I will probably shift to free shipping as I get more listed.
I think both ways can be successful. Whether you charge for shipping or not. But switching over did help me make more sales. However, the margins a little bit smaller because when I use to charge for shipping it actually helped me out with the fees a little bit.
I guess I still don’t understand the $1.49 thing. If a buyer only buys that card, that’s -$.63 for the shipping and around $.50 for transaction fee which would easily bring you down to $.30ish. I understand trying to get them to order more stuff, but what if they don’t?
I do free shipping in my store, $1.08 on my auctions. Something I’m trying lately
That's a good strategy. If I did auctions, I would probably charge for shipping on that too because you don't know at what price the auction will end at.
Hi Josh how do you entice buyers to buy more than one card at a time? I offer free shipping and use standard envelope but almost all of my buyers buy a single card at a time. There just doesn’t seem to be much incentive for the buyer to purchase multiple cards if there is no combined shipping benefit. I don’t have a store and have a smaller inventory but it rarely if ever happens for me. Thanks and really enjoy your videos!
I used to get a lot of single orders when I first started, but as I started to scale up I started to get more and more multiple card orders. Free shipping makes it easier for the buyer to search your listings and pick out a bunch of cards without having to worry about calculating shipping. The price points you provide also are selling points as well. Some cards I price at a little lower than what recent comps are - especially if it is a slow moving card. I've done many listings with $1.49 to $1.99 price points. Sure if some of those cards sell individually they would most likely sell at a loss, but you'll have some buyers who will start looking at what other cards you have and if they are priced at a good price point they may buy those as well. For example, I just sold a lot of 25 cards to one buyer and a majority of the cards were priced around $1.49 to $1.99.
When you have a larger inventory, you give yourself a better chance to get those types of sales. I would say that you will probably benefit with free shipping if you plan on listing a lot of items. There's nothing wrong with charging for shipping too. When I first started, I charged for shipping initially ($0.91) and then as I started to increase the number of items in my store, I went with the free shipping route to hopefully increase the number of sales as well as increase the number of multiple card orders.
Hope this helps! Thanks for watching the videos, I really appreciate it!
I'm a seller sitting at around 1400 listings, to try and entice multiple card orders I've started to focus on sets vs listing volume. For example instead of listing a mix of cards be it different sports or years I list the same set together. Most sales will still be single purchases but you will get the collectors that buy 12 cards at a time. I listed 50 2006 topps chrome wwe listings and had a multiple card order that day when before I focused on sets listing I never had that happen. I usually try to focus on same set but it works with anything that's similar for example list all your Michael Jordans in one day or all your 2021 express lane inserts together, hope this made sense and helps!
You can offer them 25 percent off if they buy 5 or more cards
What about sales taxes?
So I've tried shipping cards for free and then doing PWE with 1 ounce shipping (.66 cents). But I found some states returned the packages to me due to having insufficent postage to cover the shipping costs. Has that happened to you? I would love to do free shipping and move things out faster, but I'm afraid a lot of cards will get shipped back to me. Also what's your lowest you'll price something? 1.50?
God bless you and Jesus loves you!
Also you mentioned a buyer buying multiple cards? What if they don't buy more?
Have you had problems with cards getting lost in the mail? I've had quite a few go missing over the last 9 months.
Yeah, I've had a few get lost in the mail, but it's a really small percentage of what I actually sell. But that's the risk you take when using Standard Envelope. It's not foolproof, but the way I see it is that because I sell low end cards in volume, I can absorb the small losses.
How do you offer eBay standard envelope while offer free shipping? I’m selling low end on eBay at a lower volume than you are
You end up paying for ESE. Just set that type of shipping in your shipping settings/policy for the card.
@@wvmikep I’ll give it a try with some of the $1 cards I have listed
You also want to make sure your dimensions and weight fall within the parameters of the standard envelope to have that option appear when making your listings.
@@wvmikep how do I provide bubble mailer with free ship if a buyer purchases 4-5 cards in one order since that won’t work with ESE
@@sogregarious 4-5 cards is fine for ESE as long as the value is below $20. Using rigid mailers, I can ship up to 14 cards, depending on their weight and thickness.
Do you ever promote your listing
I've only every done 1 promotion on my listings and that was during the NBA Finals where I did a sale on all my Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics cards. But I haven't ran a promotion since.
First1
eBay automatically combines shipping and you can’t shipping multiple cards with eBay PWE. Looks like you’re going to get screwed by free shipping
You can ship more than one card eBay standard envelope. If that's what you're referring to
eBay does combine shipping but you can adjust the weight to under 3oz and still be able to ship through PWE. I've done it many times. I use card savers for multiple card orders and am able to ship about 8 cards in a PWE because it falls under 3 oz. I've done it many times for 3 to 4 card orders no problem. You just need to change the weight when you reach the page where it confirms what you are shipping before you purchase the labels. I've talked about it very briefly in one of my standard envelope videos.
@@JoshUnboxed824 I have gone back and forth with Ebay over this and have gotta NOWWHERE!! Very frustrating when ebay tells you to ask the buyer for more money. I never did it but I've send cards for free becuase of the shipping issue. Please make a video showing step by step instructions on how to uncombine shipping when a single buyer buys more than one card that both auctions use PWE shipping. I could really use it.
Free shipping makes me buy less cards per checkout. So for me as a buyer, your free shipping reasoning would backfire on you. I'd order one card from you today and not need to add any more to that order because I can come back anytime and get another without any additional shipping charge.
I don't necessarily see that as backfiring on me. Because it if you are coming back to buy more later, you become a repeat customer. While the goal is to get buyers to buy multiple cards at once, it's not the end all be all. It's about maximizing sales. Selling low end cards is all about volume and if I can have someone come and buy cards from the store frequently, then that helps too. So in a sense, having someone continually come back to buy more is great. Having someone buy multiple cards in a single order is helpful yes, getting sales consistently is just as important.
Shout out from lodisportscards great vids
Thank you! Glad you are enjoying the content!