by Claire
After yesterday’s thoughts on incentives and rewards, I want to share a small funny. I went to the post office to mail the items I sold on ebay. It had been quite some time since I used the services of the post office. I walked up to the counter and presented my already packaged item and asked that it be shipped by priority mail. On cue, the postal worker went into a laundry list of extra services I could pay for all related to making sure the item arrived. 75 cents for this, $1.50 for that–and yes, I know the postal service is in a bad, bad financial place–but inside my brain (and okay, maybe a little out loud too. If the postal worker heard me, she didn’t respond), I said “how about you do what you are supposed to do without my giving you more money? You provide a service of getting things to their destination so why do I need to pay more money to guarantee that the postal system do its job? I don’t know why that rubbed me in such a weird way. I envisioned a client having to pay me more money to make sure I file the appropriate documents in their cases. “For an extra $200, I’ll make sure to do this by the correct deadline.” Backwards thinking to me it seems! I didn’t spend a lot of time bickering in my own mind over this but it DID remind me of this new mentality of our culture. Give more “stuff” to people for doing what they should already be doing and that all relates to the financial difficulties we now face.
Born and raised in Texas. I’ve at least driven through every state in the US courtesy of a roadtrip loving Dad.
I’m single with two children and a good parenting relationship with their father.
I am a “life is just half full of funny” kinda gal. Humor is my saving grace and I am thankful for it every single day. I have a strong Catholic faith and am thankful for that foundation.
I read a lot for a living but still enjoy a good book. I love biographies but in recent years have found the need for fun fictional books–sadly, for a long time I just didn’t enjoy fiction!
I love live theatre of any kind–from local productions to Broadway.
I love to scrapbook and pride myself in my kids’ albums.
I love being a mom but also love my career. I’m blessed to have found a balance allowing me to be at everything my kids need and want me to be at–while also having a career.
Favorite Quotes: Well behaved women rarely make history.
Behold the turtle. He makes progress only when he sticks his neck out. -James Bryant Conant
If you end up selling more on ebay, its with learning how to use the preprinted shipping right from home. When you do, you get free tracking on your packages. I don’t buy fancy labels, I print mine right on regular white printing paper, trim it down and tape it fully on my packages. Plus that way you don’t have to stand in line at the post office.
That’s a GREAT idea. Don’t even need anything fancy, just tape it on!
Just remember that Ebay charges a small fee when you print labels from their site or through paypal.
I ship through ebay every day for work and have never noticed any extra fee’s? In fact delivery confirmation was cheaper when printing online, than going to the post office.
This makes me think of my coworker who seems to need extra money to be motivated to do his job he’s already paid hourly to do. And my boss enables it by giving him cash. Drives me nuts!!
Also the recent USPS price increases are painful! What cost me $3.00 to ship last Friday, cost me $9.35 to ship (same method! same item/weight!) on Monday. Boo!
Those USPS workers have sure been trained to upsell. Drives me crazy, too.
Hahahaha! True enough. Or warranties. Those bother me. So if I buy this stereo from you and it breaks tomorrow becuase you did a crap job, I can’t return it or have you fix it? Nope. You have to buy a warranty. Which means I’ve got to pay extra to ensure that what I buy won’t just break immeidately and leave me high and dry. Why not do a good job of making your products and accept responsibilty when they fall apart?! Why do I have to pay extra to make you take responsibility when they fall apart?! How about just doing a great job with the design/manufacture?!
To a certain extent, I feel the same way about tipping. Why should I be expected to pay you more to do the job you’re already getting paid to do, and to do it well? If you don’t do well, your boss should be disciplining you, and I shouldn’t have to give you extra money.
But, I do understand that tipping is a very normal part of our culture, and to a certain extent is expected. So, if you do a great job, I’ll tip you well, but if you do a crappy job, don’t expect much of anything. If you want tips, work for them, don’t expect them.
I get that, but remember that in a lot (most) cases the server isn’t even making minimum wage, and if you don’t tip, the most their employer will pay them is minimum wage. It’a a tough job, with screwy compensation.
Claire, if you’re serious about selling on line, you probably need to get organized. I don’t know what items you’re selling but you may need to stock the appropriate boxes / envelopes and (ideally) dedicate even a small space to this.
I sold a lot of teaching books last year. I bought a bunch of A4 envelopes. I printed out the address labels myself. Amazon France always advertises 2.99 euros shipping per book. I found that most of mine cost 3.49!
As you know I’m in Europe (France) so I’m not sure how the post office works in the US these days. Here, you can choose to stand on a long line to deal with a human or go to a machine. A postal employee showed me how to use the machine, and now I ALWAYS go to a machine, it’s a HUGE time saver.
This said, I was selling the same type of items, ie books. If you’re selling different sorts of things, I get that it can get more complicated. But if there is an automated alternative there, it would probably go much, much faster.
Also, since I was only selling books, I never had to deal with insurance. If you’re selling expensive items, maybe you do.
But if this is going to be an ongoing thing for you, I would suggest that you give some thought as to how to “streamline” operations.
Best of luck, as always!
I would be careful with using a machine here in the US. I had been using it for sending everything then right before Christmas I needed to send something priority and the machine said it would cost $30 so I went inside and they only charged me $20 for the exact same service. I asked about it and the employee said they had people complain about that several times and he didn’t understand why it would be different. My package got there right on time and for $10 less.
PS I’m certainly not suggesting you are not organized in general, obviously, you are!
I’m just suggesting that maybe you need to get organized to do this. 🙂
Claire, I’m usually a lurker, but wanted to share my experience with selling online. I’m also annoyed by constant upselling, but wanted to let you know it may be worth the $0.75 for delivery confirmation.
I’ve had a buyer open a complaint against me as a seller, saying they never received their book. I mailed it, it just never got to them (or they scammed me, depending on how pessimistic I’m feeling when thinking about this). Since that transaction, I’ve always bought the delivery confirmation.
I know it’s the job of the postal service to deliver the package, but sometimes things do get lost in the mail, and other times your buyer is a scummy scammer. That $0.75 ensures that you get to keep the profits from your sale.
I ALWAYS get delivery confirmations on everything I sell online. I once sold a $65 textbook online and the buyer said they never received it. I had to return the money and I never got the book back. Who knows if it was really lost or I got scammed but I will never make that mistake again!
Agreed about the delivery confirmation being one upsell that’s worth it. It’s such a small proportion of your profit if you’re selling more expensive stuff that it’s definitely worth, almost it as a mini-insurance policy. Harder to justify if you’re selling cheaper stuff though.
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I had to laugh when I read this because I went to the post office to mail a scarf I had made for my daughter and a few things she forgot(like her medicine) up to shcool to her. Do I want it tracked..no..how about insurance…no…signauture required…no…I was like could you just weigh it and send it the cheapest way possible. Mind you the package was going to the same state we live in…well how about express…NO I WANT IT CHEAP. Yes people looked me then
Why is it so hard just to mail a package..or get out of a store without them trying to get me to get a cc
I can’t stand the way they push all that extra stuff on you at the PO!
I had the opposite experience the other day. I had an ebay item to ship and had it all packaged up. It was just going across town (strange that my buyer lives a few miles from me) and I had offered free shipping if the bid exceeded $100, which it did. So, I was prepared for &12.95 shipping and the delivery confirmation. The PO guy asked me if I wanted to save a bunch of money!!
He told me it was going to take “a little work” on my end. He gave me a free non-flat rate box and I re-packaged it right there. It cost me $6.60 with the delivery confirmation to send it!
I’ve never had that happen before. I think the PO workers were a little mad about the increase in prices too.
Anyways, I don’t sell but once or twice a month on eBay, but I’ve heard it’s worth it to get your own scale and ship from home.
I haven’t done a payment at the post office in so long, I can’t speak to the upselling currently, but several of those services they used to mention are a good idea when shipping ebay stuff. Tracking is essential, for example, most everyone buying on ebay is going to expect that tracking number, there is a place on the sellers control panel on ebay to paste it in. Insurance is great peace of mind. I always buy it. Signature delivery would be for certain kinds of items where privacy was a concern.