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djs127 writes about packaging
I bought some Orange Free State stamps a couple of years ago from a guy in Britain. He had good feedback, so I was amazed when the stamps came to me in a small envelope, just flopping around freely inside. Two of them were damaged. I got my money back, and never purchased from him again. I didn't leave any feedback though, as he communicated well.
In purchasing large collections, I end up with a lot of ratty binders. The cardboard inside most of those is quite thin but almost as strong as wood. I cut those up, place the stamps in a 102, and then tape the 102 to the cardboard. I always place the cardboard side to the front of the envelope, as cancellers in Canada can sometimes hit with some force.
In using two pieces of typical cardboard, I was usually below the weight limitation, but in Canada, the letter must be 5mm or less in thickness to qualify for for the Standard Letter service of 51-Cents for up to 30g and 89-Cents for up to 50g. After 50g of thicker than 5mm, it must move Other Lettermail at $1.05 for up to 100g.
On my first big purchase of a collection, I started throwing everything out, including old glassines, small cardboard backings and old cardboard black Vario-type pages. My wife freaked out about the waste and started putting together all of the packages for mailing for me. I waste nothing nowdays and have saved money recycling everything.
Many of my feedbacks have pointed out how good my packaging is, which is a real testament to my wife's insistance to recycle.
Postage Rates I am always struggling with finding the balance between a low postage rate, and covering some of Ebay and Paypal flat-fees, as well as costs for envelopes etc. In always try and start my auctions around the 99-cent mark and tried to have very low shipping prices. But now, with the traffic on Ebay generally declining, I often do not get more than 1 or 2 bids on an item. If I don't use the postage to cover the listing fee and the flat fee from Paypal, I end up losing money, and that is not even factoring in the actual cost of me purchasing the item itself.
For postage, I now generally sit at Canada $1.25, USA $1.75 and International $2.25. But, in most cases, I never charge anything extra for additional auction purchases. Unfortunately, this incentive generally does not pay off for me though. Probably 75% of my buyers, only purchase 1 item at a time. Strangely, a lot of them will purchase 1 item from my store, then another item 3 weeks later, and another again after that. They could have saved themselves a lot of money if they purchased everything together.
DELCAMPE
When I discovered Delcampe about 6 months ago, I was thrilled, and figured that it was the solution to my growing frustration, and diminishing profits from Ebay. Unfortunately, so far it has proven to be less than successful. Delcampe is great, in that you as a seller pay nothing until the item sells. You can also automatically renew an unsold auction. You can set it, so it will renew up to 99 times. That means stuff sits on Delcampe for almost 2 years, and a seller does not have to do anything during that time. That is why Delcampe has over 3 million Philatelic Items on the go right now. It is very difficult to sell stuff there, because it is hard to get people to even look at your items.
I am considering giving it another try in the near future. As 80% of Delcampe's buyer seem to be in Europe, I am developing a multilingual listing, which will be in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. I think that that will make a big difference. Delcampe is aligned with Moneybookers, which is the equivalent here to Paypal. I have had a lot of problems getting my account to work there though. I have some money in my account, but can't seem to get at it, and they are as unresponisve as Paypal is. I have purchased some stuff from Delcampe, but again ran into trouble with Moneybookers. Fortunately the few dealers I have dealt with so far were understanding and helpful (and French!!).
Iomoon
Are there many Volcano collectors out there. Everytime I look at your posted pictures of your items, I find that I am drawn towards your collecting interest. I am trying to develop a thematic collection based on Medieval Ages topics, but I am not sure my heart is in it. Time will tell I guess.
All the best,
Brad
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on Jan-07-07
at 23:51:11 PST
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on Jan-07-07
at 22:43:25 PST
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on Jan-07-07
at 10:40:06 PST
on Jan-06-07
at 20:13:45 PST
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