Shopsmith Forums

paulmcohen wrote:Between $4 a gallon for gas, having to drive to the post office, and the increase in shipping costs they are no so unreasonable especially for Shopsmith stuff which tends to be heavy. Shopsmith charges a minimum of $7 for shipping even on a single screw which may seem unreasonable but it covers the human cost of doing the shipping.

That's OKAY. Just don't try to recoup total overhead costs from each and every customer that you deal with. If it costs $7 to ship a screw, you're either paying the shipping department to much money or your profit margin is too high.

Before you accountants jump all over me, I know that "profit" does not go on the t-chart as an element of "cost".

[quote="dusty"]I have no way of knowing the answers to your questions regarding Shopsmith's marketing approach BUT does it make a difference. If you need it and the price is right - bid on it.

As for ghost bidding]

Ghost bidding is someone bidding just to rase the bid price, either the lister using different accounts or someone connected with the original listing person.

This is common in live auctions but not legal in the Ebay world.

RICK

I have both bought & sold many Shopsmith parts & other things on Ebay. My goal is not to make any money on shipping, but also not to lose either, but shipping stuff is expensive, especially when you consider the cost of shipping materials & gas.

I try to re-use boxes & packing stuff as much as possible, but I really don't add for my vehicle expense or time spent, but I know there are still a few sellers who charge what seems a ridiculous ship fee, but if they're a business, they really do need to charge for time & fuel.

I don't part out machines, but rather rebuild & re-sell the basic unit & either keep the extra accessories if I don't have them, or sell them off to feed my tool addiction. I usually start off the auction at $.99 with no reserve & let the part price go wherever it does & I'm sometimes amazed that used parts can sell for nearly as much as new, and in a few cases, more than new.

I suppose on parts that don't really wear out, they're pretty much as good as new, and there's no back order wait, so I guess that's why sometimes prices hold up so much.

As to shill (ghost) bidding, I'm sure there can be some of that, but considering the immense size of the Ebay marketplace, there's probably always enough bidders to drive the price to the going rate. For example, if you start a Shopsmith Ringmaster auction at $.99, there are enough Smithies out there wanting it that it's not going to sell for $5 or $50 or even $100 because at those prices lots of us will jump in. I find from my 700 plus transactions that ebay has become a good barometer for product values. Prices are set by what a willing buyer will spend in a large marketplace.

And now I've been rambling enough, so, bye.

I must tell all of you that shipping is very, very expensive. I sell and ship SS items and the freight costs are extremely high. For example, I shipped a dust collector yesterday. The assmbly was taken apart to go neatly into 2 boxes. The UPS fee -$ 108. Bandsaws, jointers and headstocks are usually $60-70 to ship. I won't even mess with the heavy planers anymore. They are impossible.

Parts that can go into the USPS fixed rate boxes are best because you always know the cost up front. As far as for buying a small item and paying $7 for shipping - that is the standard. Shopsmith uses a minimum as well. There's is $ 6.99.

One of the most important things that everyone always omits - Ebay charges 9% on both the sales price of the item AND THE SHIPPING CHARGE. That is not fair but it is how they do it.

bhurley wrote:I must tell all of you that shipping is very, very expensive. I sell and ship SS items and the freight costs are extremely high. For example, I shipped a dust collector yesterday. The assmbly was taken apart to go neatly into 2 boxes. The UPS fee -$ 108. Bandsaws, jointers and headstocks are usually $60-70 to ship. I won't even mess with the heavy planers anymore. They are impossible.

Parts that can go into the USPS fixed rate boxes are best because you always know the cost up front. As far as for buying a small item and paying $7 for shipping - that is the standard. Shopsmith uses a minimum as well. There's is $ 6.99.

One of the most important things that everyone always omits - Ebay charges 9% on both the sales price of the item AND THE SHIPPING CHARGE. That is not fair but it is how they do it.

EBay provides a service and for that service they charge a fee. The barber cuts your hair and for that service he/she charges a fee. This is not unusual. This is what makes the world go around.

In this free enterprise system the customer has a decision to make. Is the fee acceptable or is it too much to pay. The buyer decides. It is as simple as that.

I much prefer garage sales. The fees are always right.

I believe that shipping should be a pass-through. They (eBay) want to take 9% of the cost of shipping and then ask the buyer in the Feedback questions if the sellers shipping charges were too high. ????

They certainly don't publish it to the buyers that they are taking this percentage.

bhurley wrote:I believe that shipping should be a pass-through. They (eBay) want to take 9% of the cost of shipping and then ask the buyer in the Feedback questions if the sellers shipping charges were too high. ????

They certainly don't publish it to the buyers that they are taking this percentage.

Yeah, that definitely sucks. But I can also understand why they had to start doing it. There were high-dollar items being listed with something like a $0.99 "Buy-It-Now" price, with very high "shipping" charges. People were bypassing the final auction value fees by making that auction price unrealistically low and the shipping price unrealistically high to make up the difference.

I accept the ebay fees because It's the cost of doing business in that marketplace. There's no way I'd have access to such a large pool of potential of buyers (or vendors) nationwide.

If you live in a small to mid sized town in the middle of nowhere, it allows you to buy & sell things that simply aren't generally available close to home.

If you're in a large, populous metro area with a lot of potential buyers within driving distance, Craigslist can be a valuable tool, but here in Central WI, for example, there's not much access to the kinds of things I putz with, so Ebay works.

As to charging a fee on shipping, that was a response to sellers sidestepping selling fees with ridiculous shipping fees. I suppose if you owned Ebay (wouldn't that be sweet) & you found people dodging the fees you charged, you'd do the same thing.

trainguytom wrote: As to charging a fee on shipping, that was a response to sellers sidestepping selling fees with ridiculous shipping fees. I suppose if you owned Ebay (wouldn't that be sweet) & you found people dodging the fees you charged, you'd do the same thing.

If you use eBay to print the mailing label with postage they discount the shipping to make up charging 9% on shipping, I just learned this last week and it is fair to everyone.

That is true for the USPS. The majority of the money I spend for shipping goes the the UPS store. There's no discount there.