Help on postage 12 February at 11:54AM in Ebay, Auctions, Car Boot & Jumble Sales 3 replies 191 views

Jrose1927

Hello 
Looking for some advice on postage , recently had a box of plasterboard fixing bolts I sold them in 5s and 10s for around £1.49 each 
However I'm paying 61p for second class is there a cheaper way of sending screws bolts etc they don't weigh much at all and are very small 

Thanks 

martindow

Jrose1927 said:

Hello 
Looking for some advice on postage , recently had a box of plasterboard fixing bolts I sold them in 5s and 10s for around £1.49 each 
However I'm paying 61p for second class is there a cheaper way of sending screws bolts etc they don't weigh much at all and are very small 

Thanks 

I suspect these should be going as a large letter at 83p second class as 61p for a letter which needs to be under 5mm thick (LL is up to 25mm).  Both of these prices are up to 100g. 

If you risk sending with the wrong postage there could be a surcharge and a very annoyed customer.  Maybe you need to do some weighing and measuring to see if you could offer the bolts in different quantities to send a larger quantity for the same postage.

soolin

I agree with martindow , I am surprised that these meet the dimensions for a standard letter . For lightweight items though Royal Mail are the cheapest , couriers tend to only want parcel size items. 

Depending on the volume of your business you might want to look at a Royal Mail business account as there are some savings on letters and large letters depending on which service you choose. 

kangoora

Seems like you have found a small niche but it hardly looks worthwhile. It's (should be) costing you :

• 20p per Paypal transaction (5p if microtransactions enabled)
  
• 15p for Ebay 10%,
• 83p for postage you should be paying (no way will plasterboard bolts fit in regular letter which is 5mm max),
• circa 10p on small padded envelope
• 5p item costs to buy?
• 5p on printing label/ink? save a few pence by handwriting addresses (but adds time)
  
•  If you have to drive to the post office then add something for fuel etc (maybe parking?) - HMRC rate is 45p/mile.

Costs of roughly £1.38 per £1.49 sale (£1.23 for micro transactions) excluding any vehicle costs .

Actually, the mileage rate could work in your favour, if it's 2 miles roundtrip to your local PO you could claim 90p for the trip and show you are operating at a loss unless you are selling 100s/day and apportion the mileage rate at a few  pence per order, which takes your profit down to circa 8p (or 23p per item)

By skimping on postage against RM size limits (dodgy), using regular paper envelopes (insecure), using Paypal microtransactions, handwriting envelopes etc you can push up the per item profit to about 50p - 60p I'd guess?

Great if this works for you, personally I'd be considering if it was worth the time and effort, I'd want to be selling 100's day (which comes with it's own problems of extra time and effort)...........