How do sellers afford free postage on cheap, heavy books ?
Options
hubb
Posts: 2,482 Forumite
For the life of me I can't understand how people selling on Ebay managed to make any profit on selling a heavy book, with free postage that sells for around the price of the postage. How am I supposed to compete with that ? :(:(:(:(:(
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Comments
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1. Heavily subsidised non UK postal service.
2. Abusing work postal facilities.
3. Moron who does not realise they will make a loss.
Choose one.0 -
show us some examples0
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Brought a book from one of the mega sellers, can't see how it would have been small enough for a larger letter.
£2.79 free delivery.
Neither of the options in post 1 apply that I can see, they might get a discount for sending in volume but after eBay, Paypal, postage and potential returns I can't see it's worth the bother.0 -
I buy a lot of books from the big ebay sellers, average price about £2.50 and all arrive within a few days.
For example Musicmagpie have about half a million books starting at £1.29 with a feedback number of over 7m.0 -
In the case of MM they don't care about making profit on each sale, just being the cheapest so long as they are turning a profit overall, job done.
They must also benefit greatly from volume savings.
Having brought a bunch of Blu rays from MM I wouldn't shop with them again, you generally get good quality from private sellers off loading their unwanted stuff (who have a photo so you can judge the item condition) rather taking a chance on the random stuff MM sends out.
Might take you a bit longer to gain a sale OP but good clear photos of something in decent condition will appeal to may buyers who have been burnt by the mega sellers.0 -
They pay postage by weight of the whole consignment, so as long as your average weight of say 50 items is low, when you bung a phone book size thing is, it's weight is divided by 51 in the sack.Warning: any unnecessary disclaimers appearing under my posts do not bear any connection with reality, either intended, accidental or otherwise. Your statutory rights are not affected.0
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the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »Brought a book from one of the mega sellers, can't see how it would have been small enough for a larger letter.
£2.79 free delivery.
Hermes are quite cheap for shipping heavy items, in fact they charge exactly £2.79 up to 1kg.0 -
ballisticbrian wrote: »They pay postage by weight of the whole consignment, so as long as your average weight of say 50 items is low, when you bung a phone book size thing is, it's weight is divided by 51 in the sack.
If you mean Royal Mail and average weights I still don't see how they can sell a packet sized item for 2.79.0 -
If you mean Royal Mail and average weights I still don't see how they can sell a packet sized item for 2.79.Warning: any unnecessary disclaimers appearing under my posts do not bear any connection with reality, either intended, accidental or otherwise. Your statutory rights are not affected.0
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The answer to the OP's question is that no one really knows. There is probably no one answer other than that the open market is driving the price of a book delivered to your door to under £3.0
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