Jmaurer1: the reason USPS raised their prices, is to cover the nearly free packet shipping from China they are having to honor. It costs the Chinese user almost nothing to ship to the US from China, and a US user 10x as much to ship across town in the US. They have to. Their poor tracking system and loosing things for a week or more has also led me not to use them frequently in the past. I had a package disappear for over a week, 12 days I think, then suddenly reappear 1000 miles the wrong way and start on its way to me again. At least they’ve improved on the tracking. There used to be a very accurate meme about the difference between USPS fed ex and UPS.
I did request combined total from the seller when the items were in my cart, and the result was $8.12 - that is, the shipping was not combined. So, I sent him a message that included his previous reply that he does combine shipping. That is when he reduced the $8.12 to $6. I just paid that in disgust. When I saw the package had $4.06 clearly marked as the postage, I just blocked that seller. The items are fine, but the business practice is not. That is why I posted here that you need to ask for the actual price for shipping the items, not just whether the seller "combines shipping", before deciding to bid or "buy now".
It's surprising how sellers shoot themselves in the foot and lose future customers with business practices like that. Once or twice a month I'll get 2 consecutive orders (each with a shipping charge) from the same person within minutes. Or sometimes the shopping cart doesn't combine shipping and overcharges. It's obvious what happened and the solution is easy and takes just a minute or two. I refund the extra charge. It's a no-brainer. It builds good will and hopefully a repeat customer. Common sense.
Well, that’s combined shipping... just not two for price of 1. When you do them in cart, if they show single item shipping, boom, you are good. If they do not, then the seller doesn’t combine 2 for 1 shipping, but may combine for discounted shipping. if that isn’t what you want, then don’t buy them. I don’t see what is so hard a concept about it. Welcome 21 years late to eBay customer protection practice and the law of unintended consequence. Shipping is not refunded= charge lower item price and higher shipping. Combined shipping, see practice above. I wonder how you feel when you pay $4 shipping and handling and the postage shows $1.75.
Can you see the "cart" before you bid? If not, knowing an exact shipping amount is only possible by first contacting the seller. Both those methods not giving the desired information, best to grit teeth and go for it, or pass on that item.
While this is already hilarious... $30+ per car? I just bought one for $9.50 shipped! https://www.ebay.com/itm/N-Scale-Mi...243001?hash=item4d8fb14bf9:g:kYUAAOSwiolckNoV I saw someone asking for $64... for 1 car. Plus $7 shipping. Fishing for idiots I guess. https://www.ebay.com/itm/MTL-Micro-...:SlAAAOSwtxlbzGOI:sc:USPSPriority!79928!US!-1
I'm always looking for SP Overnight cars myself and I saw the first one, but just didn't bother to post the link to it. It's my understanding that the underframes of those cars are made of gold...
I really, really, REALLY hate listings like this. https://www.ebay.com/itm/N-Scale-Bi...m=143211452936&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851
More data points on postage... I would submit that sellers who insist on shipping a single car Priority Mail have decided that it's not worth their time to figure out a first class shipment. Thus, they pass the cost on to you. The USPS has contributed to this by changing to Zoned Shipping for all First Class Packages (not letters), as well as raising rates. While it's true that they have a deal with eBay to allow First Class to 16 ounces instead of the usual 13 ounces, that shipping cost varies for "cross town" versus "cross country" now. A typical N scale Micro-Trains car, when properly packed in a padded envelope, weighs around 5 ounces. Checking the USPS website, to go cross-town, it's now $4.39, to go from UMTRR HQ to California, it's $4.81. eBay discounts do figure in here, but I can't check that right now. I haven't sold anything since this change, and I <sarcasm> just can't wait </sarcasm> to find out what that all means. Throw in the increasing cross-state Sales Tax "fun" and it's not difficult to see how off-eBay sale venues seem to be coming back a bit. Oh, yeah, one more thing: Paypal is "updating" its policy as of May 7... "We’re changing how we treat refunds. If you refund (partially or fully) a transaction to a buyer or a donation to a donor, there are no fees to make the refund, but the fees you originally paid as the seller will not be returned to you."
There is still a collector market of some sort for the shrink-wrapped multi-packs. Trust me when I say the asking price is WAY down from auction highs. This is one of several known sellers on eBay who aims squarely at the collector market.
I don't sell on eBay, but I think this type of listing is driven by eBay's pricing. So, I expect to see a lot of these. I don't hate it as much as you seem to, although it is a bit more work to use. At least this seller has a search feature within his listing that will take you to a particular road name (or some other name). And, this one at least seems to be all billboard reefers. The ones that bother me more are the ones that mix car types, car manufacturers, road names, etc. into one big pot. So, say you are looking for a MTL B&O gondola and what comes up on your eBay search is something like this because it has one MTL reefer, one B&O caboose, and one Atlas gondola - but no actual MTL B&O gondola.
Yep. Without close up photos, I'd fear buying a car with broken stirrups or missing parts. As a Seller, I sold off my excess cars in batches of two and three dozen at a time, noting in the text that all cars were complete and in their correct boxes, and each photo showed only two or three cars so that a potential Bidder could see each car in detail. Rather than spend my days packing and shipping a car here and a car there, I was done with it en masse.
There is no sneaking around fees here. As almost nobody pays a "listing" fee anymore. What he sells he will get a selling fee and shipping fee. I haven't sold on Ebay in years and i get 500 and 2000 item free listing deals all the time.
Note how the bidding took off from $500 to over $1500 on the last day. At least three other bidders were willing to pay at least $1000 for the set. MSRP for those items was just under $600 and they could probably have been bought for about $400 when first released.
OK. Well, I have not sold there since they went to requiring we must offer PayPal, as a payment option, Fall of 2008. Have not purchased anything in years. I can get most anything I want, elsewhere. And sell for free via this site, FB, etc. Anyhow such ads are quite unappealing for me. Just far too much at one time.
