Richard , i very much like your ending line " thanks for reading. stop complaining " ... your post sounds like one big complaint to me , about you losing money when mailing out stuff , it's one thing to be overcharging to rip buyers off , it's another one to actually charge way below what it costs so i'm not sure i get your point here ... as for your crew , 3.5 parcels an hour ?? are you based on the moon where movements tend to be rather slowish ? Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2015 12:37:02 -0700 From: sa...@comic-art.com Subject: Re: [MOPO] HA shipping costs To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
folks.. let's get real on shipping costs. to do so, I'm going to explain what shipping is like to sellers first of all, while it does seem that buyers pay shipping costs - it isn't completely true (if it's true at all) for instance, let's say you as a buyer find something in a store for $50. You want one, but you say "let's see if I can find this cheaper on the net" you look and find one priced at $40, but the shipping cost is $10. That equals $50 and is no deal, so you keep looking. you can't find another, so you contact the seller and ask if he'll go $30, which he does, you pay $40 total, get your item. But the dealer.. he's really paying the shipping. Why? Because in order to sell you the item, he had to drop $20 from the original price, originally discounted to $40 and then custom discounted to $30. That $10 came out of the seller's sale, not from your pocket. The dealer's total discount is 40% of the "list price" the bigger problem to the dealer however is that the $10 shipping cost didn't really cover all the costs. when I get $14 to ship a package to NYC, I'm actually losing $2-4 per package! why? well a 2lb package (any package with 2 posters is over one pound) costs $11.55, so after shipping itself, there is $2.45 left for labor and materials my materials cost for a simple package: 2 pieces of cardboard @47cents (shipped to me)= 94cents. a plastic bag 16cents, a label (& ink) 42 cents. tape, order print out, maybe a flyer and then, labor. How much is labor per package - well I know as we've done all the actuarial stuff here. no person who has ever worked for me ever made more than 5 packages per hour and the average is 3.5 packages per hour. easy math, if I'm paying $10 and hour, that is $3 in labor per package. So 94+16+42+3.00= $4.52. add another 30 cents for the misc (tape etc) and you have about $4.82 in packaging costs, but you only got $2.45 to cover it. So there is a loss of $2.37 per package. It gets worse if the item is rolled as I can't put that in any of the free packaging boxes that the USPS provides. a Tube costs $1.67 shipped. Or if I have to use my own box because the Priority Mail box is too small or whatever reason. $2.37+ $1.67= $4.04 loss, per package think of doing that 50 times a week. it becomes a serious extra cost and was one of the reasons I had to stop doing a weekly auction (aside from just being enable to do that much work, even with help) International orders used to be even worse, because unless your package was shipping Priority Mail, I had to stand on line at the post office to do the mailings. Okay, here's that math = 20 mins drive to the po, 30-45min line wait & counter service (sometimes even more) and then a 20min drive back. a hour or more of my time and I couldn't send any help as I either paid with a check or my card, which an employee couldn't do and my hours are more costly than an employees. Thankfully, I finally was able to get Stamps.com installed on one computer (it only works on one computer. all others it freezes up..what a pain) so now I don't have to stand on line at all but what's my loss on international shipping? It's more than the standard loss on domestic as I must use all purchased packaging now I don't want to seem unsympathetic to buyers domestically or internationally and I understand your pain, but really when I hear people complain about shipping costs - why don't you just stick a screwdriver in my ear as the pain on my side is not much different that said, I've posted that a new auction begins on July 29th we'll have a semi-regular monthly auction, probably 8 or so auctions annually. Auctions will all start at $9.99 or $10.00 (I believe my software does not allow cents - I have to check) and the auction will have lobby cards for Jailhouse Rock, the Outlaw and others, folded one sheets (including Jaws 1975R), promo items, and other stuff that can all ship in a single package. a further announcement will be coming after I finish photographing the 150 or so items for this auction. thanks for reading. stop complaining Rich At 08:16 AM 7/9/2015, Simon Oram wrote: Tommy, can I ask you something you mention business practice at the end of your post. Is this something that you think only applies to other people or do you think your business practices are exempt from scrutiny and public discussion? Just I find it a bit rich coming from yourself after having my one and only dealing with you, no abuse intended but I was waiting for you to produce the big smoking gun or did you want everybody else to do it for you before you had your say. Simon From: Tommy Barr Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 3:54 PM To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU Subject: Re: [MOPO] HA shipping costs Since March 2012, I have bought a total of 182 items from HA, ranging in price from $16 to $621. They have obviously posted many packages to me in that time, and mostly without any complaint on my part about shipping costs. Recently, however, I have had cause to question the cost. The last shipment I received was initially invoiced to me at $147.06, which I queried. I was informed that HA had charged me at Fedex retail rate and not their discounted rate, so the invoice was reduced to $103.25. Even so, that was expensive for a small box of folded posters, especially considering that the previous charge from HA was for 3 packages sent together containing a mixture of rolled and folded (approx. 11 folded, 3 rolled including 1 linenbacked, 3 lobby cards) for which I was charged the not entirely unreasonable amount of $122.75. I asked that they quote me for shipping before sending any future packages, and I received a quote (comparing like for like) of $221.97. That was for 13 folded and 1 rolled (linenbacked) poster, similar to that previous shipment in size but almost $100 more. I asked for a breakdown of the cost on 20th June but received no reply until yesterday, when I was sent exactly the same quote with no reference to my query. (As a matter of interest, the value of the posters in question is just over $1,000 so not, as Simon deemed to suggest, cheap purchases.) I buy from several other U.S. dealers and have found their postage costs to be reasonable, and certainly never as expensive as Heritage. I have been willing to pay their shipping charges, however, as obviously they have an attractive offer, in the same way most people are prepared to pay their buyers’ premium even though other online poster auctions don’t have one. In this instance, though, I find it totally unacceptable, which is why I have asked other MOPO members if they have had similar experiences. Why some have a problem with that I fail to understand. If MOPO exists to allow collectors to discuss matters of importance to members (and they don't all live in USA) and not simply for advertising sales, then surely the business practices of one of the hobby’s biggest players is a matter for discussion? Tommy On Thu, Jul 9, 2015 at 3:36 PM, Helmut Hamm <texasmu...@web.de> wrote: Am 09.07.2015 um 13:28 schrieb Simon Oram < fab5fre...@btinternet.com>: Look Heritage's shipping charges for the weekly slots are expensive for overseas buyers on cheap items or items that you thought you got for a bargain price , so move on and don't buy from them anymore or better still set up an address in the US to get all your stuff sent there, if you can. What more do want? Simon, with all due respect, but I also had my grievances with Heritage's shipping department in the past… Several years ago, they had GREAT rates with Fedex, two-day international delivery, for less money than USPS Priority Mail. Unfortunately, the Heritage shipping department was repeatedly unable to give me ANY estimate upfront. Nobody over there was able or willing to tell me, what the best option for my deliveries would've been. In consequence, I had to make a blind choice, and pay whatever they charged me. I mean, we're not talking about a couple of bucks here: Take a $10 poster purchase, with buyer's premium you're at roughly $25, add $40 for shipping and 19% import tax, you end up paying $77 for what started out as a $10 poster. In consequence, I complete gave up bidding on low-key items with Heritage, since they usually ended up costing me WAY too much money. On a related topic: I guess I am somewhat sensitive about shipping costs, but I still have to see the reason why so many ebay sellers feel they are untitled to grant themselves a substantial premium for shipping outside the US. None of those guys would dare to charge $25 for a domestic package, that costs them $5 to ship, yet they have no hesitation to charge $40 for an international package, that costs less than $20 to ship. Also, the common shipping option I see listed is Priority Mail International. For most of my incoming packages, that's a waste of money. It DOES take an extra click on the USPS website to find the cost for First Class Mail International, and one more click to choose the free 'delivery confirmation' option, which will provide full tracking all the way to Germany. Then again, why go the extra mile and ship for $20, when you can make your buyer pay $40 and ship Priority? Helmut To unsubscribe from the MoPo-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.american.edu/scripts/wa-american.exe?SUBED1=MoPo-L&A=1 To unsubscribe from the MoPo-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.american.edu/scripts/wa-american.exe?SUBED1=MoPo-L&A=1 To unsubscribe from the MoPo-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.american.edu/scripts/wa-american.exe?SUBED1=MoPo-L&A=1 To unsubscribe from the MoPo-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.american.edu/scripts/wa-american.exe?SUBED1=MoPo-L&A=1 Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: lists...@listserv.american.edu In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
