Monday, August 07, 2006
Selling Small Items
Our Ebay sales include large and heavy items as well as light weight small items. We sure prefer the smaller items. Often the little things sell for more than the big things and are easier to handle. We sure wish we had lots of little things instead of so many large items in our inventory.
Another thing about big items is that we have to buy boxes to pack them in. As a business we cannot just hope we can get free boxes somewhere. We have to purchase the correct sizes. Boxes take up space and money. We have a fair amount tied up in boxes. When we buy boxes the come in bundles of 10 to 25 boxes. Larger box sizes have fewer boxes in a bundle.
Small items usually ship in FREE U.S. Post Office Priority Mail boxes. Today Sharon called in an order of boxes to the Post Office. They will be delivered for free. The boxes and delivery are free for any quantity. She also picked up 10 boxes 24x24x16 inches at our box supplier. Those cost $29.70 for 10 boxes.
We pass on the cost of packing materials to our customers. They are added on to the cost of the auction, not included in the price of an item. We do not get complaints about the added cost of packing materials which we charge $2.00 up to $20.00. People accept the extra fee as part of the cost of getting their item to them safely.
So, we charge the price of the item, plus the cost of packing materials, plus the cost of shipping the item and we add sales tax for those who buy and live in California.
