Buyers and Sellers are constantly fighting the rising cost of USPS POSTAGE CHARGES. If you agree with that statement, Please READ ON. If not, OH, WELL, This Guide won't help you.

Anyway, Honest shippers, "The one's who claim they charge you exactly what the Post Office charges them" are probably doing exactly that. I can only assume at this point that there are at least 10,000 DIFFERENT POST OFFICES with 10,000 DIFFERENT CHARGES. Hey Folks, they are all the UNITED STATES POST OFFICE and they ALL charge the same thing. 1 pound (16 ounces) of "PRIORITY MAIL" at the present time is $4.95 to anywhere in the GOOD OLE' UNITED STATES. (1 railcar with 4 sheets of NEWSPAPER'' Packing and a 14"x 12" x 3" Priority Mail BOX, weighs just about 14 OUNCES.)

PRIORITY MAIL BOXES are available "FREE" from the Post Office, all you have to do is take the time to order them. They will send you as many as you want.

The REST of the SHIPPING PRICE, is GUESS WHAT? It's for someone taking a "FREE" Box, a COUPLE OF SHEET's Of newspaper and packing your Item and THIS IS CALLED HANDLING. All of our TIME is worth something but come-on.

I see this all the time: A Railcar,Loco, Accessory, listed for $1.00 and the SHIPPING is $14.43. OUCH!!!!!! That item now costs me $15.43. I don't understand how People buy into these rediculious charges. I guess that for this example : $1.00 is for the item, $4.95 to ship it PRIORITY MAIL (in a FREE BOX), that's $5.95 and the rest, $8.48,goes in their pocket for "HANDLING".  SO, ACTUALLY, They want $9.48 for the Item. It takes about 5 minutes to pack an item and attach the shipping label, for $8.48?????.

Again, this is not to say that your TIME, is USELESS, but heck if you do the math, these people would be making a lot of money "HOURLY". The following statement usually follows: WE SHIP THE BEST WAY, TO SAVE YOU MONEY.  The SHIPPING CHARGES are OK, but hey, THESE HANDLING CHARGES are killing all of us.

Having done this for years, I have concluded that being HONEST and UP-FRONT with all your ITEM prices will get you a lot further down the Line. Whatever the PRICE of the ITEM (Determined by the SELLER), Try and keep the rest of the charges as low as you can.

If you want REPEAT customers, try giving all of them a FAIR SHAKE.

(Example:)

$5.00 for a RAILCAR, $4.95 for PRIORITY MAIL shipping, and if you JUST HAVE TO CHARGE FOR YOUR LABOR, how about a BUCK. $10.95 for a RAILCAR Ain't bad.

I might also throw this in here, WE SHIP PRIORITY MAIL, is USELESS if the package is SHIPPED 3 days later. Just a thought. Your BUYERS bought your ITEM and they WANT it.

Here's a good one: I only ship ONCE A WEEK ON THURSDAYS MOSTLY, BUT I SHIP "PRIORITY MAIL". What do I do if I bought something on FRIDAY???? (YEAH, I KNOW, W A I T.).

Finally, BUYERS AND SELLERS CAN FIGURE IT OUT..!!!!!

HOPE THIS HELPS,