I hate to touch on this subject but I just need to. Postage or Shipping  is one of the eBay Taboo topics. Many have learned the hard way and sad to know, many still do not have a clue on what "Handling" means. Especially when the sellers 3rd or 4th language is English, they tend to maximise on this. Have you encountered this before? I am pretty sure if you are seasoned enough you would have seen incredible shipping prices on auctions!

Why? Obviously the thrill of making money through the internet doesn't stop these sellers from understanding the entire concept of being reasonable and fair in the postage department. I kid you not. I actually have a list of sellers from this region who maximise the use of this. Hopefully they wont be reading this or they probably couldn't care less if they did, knowing they probably understand 30% of what is being related here. (no offence there)

It is true. Sellers from the Asian region tend to just go in blindly and do-as-others-do. Good example of this was once about 5 years back, I was a seller with another partner and we were looking for some authentic swords. We browsed till we came across a Chinese seller from the mainland who was offering a beautiful replica chinese sword for 0.99 cents! Buy-It-Now mind you! We looked at each other and wondered a second or two and sure enough, his postage to Malaysia from China was a whopping US$180.00 and that was not even with express mail OR insurance! So nevermind that, I kindly asked him if there was a mistake in the shipping costs awaiting a reply. To my surprise, the reply came in shortly with this: "SHIP WORLDWIDE SAME!!!! USA OR UK OR MALAYSIA ALL SAME!!! YOU WANT SWORD?? YOU BUY NOW, I SEND YOU NOW!!! PAYPAL PAY ME QUICK!!!!

Now, what kind of reply is that? Even a 4 year old could talk better than that. I just laughed it off with my buddy and since then, whenever we looked an auctions, the First thing we would see was the Shipping costs. And it taught me a lot about shipping and combined shipping throughout the years. Yes, the experience Does count after all and being a seller since 1998, that is almost 10 years of trail & error put in this nerve-wrecking business most of us are in. Hey wait, some of us have day jobs... thats right! So even if the items sells cheap and I don't make enough on ebay, I can still depend on my day job wages! Yeah.... that sounds about right! Why bother, just undercut and kill the market and earn 20% profit. Wait a minute...I forgot my eBay and PayPal fees, nevermind that. As long as I earn 5% I'm happy! I'm an eBayer!...geeze.

Ok, Back to the main topic. Of lately I have noticed some of my competitors going beserk over pricings in costs and shipping that some of them actually resort to thsese old dirty tactics. And knowing that every other minute someone new signs up on eBay, they will hope to make that sale to the newbie. You and I know, newbies will always be newbies and I am not saying ALL are, but they will be those who will fall for the low-cost-high-shipping factor. Why? Because most newbies will look at the Item Price without considering the shipping and handling cost.

Save on eBay fees as once someone told me about the low-cost-high-shipping and another quoted 'I need gas and food when I go to the post office'. Heh, too funny when the actual items only costs $5.00 shipping, they quote a $10.00 shiping & handling fees...AND people still pay for this. It's their money as some will say.....

So, what is Handling Fees? A reasonable handling fees would make up your time, gas, materials and food? Yes, when you are a volume seller, it covers the costs if you just put in a $1 to $2 handling fees. But a $5 handling fees? Maybe the seller drives a Mercedes 500 and the post office is 70 miles from his/her home? And he uses only Grade AAAAA Recycled Letters sold only in Beverly Hills? (You know, the ones they use for the Oscars?) I honestly do not know how some sellers come up with such amazing Handling Fees. But I know one thing, most of these kind of sellers are insecure. They are afraid that sales would be slow or the item would not sell for high so they want to cover the cost of the item in S&H. Makes sense?

Anyway, that is the cruel truth about sellers who think the know the game after selling for 2-3 years is that in the long run, what goes around, comes around. I always believe in Karma and sometimes, that's good. My point for this: Don't over charge. Learn to walk before you run.