Someone wrote a guide that said sellers should NEVER charge a handling fee. This is my rebuttal.

If a seller is cleaning out Grandma's attic, hopes to make more profit than they would at a garage sale, has access to a furniture store giving away free bubble wrap, lives within a mile of a post office, etc., and feels capable to giving customers what we call ACTUAL SHIPPING--in other words, charging no more for shipping than the seller must pay to ship the item at the post office window--I salute that seller.  Your buyers will adore you.  Go for it. 

But if you are a seller running a business, must buy wholesale goods to resell and/or receive many small orders, you probably won't be able to maintain an Actual Shipping policy for very long.  The constant quest for free packaging materials will wear you out unless you are receiving goods in the mail every day.  Even then, did you ever try to recycle TAPE?  Uh-uh, darlin', it will not stick.

I do charge a handling fee and the fee varies depending on merchandise. I came by my fee structure honestly.  I added up what we spend on tape, boxes, bubble wrap, etc. in the course of a year and divided that dollar amount by the number of packages we ship in a year = $3.  I usually lower the fee for beads but raise the fee for something like a handmade stone castle that requires a lot of TLC and tons of bubble wrap.  Unfortunately, I receive lots of small orders and that drives up my packaging costs enormously. If you receive fewer orders per month and yet each sale is a large-ticket item, you will likely be able to get away with a smaller handling fee, especially if your merchandise is non-breakable and/or you can find materials to recycle.

Here are some of the elements that go into that $3 calculation:

• $27 for a six-roll pack of cheap, clear packaging tape.  The stronger kind costs much more.  Strapping tape is even more expensive. And please do not even think about using masking tape or scotch tape. They fall off in the mail unless you use the old-fashioned, hard-to-find, very shiny scotch tape. I use tape on every single package I mail. The cost for one of the components used to make packaging tape went up about two years ago, therefore the cost of tape rose.
  
• $3 to $4 for a ream of printer paper.  Recycled is cheaper but thinner.  I use paper for mailing labels.
• $15 to $49 for a pack of 25 bubble wrap mailers for books and blank journals. The biggest of such envelopes can cost $1.92 EACH, but they are more durable and stable than brown kraft paper over bubble wrap.  (I have had people gripe at my book handling fee without realizing that the envelope alone will cost $2.) I use first class Tyvek envelopes for yarn and those are pricey.  I use some kind of packing for every order. Why? Because guess what happens if I ship a bunch of yarn without putting it in a package.  It rolls around the post office and collects lint.
• Up to $3.05 for a cardboard box. Fortunately, we usually avoid that cost by either recycling the boxes that come into our house or by using Priority Mail boxes that the post office provides free of charge.  I have buyers who insist on Parcel Post rather than Priority Mail without realizing that the Parcel Post they ask for might raise the packaging fee, might cost the same or even more in shipping, might save them only 38 cents, and/or take up to three or four weeks to arrive.  Sometimes I patiently explain this to the buyer. Sometimes I say, "Okay!" and offer them the 2nd option at the legitimate higher cost and see which one they choose.  Okay, I'm a smart-aleck.  I admit it. But always I marvel at how many buyers feel I do not have their best interests at heart and would happily pay additional shipping that would only go directly to the post office. What would be my motive?  I like my mailman, but not more than my ebay buyers. Anyway, the postage fee isn't going into his pocket.
  
• 26 cents per square foot for bubble wrap.
• $20 a bag for loose fill packing peanuts.
• Around $20 to $75 for one or two printer ink cartridges, depending on type, brand, whether I buy one or two, etc.  Long story on this one.  My drugstore sold recycled black ink cartridges cheaply that did not seem to last as long but I think HP sued them for it.
  
• My printer is making funny noises and I will need a new one soon. If you buy merchandise from me, your dollars will contribute to that as well as my digital camera, on which the lens jammed the other day.
• $16 a month to have an ebay store, whether I have inventory in it or not.
• About $60 a month to list 500 inventory items in my ebay store, whether anything sells or not and nothing is likely to sell unless (a) I list 500 or more items and (b) I also run auctions.  Note that this $60 estimate changes somewhat depending on whether you use gallery photos, list items for under $25 versus over $25 and/or you are a powerseller
  
• $2 for the average yarn auction up to 200 times a week = up to $400 a week or $1,600/month and you will ignore most of my auctions, I'm afraid. If you bid on any of them, I must pay a commission to ebay and another one to Paypal.  If you do not pay, I must file reports to get my commission back.
• $12 a month for an internet site and picture hosting.
• $8 a month for a business checking account.  I forget the cost for blank checks.
• I don't want to look up what Comcast costs me. It's a lot. In fact, I grow disgruntled writing this, so I will stop for now. No, wait, a word about the post office...
  

Travel to and from the post office varies in cost. It was a huge eye-opener for me when I learned about a seller who lives in an urban area and must take packages to the post office by bus. What a hassle!  I can just see him making his way down the aisle of the bus and banging each and every knee with his humongous shopping bags filled with packages to mail.  Do you think that seller is making a ton of money and should absorb the cost of bus fare? Most buyers would say, "Yeah!" Well, be careful what you wish for.  If that seller IS absorbing the cost, he may go out of business soon if he's not careful. I sure hope you didn't like his merchandise too much, since it may not be available next year.

I have been getting my packages picked up off my doorstep for years now and love the convenience of it.  The one type of package the USPS will not pick up is International First Class, which saves customers money, but actually costs the seller more in terms of time, money and effort. I rely on someone to take those in for me and I cannot necessarily get these mailed within 24 hours.  Are you thinking, "So what? I live in Australia, and I will not pay for faster Priority mail!"  No, you are not saying that because my Australian customers are super nice and patient and are happy to pay whatever it takes for shipping.  And if I offer to save them money by using First Class, they wait patiently until I can get someone to take their package in.  Bless those Aussies!

But my point about package pickup and post office visits is this:  just because it is easy for you to get to the post office doesn't mean it is easy for everyone.  Just because your post office is close by doesn't mean some ebay seller in North Dakota isn't having to drive 20 miles round trip.  So cut your seller some slack when you are thinking, "Just take it to the post office! What's the big deal?" Your life in your town and your gasoline prices are not the same as mine.  And did you ever consider that a number of ebay buyers and sellers are disabled?

I recently had a buyer who wanted to pick up merchandise at my home, which was not an option given in the listing, and she waited until after the auction ended to bring this up.  I do make special arrangements to alllow buyers to pick up furniture, very fragile items and very large orders. But this was five balls of yarn. And no, it was not convenient for me to let her change the terms.  I do not normally give out personal information, but I even told her why it was a problem. No sensitive buyer would have protested against this very valid reason.  But guess what? She had no empathy whatsoever.  Said she would never buy yarn from me again, "no matter how good it is."  Nyah!

Okay, enough about that.  There's more regarding handling fees. Storage devices, office supplies, staples, a lot more. But you get the idea.  And if you think any ebay seller who is running a business--not just cleaning out the spare room--can run a business without passing part of the cost onto the buyer in the form of higher merchandise cost, shipping and handling, or SOMETHING, you are naive. There is no free lunch. At least we are honest and upfront about our handling fee. And if you look at our star rating on our feedback page, you will see that most of our customers feel we are honest, too.  That's the best you can do.  Be honest, pass along whatever cost seems fair, hope people like your products enough to chip in on the packaging and bite your lip when someone gets snippy about it.  You can also block them from ever bidding or buying again.  Or if you try too hard to placate everyone, I'm sorry, but you may very well go out of business.

I encourage you, as a buyer or seller, to do what you think best.  If you are a seller and do not want to charge a handling fee, then don't.  Your buyers will love you. I commend you and support your decision.  Keep careful track of your expenditures and seek advice from your brother-in-law the accountant if you are not sure if you are doing well.   If you are a seller who must charge a handling fee to stay in business, I understand from experience what you are going through. I do not condemn you in the least.  Many of your customers will be happy to chip in on your expenses and we will be your most reasonable repeat customers. The most frugal customers are the ones who tend to complain the most, so do not grieve their loss too terribly.

If you are a buyer who thinks a handling fee is morally wrong, then do not visit my store.  I want you to shop where you feel most comfortable.  Only buy from sellers whose integrity you trust.  If you are a buyer who understands why some sellers must charge a handling fee, then be mature about it.  Do not bid and then argue about the handling fee AFTER you win.  (In my store, do not bid about the fee before OR after you bid!)  Also, if you knew there was a handling fee and you knew the shipping in advance, do not buy and then trash the seller's feedback. It is you who lacks integrity.  If you do this to me, I will permanently block you from buying from me without debate and will never unblock you, even if you are a yarnaholic who buys hundreds of dollars worth of yarn per month.  Integrity counts more than money.

So concludes Part IV in a series.  See also my guides on Paypal  v. other forms of payment, Road Rage on ebay, Powerseller myths, etc.  I would be the last person to say that I know everything, but I know what running my business has been like, and I submit that information to those of you thinking of opening an ebay store.

dj runnels

owner of Life's an Expedition