What has killed this hobby for me......

[Micheal Doyle]

For the most part I like to do a simple base/ insert/ sp collection. I've done the autos, game used, busted boxes and cases. ( Danny and Tim can comment on that stupidity of mine) What i think now that has finally killed it is the shipping if cards are in the US. It's not even worth the price of a base or insert card.

I'm not a guy who makes lists and goes to card shows, that is not me. So I guess I'm just fading away as what I like to collect cost to much to ship for the value of the card. It's a shame because everyone who opens stuff usually has tons of it.

Steve

Since i've been asked about my avatar, yes the is Zakk Wylde and the Black Label Society

 

[quincy]

It's frustrating, no question. All of a sudden, the inexpensive stuff isn't.

This is perhaps a silly question: Have you talked to any of your friends/contacts in the US? I have a couple of folks to whom I have auction wins mailed. When there's enough, they fire it in the mail to me. It seriously cuts down the postal fees over time.

 

[dismonkey1]

For one or two low value cards, you should ask them to send it PWE (reinforced). I realize that this is not a preferred shipping method, but for a couple of low value inserts- it would be a good option. I have received a few cards that way within the U.S. and no problems. The base cost to Canada is $1.10 and the shipper can pay an extra .20 cents to have it manually sorted (no rollers). A low cost solution to hopefully keeping you in the game.

 

[Frendo]

COMC is great for base/insert/parallel hunting and quite cheap in shipping also $3 for a basic shipment and add $0.20 for a top loader...but I completely understand you...

Those damned Ebay Global shipping services is just insane and an absolutely joke that plus more more USA ebay-sellers who doesn't ship outisde USA anymore has increasing like crazy at this year (for me) and all those incresing USA-shipping rates are driving many hockey collector who lives outisde USA into insanity.

You're not alone!

 

[Stadium Sports]

Shipping wise....

I just bought a baseball bat. Shipping was going to be $28.99 plus $74.99 export fee(???) through eBay. For $5, I got a box in Detroit and shipping is $12.

But thankfully nothing kills the hobby for us - I have been in it long enough to appreciate all the little things that make it such a fun hobby. There always seems to be one thing or another that can cause discouragement - but the friends, the fun and the love for sports keep it in perspective.

EDIT - we (us plus some loyal customers) have been talking about this thread and a few people have pointed out the increase we are seeing in collectors coming in and going through boxes to fill sets and insert sets. So as a LCS with a wall full of singles and monster boxes full of inserts, we are seeing more customers utilizing these boxes - spending time going through the boxes - and they are commenting how they are enjoying the hobby more than the point and shoot ebay buy. I know folks are going to throw out there that they don't have real card shops near them but we are seeing more people again travelling distances to fill sets - something that used to happen all the time....

 

[miscs75]

As a US member it makes it tough to ship out of the country when a bubble mailer starts at $6.55 to ship. You can thank the USPS for the price increase as well as eBay trying to make a few dollars.

 

[rvelligan]

It is frustrating as a US collector/seller. I cannot make a $3 trade with someone in Canada and pay $6+ shipping. The post office in town is strict on the First Class International shipping. I found a post office in Chicago that will ship the 3M photo envelope under 3/4" thick for $2.55 to Canada. I have wondered how did the US postal service survive before the internet existed. You would think after current technology, they would benefit from more traffic (ie packages getting shipped). Yes, they have competition, but this should make you find your niche. Cater to the customers with repeating business.

 

[Justcards]

I know the US people have to make their shipping charges on Ebay, but there is no relief in price on cards plus the charge of shipping.
Had one guy I was trying to work out a trade with, he stated to me that he wanted an extra $6 of cards to make up his shipping costs as my side of the deal with sending 1 card to his 7.
Pretty sure with January coming up we Canadians will get hit once again with an increase to somewhat even it up

 

[99goals]

I know the US people have to make their shipping charges on Ebay, but there is no relief in price on cards plus the charge of shipping.
Had one guy I was trying to work out a trade with, he stated to me that he wanted an extra $6 of cards to make up his shipping costs as my side of the deal with sending 1 card to his 7.
Pretty sure with January coming up we Canadians will get hit once again with an increase to somewhat even it up

If the price of shipping from Canada to the US increases significantly, I will be definitely have to reconsider having my ebay store potentially closing. I do my best to factor shipping costs when I list a card with free shipping. Normally I like to do the free shipping deal as it is easier for me and the buyer overall.

I don't have time to set up at shows because of my job and my family obligations and that is why I use eBay, to make my life easier.

I am hoping and praying that it is not much of an increase. I dont want to even think about having to individually edit each listing to change the shipping costs.

 

[lucscaps]

if the prices go up, this is where comc is going to play big part in getting those low end items in.
or doing more bulk deals to get a bunch of things in at once.

 

[jab16399]

Hi, I've been inactive for a while but have considered reopening my ebay store. It looks like the landscape has changed. Can someone post exactly what has been changing on this for me or send me a link? It looks like the USPS has started forcing even 5x7 bubblemailers to be considered packages (presumably to force a tracking number onto everything not in a plain old envelope to meet the international mail tracking/barcoding standards) and that means at least $6 USD on the bubblemailers? I also noticed that ebay gave me the option to 'Pay after the card arrives". Without a tracking number on my side (CanadaPost Expresspost for $12 CDN as I recall), I would be concerned about more cards 'going missing in the mail' if folks didn't pay for them already. Am I understanding things correctly? Am I missing anything else major?
Thanks,
Jim

 

[wingnut888]

I have been looking to trade inserts for a while now but the post office in my town is so strict I don't know how I will be able to do any trades to Canada. I have a huge box of inserts but not really anyone to trade with. I was told by the PO that not only does the envelope have to be a certain thickness but also it has to be "flexible". So PWE's are even out as they are not flexible like a regular letter. So I'm looking at $6 to $8 for any packages going to Canada. Most of the inserts in the package if I went out and bought them it would be the same price. It's so frustrating as I want to trade but now I'm stuck!

 

[Krusin]

It's a mess for sure, I still sell & ship to Canada. On anything over $20 I ship free in the US & discount Canada shipping to $4.00 but still get dinged on costs & time to receive. I don't control how long it takes & I'm shipping with a discount why ding my DSR's. Shocked that I've been able to avoid a Neg from a Canadian buyer, if & when that happens I'll likely only sell high end to Canada with free shipping to avoid another. So far E-Bay hasn't drafted me into the Global Shipping Program I understand it's a Cluster**** to the Max. If that ever becomes mandatory my days of shipping outside US are over.

 

[tiger tiger]

There's actually 2 problems for Canadian collectors.

1) the USPS price increase. You can ask for the PWE option, but that's at your own risk.

2) The Global Shipping Program. Shipping to Canada is like $15 minimum, plus there are potential import charges. So it could be $20 to ship, which is way more than if they decided to ship with tracking on their own. Plus so many extra hands touch the package that I've had packages take almost 2 weeks to arrive and that's with Express on both sides of the border.

There are a TON of collectors that avoid the GSP. I've seen auctions end at 1/2 of other w/o the GSP. This has probably increased sales of hockey within Canada and hurt the hockey sales in the US.

So COMC now is the best option for lower end cards. I've put it off for awhile, but I think I'm going to be going dropping off boxes off with them.

 

[Iceman]

There's actually 2 problems for Canadian collectors.

1) the USPS price increase. You can ask for the PWE option, but that's at your own risk.

2) The Global Shipping Program. Shipping to Canada is like $15 minimum, plus there are potential import charges. So it could be $20 to ship, which is way more than if they decided to ship with tracking on their own. Plus so many extra hands touch the package that I've had packages take almost 2 weeks to arrive and that's with Express on both sides of the border.

There are a TON of collectors that avoid the GSP. I've seen auctions end at 1/2 of other w/o the GSP. This has probably increased sales of hockey within Canada and hurt the hockey sales in the US.

So COMC now is the best option for lower end cards. I've put it off for awhile, but I think I'm going to be going dropping off boxes off with them.

I've got my eye out for a few baseball singles, however as soon as I see this option, it's a complete non starter. Unfortunately, most of the US sellers on eBay that sell baseball cards select this option. So it makes things pretty tough unless you are willing to burn a tidy sum on shipping.

 

[jab16399]

@tiger_tiger "So COMC now is the best option for lower end cards."

I just went back to COMC and took a look. I recall looking at the fees and deciding it was too much for me at the time. To sell 500 cards on COMC, I have to do pay the following:

1. The cost to ship the box. Lets say $30.00 CDN as it would have to be a pretty big box.
2. Do I have to pay Customs/Duties to ship to the US? Assume not for now.
3. For the lowest processing cost (10 weeks), it would cost me $100. USD.
4. Monthly, I would have to pay $5.00 USD a month to keep the cards listed.
5. Once enough cards have sold that I can get some money out, I have to give them 20% plus $10.00 USD per cheque if its under $250 (where paypay fee is only $1).

Looking this over, I feel the $5. USD a month for 500 cards is OK, but at the shows, you'll likely pay on average $3.00 a normal player GU card (max) so let's say a box of 500 GU's would be worth $1500. cash. If everything sells in a year (highly unlikely), I would have paid 30 + 100 + 12*5 + 1 = $191.00. My net sale price for 500 cards would be around $1300. which isn't half bad I believe. Now, if the cards are parallels or inserts and would sell for $1, then my $500 cash value only nets me $300. COMC does not charge storage on cards with a sale price of $0.75 or less so at that price, $375 of 75 cent cards, if sold within a year, would net me $244. which looks 'OK' I guess.
From the above, I'm getting the idea that using COMC seems pretty good with all things considered, but you need to ship large groups of cards (500+), be willing to wait for the 10 week processing time, and hope everything sells (I'd be curious to see the stats on this). Am I on track here or did I miss something?
Thanks,
Jim

 

[jab16399]

One more thing, I looked at COMC's selling shipping rates and they say that international orders (ie. me in Canada) get shipped "Standard" using USPS First Class for $3.00 and "Rapid" using USPS First Class for $4.99. Is this due to a special "Corporate Rate"? If not, then I don't understand why US Dealers need to charge $6 for shipping. I guess COMC is exempt from this Global Shipping Program thing?
I also have to say that I like that COMC automatically lists on Amazon.com if you agree to giving Amazon customers a 20% discount. The prices seem a little higher on amazon as a results from what I saw.

 

[RGM81]

The Global Shipping Program that eBay uses has definitely hurt the hobby. It's as bad looking at the surcharges there as it is with the NFL Shop website trying to get anything into Canada. I've wanted on a number of occasions to make an order there when there's a nice sale on or a discount offered, but when I get to the Checkout page and see that a shirt discounted to $10 still carries a standard shipping charge plus duty fee that more than doubles the cost...clear that cart.

It's OK on a higher-end card. I don't know what my threshold is exactly but I factor in all my charges and such on the final price that I'm willing to pay for a card. If my max on something is $100, and the Global Shipping Program wants $20 plus $4.50 for import charges, my max bid is only going to be $76 or so. It's less money going into the seller's wallet, which hurts him, and it "lessens" the value of the card because as we all know a card is only worth what a person is willing to pay.

bummer all around.

 

[jab16399]

I just have to slip a little story in here. I did a short summer contract for CanadaPost back many years ago. One of my tasks was to supervise some software updates being done to a "product" used to ship parcels to the US. I was looking over the digital message traffic (luckily human readable) at some boring meeting when I found a new bug. The weight was being converted from kg's to lb's but the the price per kg was being used as the price per lb. As a result, Canadian companies would get charged 2.2x the previous price. At the end of the meeting, I mentioned this and someone senior in CanadaPost stated "Our customers said the price had doubled at one point, but our developers insisted it hadn't. No wonder the product is not doing as well as expected."
Is there any chance the new Global Shipping System has a similar bug and that's why its so expensive?

 

[dahabsfan]

I just have to slip a little story in here. I did a short summer contract for CanadaPost back many years ago. One of my tasks was to supervise some software updates being done to a "product" used to ship parcels to the US. I was looking over the digital message traffic (luckily human readable) at some boring meeting when I found a new bug. The weight was being converted from kg's to lb's but the the price per kg was being used as the price per lb. As a result, Canadian companies would get charged 2.2x the previous price. At the end of the meeting, I mentioned this and someone senior in CanadaPost stated "Our customers said the price had doubled at one point, but our developers insisted it hadn't. No wonder the product is not doing as well as expected."
Is there any chance the new Global Shipping System has a similar bug and that's why its so expensive?

The Global Shipping Program has nothing to do with Canadapost or USPS. It's a service provided by Pitney Bowes for ebay.