$31.00 to ship a soft cover book USA to Canada?

[Scooby]

An ebay seller just gave me a quote to ship a softcover book to Canada at $31.00 US.

I buy a lot from the US via ebay, I have never been asked for that amount from any seller. I guess I see how he ships the same book free shipping to US buyers.

I've had bigger items shipped for much less.

[bashace]

He's probably skimming off the shipping to make more money on the book.

[hacker]

It does happen. when buying I first look at the price then l check the shipping costs. Usually it is not bad but you do find a really cheap model at shipping price then the shipping cost is the same for a price of a new model. Once I see that I move on

[scapilot]

Reverse price listing. List the item for the cost it would normally ship, and charge the shipping for what the item would normally price for. It's retarded, and you get absolutely no deal out of it when you add the two up, sometimes you even wind up paying more. How people still even fall for this baffles me.

[rob.w]

I buy quite a few books out of the US via ABE Books are rarely pay more then $9-10 for shipping. It appears that this guy is padding his profit using shipping.

[Scooby]

He just corrected it to $9.50. I am totally fine with that amount.

[gkwan]

We run into this issue fairly often. Please be aware that the real shipping cost has to do with these factors:

- Destination

- weight

- dimensions

- shipping method

and depending on the shipping company may also include these factors:

- address type (residence or business)

- whether your address is considered a "rural" address by the shipping company

- value of order (if insurance has to be purchased

SO when someone says it cost $XXX amount to ship something, you really do not know whether the stated amount is appropriate unless you know the answers to the above listed shipping cost factors.

One other thing that we run into a lot for international customers is why we can't/won't ship an order for them via economy 1st Class Mail International (FCMI). This is because FCMI is intended for small parcel and has a weight limit of 4 pounds and a dimension limit of 36 inches (Length + width + height of the box). Anything parcel exceed the weight and/or dimensional limit cannot be shipped via FCMI. The next most economical shipping method Priority Mail International which can be quite a bit more than FCMI.

Hope this helps everyone understand the real/actual cost of shipping and how it is determined.

[Bigasshammm]

I always take a bath on shipping. I just sold 5 kits on ebay. I think total for the 5 I charged 33$.

It ended up costing me 46$ to ship them all.

But if I charge a higher shipping then I get less bids and overall less money.

It costs 12$ to parcel post a 1/32 F-4J Revell kit from Ohio to California. I charged 10$

I'm not coherent enough to be able to use the online post office properly.

Thus when I'm buying if I'm searching for something particular I always have it set to lowest price + shipping first and then go from there. Regardless of what the shipping is I'm going by the total cost of item + shipping.

[jmel]

Shipping books is expensive, with many variables as Gordon pointed out. I get people all the time asking me about shipping costs, but sadly there is no cheap option. I always lose money on shipping.

Jake