You’ve sold your coveted copy of Alice Cooper’s tribute to the Ray Coniff Singers along with the 5-foot tall carved walnut stand that was made to display it. Congratulations!
Now all you have to do is get the items packed and on the way to their new home in Iceland. This can be a little intimidating if you have never had to ship anything internationally. Frankly, it can turn into a seriously gut wrenching experience that I don’t recommend anyone take lightly. You may notice that the words of wisdom you are reading sound like they are coming from someone who has passed through the valley of the shadow of death and lived to tell about it. If that is your assumption, you have assumed correctly. Please don’t think that I am referring to Iceland as the valley of the shadow of death, nor the expansive real estate that makes up the eBay site.
There is a great deal of information on eBay about the basic shipping services provided by the U.S. Postal Service and UPS. The information is laid out in a fairly straightforward way, yet it can still be extremely confusing to a person who is just sending out the first or second thing that they have ever sold. Take the time necessary to go over the basics of the shipping information that eBay has compiled for its members. Then take the time to fully understand the type of service you are going to be using after your item sells. It is not just a good idea from the standpoint of keeping your own sanity, but it will help you to avoid falling into any number of pitfalls that can fowl up a transaction that you have managed to handle in an exemplary fashion up to that point.
Having said that, I would like to focus some attention on what happens when you sell a product that exceeds the size restrictions set forth by the U.S.P.S., UPS, DHL and Fed-Ex.
I sold a huge speaker to a very nice speaker collector who lived about 950 miles from me. The speaker measured about 5.5 feet tall, by 3.5 feet wide, by 2 feet thick. It also weighed in at a hefty 150 pounds. Even though the speaker had sold for a fairly high dollar amount, I had specified in the auction listing that the shipping arrangements were going to be the total responsibility of the buyer. Of course, when the buyer called after becoming exasperated in his efforts to try and get the speaker shipped, I naturally agreed to help him. To make this brief, it was during the course of this transaction that I discovered what Logistics companies provide to the world in terms of services, and it was a huge revelation to me.
Logistics companies are companies that will help to take care of all of the steps necessary to get almost any item to almost any part of the world in almost any time frame. Furthermore, it has been my experience that when you find a good logistics company that you can work with, you will also have found yourself an important friend and ally in the business of on-line auctions that will save you time, heartache, and most of all, whopping loads of cold hard cash.
After being told that it was going to cost my buyer as much as $1,000.00 to ship the product he had purchased a distance of around 950 miles, and after having been told that he and I were going to have to do most of the work involved with the privilege of getting banged by the usual shipping banditos (I’m not naming them again like I just might have done three paragraphs before this one), I found a company that made my transaction a piece of cake. They made me look like a hero. They made me proud to be an American. With just one call, this company sent out a huge truck with two huge, yet surprisingly careful men who picked up the speaker, took it to the airport, placed it on a transport shuttle, and sent it off to within about 50 miles of my buyer. Then, they had two more of their men pick the item up at the airport as soon as it arrived. They loaded it onto yet another huge truck and immediately delivered it to my astonished and satisfied customer. They did all of this for under $350.00 and all was right with the world.
The point is this. Make it your point to really learn the ins and outs of shipping as it applies to your eBay business and you will be one more step ahead of your competition, and ten steps closer to providing that all too important level of gold standard service that is the hallmark of a successful, and consistently profitable eBay seller.
Author Resource:-
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