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New 2016 (proposed) postage rates are up
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MoonwishesStore
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Posts: 17389

PostPosted: Sat Jan 09, 2016 11:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Looks like it might become cheaper in the near future just to deliver it to our customers ourselves.


I've had a customer or two that actually seemed to expect that! Got an email one evening asking where their package was. It showed delivered so I told her that. So apparently she looks on her porch and comes back to email me again, that she can't find it and WHERE is it? Like how would I know? Over and over during the course of the evening I keep getting emails from her and give her every suggestion I can think of - ask family members, she lives alone, etc. Finally I get an email saying she found it apparently the mailman had put it in a box on her porch and then she complains about my packing of this children's board book (those kids books for the real little ones where each page is about 1/16-1/8" cardboard). Says it was packaged so badly that it looks like an elephant stepped on it. I'm under the, perhaps mistaken, belief that an elephant COULD step on a board book without damaging it! At that point I was sick of the woman because for a while I was thinking that the only thing that would satisfy her was for me to fly to her home to hunt for the book since it was obviously MY fault that she couldn't find it. I've had others not quite so bad and it just could be because of not thinking straight when writing their emails, wanting to know where their stuff is even after delivery like it was my fault that the mailman put it in a weird place and they couldn't find it. I even had a woman want to know where her package was and it turned out to be in her mailbox. Apparently she doesn't get much mail and her first package from me was set by her front door and so she expected the second to be too and never thought to actually check her mailbox--it had been delivered about 3 days before no less! How can people not check their mail that often?

The weirdest delivery of a package I have ever seen was at my own home. We had had non-stop 'lake effect' white stuff for months and only had part of the driveway shoveled as well as a skinny path to the front door. So I'm in the kitchen at the back of our old house and out of the corner of my eye I see someone in the back. Turns out to be the UPS man with a package, going through unshoveled mounds of snow a good foot or two deep with no footprints or anything else to show that a door might be back there after he had trudged through all the unshoveled rest of the driveway. He said he was trying to find the door! Like the front porch, with a front door and a shoveled (more or less) path weren't obvious enough so he took the road least taken. We all know that UPS guys love to drop and run so that package wouldn't have been found for MONTHS or at least until the snow thawed in the spring.
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adrienneszat



Posts: 229

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 6:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
You start a 2nd store?


Sorry, Tiger - I just noticed this now!

Yes, I did start a second store so I can offer Media Mail as an option.
I need to get busy; I have a LOT of music and more books to list.

This postage thing is driving me nuts! I'm following this thread to learn what I can from you seasoned sellers. I rarely have sold more than one item per sale;
but need to be prepared in the event thereof.
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tigercreekgifts



Posts: 6293

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I try not to list media items too often but when I do get a batch of them in my inventory I rarely ever sell just one book or one dvd. I almost always sell 3-12 movies at a time on ebay because my prices are reasonable but over here at ecrater people always wanna buy just one dvd or cd at a time and that's not worth my time for just a buck or two so over here on ecrater I started forcing people to buy bundled lots of media items with several items at a time.

That way I can get rid of my movies and books quickly and make more than just a few bucks per order. I have already sold out of all of the books that I wanted to sell recently and I sold all of my dvds yesterday to the same customer who ordered 22 dvds. Now I just need to sell my cds and I will be good. Who needs discs that take up shelf space in your home when you can just download your cds from google or apple and watch movies on netflix or hulu. but for media items here at ecrater, I just use the flat rate table in each listing to override the matrix prices.

Remember:

USPS calculator overrides all other shipping set ups
Flat rate shipping methods within the listings, override the matrix
which is also why many people use the matrix as a backup in case the USPS calc. fails due to a time out online, that way they have another form of shipping set up that ecrater can fall back on if the USPS fails and returns a zero postage cost on accident.

I have been really strict on myself this past year, trying to force myself to get UNattached to material belongings, except for art and craft supplies but that way I won't attach any sentimental value to figurines and crap that just takes up space and has no purpose other than something pretty to look at, with the exception of wall art. But me being strict on myself is keeping me from turning into a hoarder and helping me know when it's time to donate some stuff, it's also made me a lot of money this year because I was finally able to part with old junk I'd been hanging onto for several years because I taught myself how to get unattached to physical belongings. But with my OCD it was always very hard to do that and I know that having OCD gives me a greater chance of becoming a hoarder so I am trying to make sure that never happens!

My mamaw was a hoarder. Not a nasty one like the kinds on Tv, she was much more clean, she dusted, swept the floors and threw away her trash and broken stuff but I mean she just hoarded material items and antiques. Like if a store was having a sale she couldn't help but stock up on whatever it was, even if she didn't use that product because she figured someone else in the family might use it. But her entire house was full of nostalgic stuff.

And YES, you could actually walk thru her house, she kept her junk stacked up on the walls and inside of old dressors and cabinets, so she was only a moderate hoarder but still, she had a 3 story old victorian house with a basement and every level was full of rooms that had old antique furniture loaded with vintage trinkets and jewelry, hygiene and cleaning supplies, NIB holiday gifts that she'd buy early in the year for us kids and then forget to give them to us until 4 years later because she forgot where she put them. Laughing So her hoarding habit was very neatly contained, more like a treasure hunt in a big old house.
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adrienneszat



Posts: 229

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 8:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sounds like you are not a hoarder at all Tiger, but wise. It takes a humble person to see themselves as they really are. Sounds like your Mom should open an eCrater Shop!

Me? I do not like to have anything I cannot use or share, and as I grow older, my desire to purge things increases. Stuff. If you can use it, buy it; if not, pass. Although a little charm in a home is good, IMHO.

Much of what I am selling is my stash and that has got to go! My musician days are over, and I have been selling off equipment and music, and I keep telling my husband, "I WANT LESS.". Looks to me like this new shipping nonsense is going to slow our selling down. I want to move it out so I can have more room!

"One man's junk is another man's treasure."

That's why we're here! Laughing
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cosmicray



Posts: 7286

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

a passing observation ...

While PayPal has updated MoS to produce the new rates, they have not made the changes required to show the new weights for FCP. As it has always been they show 1-13 ozs, The MoS editing pages are not showing 14, 15 or 15.999 ozs.
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theplantattraction



Posts: 9

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 9:43 pm    Post subject: Please help with updating flat rate & 'with another item Reply with quote

We are updating and raising our flat rate shipping on all our listings to reflect the postage increases. We ship a lot of small light weight items (seed packs) and many packs together can weigh less then 1oz. Well when we go to put in an amount in the box that says 'with another item' it will NOT let us put in an amount less the $1 to at least cover some of our fee's. It is saying it has to be a positive number and will not save our changes. It will only save the changes if we put in at least $1.00. We do not want to charge $1 extra to purchase each additional pack of seeds! Is there a fix for this?
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SheilaDeesPostcards
moderator


Posts: 4614

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 10:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You must add a zero before the decimal point. For example, if you want the "with another item" to be 10 cents you would enter the number as 0.10 then be sure to click either update or update & exit.
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theplantattraction



Posts: 9

PostPosted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 10:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you Sheila so much, you saved the day!!!!! Smile
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