Heads up guys! It is 11:45PM Central time right now! You have 20 hours and 44 minutes left! Do a SEARCH by item NUMBER... Look up this engine he has for sale, then click on his "Other items listing" to see a bunch of N scale engines and cars he is selling now! Rivarossi Cat#9199 B&O N Scale 4-6-2 Loco-Boxed eBay item #1772 701 033 Quantity available: 1 first bid was $5.00 current bid $48.77 number of bidders so far: 7 Ends Oct-07-2002 at 18:14:14 PDT This seller has excellent feedback rating, (I have bought from him and like him.) trainguy@mindspring.com Here is your chance to same some money on rolling stock and buildings.
Boy, you weren't kidding! It's like he unloaded a store. 537 items listed. Here is a link to the stuff. I have no affiliation with this guy, and the usual disclaimers apply...
Nice stuff, but the $8.00 freight charge is steep. It's keeping me from bidding on some rolling stock that is valued for less than the shipping.
I agree whole heartidly with you on that point and $8US is almost $13Canadian. I only bid on items where the seller says buyer pays actual shipping, which for a single small box is only about $3.50 from the US to Canada and certainly no more to somewhere in the continental USA. At $8 an item for shipping on 537 items he's trying to make about $4300 US on the shipping alone. Doubledipping??
That shipping fee does sound high. I never paid than 5 bucks for shipping on my recent eBay purchases. And on two shipments (from a TB member) the shipping was free! It's almost worth bidding on more than just one item just to save dough on shipping.
hmm i checked some of the stuff the shipping rates its saying for shipping and insurance , whats the going rate to have it insured ?
He is shipping fedex (at least to overseas) so he should not have to declare things under a $100 for insurence if shipping domestic. If the item that is being shipped is more than $100 it is better to declare the amount so if something happend the person can get the value over $100. At least this is how I have understood Fedex as I use them often. If he uses USPS to ship then it is a total rip off for the shipping/handling.
Shipping UPS is more expensive, some online dealers are charging around $7.00. for Priority mail, insurance is (about) $2.20 for the first $100 and $1.00 for each $100 extra. Fedex is pretty pricey. I solved the problem by paying postage on my Ebay sales and including insurance if it is in the $50+ range. I have seen very few others do this. Frank Campagna
Sorry folks, while $8.00 may be reasonable for the larger scale items that are being sold, it's out of line for something like a pair of N-scale Roundhouse box car kits. As I said before, some nice items are being offered, but as for the freight charges - Spin again!
The only other option I can offer is forget what he has, and look elsewhere. If the shipping charges bother you (they ARE high), then find someone who isn't charging an arm & a leg.
Huh? Forget about what again? Seriously though, overcharging freight is a pet peeve of mine, so sorry if I tend carry on about it.
I emailed him direct, and he combined several items for me, (that came up whithin three days) and shipped all of them for $8.00 plus $1.20 insurance for the lot. You got to ask, most of the guys will combine items to save you shipping cost. Don't give up so quickly, be resourceful, see? If they know you want several things, they will work with you. Just be sure you contact them before the auction is getting close to closing.
Hey, no problem- I agree, overcharging freight (or anything, for that matter) is ridiculous. I'm with ya there. The only other option would be to bid on several items, be lucky enough to get 'em all, and see if the fellow will combine and just charge one shipping fee. I AM curious- why is he asking for so much? He needs to check out cheaper options.
With that shipping, you have the classic handling charge as well. It may not seem like a lot of time in prepareing a package, but when you multiply the number of packages by the amount of time need to package each one, you end up with an incredible amount of time. My estimate, on 500 packages, at ten minutes on each package, yeilds about 5000 minutes (83.33 hrs) spent packing...and that doesn't include the time spent waiting in the Post Office!!! And this ten minutes time is doesn't even begin to take into account bad bidders, money shipping problems, and any of the other things like this. In other words, this guy has a lot of work ahead of himself.
I have to say that excessive shipping charges is a pet peave of mine on Ebay. I always take a look at the postage stamps on items that I have bought and I can not recall a time when shipping from the US to Canada was more than five dollars (US). Generally the postage is between 2 and 3 dollars. Unfortunately, it appears that some sellers are using their shipping fee to ensure a profitable auction. (If you want confirmation of this check out some of the electronic and computer accessory auctions. I learned this the hard way when I paid $16 US shipping for computer memory that cost $0.57 to mail to me in a bubble mailer and the memory was defective and the seller vanished ...) Let's face it this is an auction and as a seller you pay your money and take your chances. This is just the same as a buyer I may over bid on an item (I am sure that no one else has ever done that .) Not all auctions will be successful and profitable for the seller. Yes, many Ebay sellers will combine multiple wins to save on shipping but 8 bucks is still a lot. You can shove a lot of N scale cars into a standard shipping box. I for one will no longer bid if I feel that the shipping fees are too high. BTW: Thanks Watash for starting this thread. It has made for interesting surfing.
I am almost sorry I started this topic now. I bought a $185.95 engine, paid $6.00 ship and handeling and $2.20 insurance. The total tab was $83.88 for which I mailed him a check. The engine arrived very well packed in its original unopened box surrounded with 2" of foam "peanuts" on all sides in a sturdy store-bought corrugated box with every seam taped in mylar boxing tape. the cost of s/h and ins. would have been the same from the mailorder store, so I felt I got a bargain saving a bit over $100.00 in this deal. Another time I bought 5 items that were combined, and he charged a total of $8.00 shipping and handeling for all five item togethjer! I just thought some of you might want to take advantage of buying a new engine for less than store price. Have it your way, I appologize! I'll go back to HO.
I must be doing something wrong cause I ship everything usps priority mail and insured for around $5.50 and have sent alot out . I stand around and wait at post office and pack every item to insure damage free during shipping.
WE might be missing some thing here guys...sounds like the guys is a class one shipper, those boxes, tape, and peanuts ARE NOT CHEAP! And add to that the time taken to do the packaging. Shipping is very cheap...but don't forget that small boxes aren't exactly easy to come by unless you already have them, and they get hard to find free...and the free ones usually have all sort of stuff on the sides that detracts from a quality product. May not be worth it on some of the smaller items...find something bigger worth while.
folks I already bought from this guy thru ebay. Since I live in Europe I always ask for the actual shipping costs. Never got cheated so far (and if the difference was below $1). BTW the way this guy packs the items you'll probably never have any shipping damages at all. will deal with anytime again.
