posted on December 5, 2000 01:14:25 PM
Hi all. I know "shipping cost padding" has been done to death here, but this is the first time I have come up against it. Mostly I buy books and vintage stuff and I have only had one or two (out of thirty or forty) transactions where I felt the shipping being listed was a bit excessive. However....last night I went looking for a specific Beanie Baby as a Xmas gift for a friend who requested it. I have never purchased one of these little critters anywhere, either from eBay or from a shop, so you could call me a Beanie virgin. LOL. Anyway, I found what she wanted readily enough, and they had very few bids. The opening bids were reasonable----$3.00, $4.00, $5.00---but my God, the shipping!!! These things can't possibly weigh over the first-class rate, even with bubble wrap, and come on, they are beanbags!! they will not break if they are thrown into a padded envelope. These sellers wanted anywhere from 4.00 to 7.50 to ship ONE Beanie!!! And maybe ONE (out of 30 or so auctions for this same item) listed their outrageous shipping as specifically being sent Priority. The others, I am sure, are sending their shipments first class for 1.21 and pocketing the change. I was so outraged that I deliberately purchased (with BIN) the ONE Beanie I found that had reasonable (2.00) and fully-explained shipping/handling charges, even though it was $2.00 higher in price than the others. It's the PRINCIPLE of the thing!! At LEAST this seller is making her money honestly instead of lowballing the opening bid to make it up on gouging for shipping. UGH!! Just because you are stuck with a bunch of near-worthless merchandise doesn't mean you should make it up on highway-robbery delivery charges. No wonder Beanies don't sell much anymore if this is how the sellers operate.
posted on December 5, 2000 01:33:37 PM
that...plus I was able to buy about 15 beanies at my local thrift store for 50¢ each... I am sure I'm not alone, they are probably at yard sales, flea markets, & thrift stores all over america.
posted on December 5, 2000 01:41:34 PM
Obviously, the charge over the actual postage is for the insurance on these extremely valuable and breakable items
posted on December 5, 2000 01:55:51 PM
We have always charged exact postage for beanie sales. $3.55 priority with delivery confirm (up to 4 beanies). 1 beanie could ship for about $1.80 first class but you will probably need to through in the cost of a padded envelope (Total $2.55).
A lot of people are probably trying to make up what they are losing on Beanies with shipping. I don't worry about it because the ones we have left have been paid for many times over. I'm practically giving them away right now....
posted on December 5, 2000 02:24:55 PM
I sell a number of beanies - the rare ones that people are willing to pay $70 for.
I charge my cost of postage/insurance plus $1 for the box, bubble wrap, box wrap and a tag protector. When people pay this much for a beanie (I don't understand it myself but as long as their money is good...) they will freak if any damage is done. While this is next to impossible for the bear - if the tags are damaged in any way (folds, bends, crushing, stains) they will FREAK and I'll hear about it.
Also I am from Canada and about 95% of my beanie sales go to the US so shipping is more expensive. All and all I charge $4.50 US for shipping. I might make an extra $0.50 CDN by charging this amount.
Consider this - I have bought a few unrelated items from popular .com stores in the past. If you think these shipping proces are nuts go to these stores. Often I am charged $10 to $12 US shipping but when I get the item postage is half that.
posted on December 5, 2000 02:36:35 PM
chris97 - (this is slightly off-topic but) when ordering online, at least for computer stuff, I now use outpost.com exclusively. They offer free overnight shipping on many items. I placed an order for a monitor at 4:00 pacific time yesterday, and it arrived this morning! Monitors are heavy and expensive to ship. Outpost.com's prices aren't any more expensive than their competitors' prices, so I don't know how they do it, but I like it!
brighid868 - you made the right choice buying the beanie from the honest seller.
posted on December 5, 2000 02:39:11 PM
I have been told by a major beanie supplier that UPS has increased its charges for beanie shipments. A case of 144 pc has doubled in cost. She merely chose another shipping firm.
Maybe they are trying to make it back by overcharging the customers.
posted on December 5, 2000 05:02:11 PM
My how things change. I sold 2 beanies 3 years ago for $750 !! The bidder bought them as an "investment" LOL !!!!! I sold all of them I could find in that 12 month period knowing that a lot of people were going to get stuck. I tried to get a friend to sell their "rare" ones and they refused because they were only going to go up in value LOL !!!
As far as shipping gouging, I just took delivery on some books that the seller charged $28 shipping and the stamp on the box was book rate and cost $7.85. They shipped in a used copy paper box.
posted on December 5, 2000 05:09:06 PM
Thank you lotsafuzz well stated. Priority
starts at $3.20 add .35 for delivery confirmation and you are at $3.95, it doesn't matter what the item is if your shipping Priority that is the cost! I don't think any customer wants to get their purchase all smashed & stuffed in an envelope, be it beanies or whatever. For us if the item is not flat it is not shipped stuffed in a envelope of any kind! I have purchased and received items shipped this way and they were a total mess when received. I have now learned to appreciate sellers that care about the product they sell and see that the item arrives to me in good condition as seen in the picture of their auction, not all smashed and flattened, no matter what it is.
posted on December 5, 2000 05:10:31 PM
lotzafuzz---I remember about 3-4 years ago getting beanies shipped in brown envelopes---and tag protectors hadn't been invented yet.
My kids just cut them off anyways--so I didn't care
posted on December 5, 2000 05:19:42 PMGood beanie sellers would never consider shipping a beanie in an envelope (even padded) because we know they don't travel well that way.
I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I've purchase and sold hundreds of beanies and, as long as they are tag protected, they have always arrived in good shape.
I ship everything priority myself because it is the most efficent way to ship things, but if someone asked me to I would gladly ship it in a padded envelope.
Another thing I kind of get tired of hearing is the term RARE when it comes to beanies. There are no RARE Beanies. They are a mass produced $5 toy and the market place is finally catching on to that fact...
posted on December 5, 2000 05:26:17 PM
>>Pardon me for interupting your rant with a few facts, but not all beanie sellers are alike.
I charge $3.20 for priority shipping (that price is good for shipping 1 to 5 beanies).<<
I don't think you read my post-or as you call it "rant"-thoroughly. I said $4.00 through $7.50 and most of them did not list that figure as Priority shipping---leaving me to infer that it might very well not be!! I think $3.20 is reasonable if you feel you *must* send a *five-ounce cloth beanbag* by Priority Mail, BUT that is nowhere near what I was seeing last night. If most of those had been $3.20, I never would have posted.
Don't get me wrong, the fact that you don't charge an outrageously high fee is great, but why would you want to stick up for those who are charging like highway robbers. They are making you look bad. Are you saying I just happened to click on the 30 or so auctions with outrageous shipping fees? If you don't personally think these fees that other sellers are charging are outrageous, how do you justify $7.50? This isn't just about Beanies. It's a bigger issue. No wonder all the buyers have disappeared---this is one reason why. I don't often shop outside my categories so I wasn't fully cognizant of the prices but now I see what people have complained about.
>>Good beanie sellers would never consider shipping a beanie in an envelope (even padded) because we know they don't travel well that way.<
Get a grip! These are soft toys, probably assembled for pennies in third world countries and crated/shipped in cargo tankers halfway across the world. They are not Faberge eggs.
You might want to include a lower-cost padded envelope option for those of us who actually plan on giving these toys to a child to play with and who don't care if a tag is bent (since I plan to cut it off anyway).
posted on December 5, 2000 05:39:48 PM
katdoc: $3.20 and .35 makes $3.55--still well below the $4-$7.50 that I stated that I personally found outrageous.
I'm curious as to why a $5.00 item would require delivery confirmation anyway. I sell lots of stuff in the $5.00-$25.00 range and I let buyers know they can have it if they wish to pay for it, but it isn't mandatory. Are there a lot of people paying for Beanies and then claiming they never showed up? Is this a high fraud category?
posted on December 5, 2000 06:02:08 PM
Excuse me, but where did I stick up for sellers with high shipping costs? What I said was that not all beanie sellers are the same.....in other words we are not all 'highway robbers'.
About the padded envelopes: You may be buying the beanie for a child (or adult) who will play with it and therefore (I assume) the condition is not important. However, and maybe you are not aware of this, there are beanie collectors who are very concerned about the condition of both the tag and the beanie. [side note: It doesn't really matter if *you* think that is silly, it is still a fact.]
Also, no matter what the buyer intends to do with the beanie, I want the product I sell to show up as advertised....that is, in mint condition. After seeing what the USPS can do to packages I have no intention of risking my good name because they mangled a beanie that was shipped in an envelope.
As always, sellers can set whatever price they want to for shipping, it is up to the buyer to decide if they want to pay that amount.
Something else, the sellers charging a handling fee actually make me look good. Why? Because when comparing prices (as most people do) my auction will be the better value.
posted on December 5, 2000 06:31:17 PMoutoftheblueThere are some very rare Beanies & they would be the first 5 Ty Warner made & some of the ones he made right after them. No one knew they would ever
become valuable & most were given to children to play with & the tags discarded.
The few that collected them because they thought they were "cute" & left the tags on saw their beanies increase in value a thousand times over. Unfortunately the market is saturated with counterfeits of the originals. One of the Beanies called the Royal Blue Peanut is very rare because it was supposed to be a light blue elephant. I think about 500 or so were made in the wrong royal blue color before the mistake was caught & then it was changed to the light blue color that it was supposed to be. An authenticated one could sell for 2000.00 or more. I don't know what the going price is now. Most of RB Peanut & the 5 originals are counterfeit. As far as collectibles go, they are worth whatever you can get someone to pay you for it & that goes for everything, and not just Beanies. Beanies are a prime example of how something can go out of favor. So the best way to collect is to collect something because you like it or you could be crying like all those Beanie people who thought they would make a killing the longer they held onto them.
I know that some people love beanies (my wife and daughter included). I even kind of like a few of them myself. That in effect makes them collectible, but not valueable.
I also know how the market works after researching and selling them for 2 years. If memory serves me correctly I believe that there was around 5,000 royal blue Peanuts produced. Billionaire bears once sold for as high as $12,000. Now I have seen them selling for as low as $25 on Yahoo.
Don't even get me started on this counterfeit garbage. That's one thing that's really spoiled the fun of selling these toys. People want me to guarantee the authenticity of a Maple bear. Ya, if I traveled to Canada and purchased it from a Ty retailer, but then I would have to sell it for more than $20-$30 (the going price). If I am reasonably sure it's legit (look and feel), I'll sell it, but I'm not going to guarantee authenticity. There's to many self proclaimed experts out there who think everything is counterfeit...
Beanies and Beanie collectors were out of control. Now beanies are about where they should be. Toys....
[ edited by outoftheblue on Dec 5, 2000 07:06 PM ]
posted on December 5, 2000 08:51:08 PMoutoftheblue Well you do know your beanies, I thought you didn't, was I ever mistaken. Yes I stand corrected on the RB Peanut count. Your figure is the right one.
I had the idea that you didn't know any of the history. I hate to confess that I was very taken in with this craze & wasted lots of money. I now can't stand the sight of them. I had to work like crazy to get my money back & you know how I did it, dying & decorating Halo's I sold so many you wouldn't believe it, but didn't make a cent
because when I counted up what I made it just about covered the money I threw away thinking I was making "smart buys" on other "rare" beanies. No I don't have any really rare ones, (just Garcia, Libearty etc) never did I am happy to break even.
But, what in heck am I going to do with all the beanies I still have. The only good thing that came out of them for me was I found eBay.
I hate to confess that I was a Beanie nut, but I was.
posted on December 5, 2000 09:19:28 PM
I don't think the issue here is as much about Beanies as about outrageous shipping charges! It happens on all kinds of auctions and yes, the subject has been done to death around here. You did the right thing by not buying from those buyers overcharging for shipping. They'll figure it out at some point--especially in such a competitive market. I'd be curious to check the feedback of someone charging $7 for shipping because you know that most people don't read the TOS and probably freak when they see that price!
My opinion is these buyers got stuck with items they thought were going to make them a huge profit and didn't expect the value to decrease so rapidly.
To add to the outrageous shipping prices stories, I was looking around at maternity clothes the other day and there was a person charging $9 shipping!!! It was for just one shirt or one pair of pants. I kept reading trying to figure out if she was shipping from China or using gold plated boxes, but it was just a regular US auction shipping to the US only. She was a new user....I'd like to check back and see if any of her items actually sold!! INSANE!!!
posted on December 6, 2000 04:37:40 AMYou did the right thing by not buying from those buyers overcharging for shipping. They'll figure it out at some point--especially in such a competitive market.
I doubt it, since clearly their brains weren't in gear when they decided to charge that sort of shipping in the first place. Instead, they'll wonder why their biz is so bad, and blame ebay or rampant stories of "internet fraud" scaring away bidders. If they're lucky, they'll start complaining here, and some of us will try to give them a hint, whereupon they will get very defensive and moan that they are being picked on for trying to stay in business. A few will mend their ways, but the rest will go the way of the dinosaur - to be replaced by MORE clueless sellers, from whom clueless bidders will buy anyway, and then about whom said bidders will complain here...ad infinitum. Endless cycle.
[ edited by HartCottageQuilts on Dec 6, 2000 04:38 AM ]
posted on December 6, 2000 07:00:12 AM
First of all, orgin of this rant is a joke, I always look at shipping before I buy something, and I know from shipping items personally that it's a minimum $4.05 to send anything Priority with insurance.The initial poster is confusing tossing a beanbag into an envelope willy nilly and how and what a Beanie collector wants his Beanie to look like when it arrives at his/her trailer. Vacuum packed and untouched by human hands in pristine condition, lest there is a resurgence of Beanie fad in a couple of decades from now. Listen, I can look at an item for auction and tell what a reasonable price is to ship that item, or tell if a seller is padding his sale big time. Move on, It's not like Beanie Babies are hard to find. However, no seller can afford to lose out on shipping or material costs especially on inexpensive items.Bottom Line: It's hard to buy inexpensive items on Ebay, because often when the price of shipping is added, it often makes a purchase a marginal deal, assuming sellers want to make a small profit. When an item is available around the corner from where you live for about the same as on Ebay, why buy online? Thats why common crap doesn't sell well,and why Ebay will never be a yard sale. With the price increases announced by the Post Office just yesterday, inexpensive items are going to be what suffer most. The bottom line is if something costs you 1 dollar to buy , and you sell it for three or four dollars, it isn't worth the time it takes create, manage, and hopefully conduct business with someone at the end of an auction. Maybe for a huge volume that would work, but you would have to have something people really want, and thats never a reality for long. My thinking is that to make Ebay as profitable as a crummy part time job, you have to be able to sell something that cost you a dollar for at least between $6-10.00, if you are dealing in inexpensive items. You can't afford to be burned on shipping, or spend too much on packing materials at that price. Material for packing doesn't fly into my house, I have to find or buy that too. The problem is no one wants to pay 4 dollars for someone to ship them a Beanie worth 4 dollars or less,an item with no potential upside for the near future.
As far as Beanie Babies are concerned, I don't buy or sell this type of item, I am glad the wheels finally collapsed under wagon of the Beanie Fad. I am so happy the craze of the mass produced bean bag has finally waned. Let me say, I hurt when I saw people in days past bidding hundreds and thousands of dollars on this corporate sponsored Ponzi scheme. But it makes me feel good that tons of people have gotten burned and stuck with worthless bean bags after paying hundreds of dollars each. Hopefully, they are wiser. Don't let corporations rip you off with fake market scarcity and marketing schemes manipulated in part to get your children to demand that you pay outrageous prices for what you intellectually know is crap. The irony is that somewhere some good toys were being sold with little interest in them. They are more likely are what people will be looking for ten or twenty years down the road than Beanie Babies.
I know some made a killing on selling these things in the past, and I congratulate them if they if they jumped ship soon enough. It's the American Way. And probably in some perverse way, 20 years from now some Beanies will probably have some value, But for those who let their kids snooker them into weighty Beanie purchases,or if you traded-in food stamps to get in on the Beanie Crazy right before the bottom dropped out I say this:You have only yourself to blame. The writing on this Pyramid Scheme was on the wall from day 1.
I am glad I am not seeing as many of these kids having yardsales where they are attempting to sell bagged Beanie's for hundreds of dollars. Please parents, don't let them embarrass themselves by doing this; you could cause significant psychic damage if they remember you sanctioned their Beanie habit when they were growing up. If those Beanie's sitting at the yard sale belong to you reading this, remember your neighbors are laughing at you behind your back. I am sure you aren't volunteering to too many people anymore about what you paid for your Beanies when they were an "investment". Pretty much wanna move that Beanie display case to the crawl space , dontcha ?
Beanies were never an investment, they were a scheme cooked up by the same people whose Amway bottles you now store under the sink in your trailer.It was fast money for those at the top of the food chain, and pablum for those at the bottom. Some morons are emulating this mania as we speak by buying Pokemon,Digimon, etc. and if/when they get as big as Beanie Mania they will leave a pile of bodies as large as the Beanie mushroom cloud. If you really want to invest in something like toys, it takes knowledge and investigation, not being able to wait in line and rush into some toy store to fight other mornos over Beanie Babies, or whatever the latest craze is. If you want to teach your kid how to make a couple of bucks from his toys, buy them quality toys that costs a few bucks, and buy a second one to keep new in the box, so later if he/she becomes nostalgic he can have it new again and it might have some value. Like most items that retain or increase in value, often it takes time. With massed produced toys there are very few items with immeadiate turn around profits that you can purchase on the retail end. When this can be done, it's short lived like the phoney baloney marketing ploy and hoarding that created the Beanie Craze. Hold on to a well made good toy, and you MAY have something a generation from now, and for the most part a 5 cent bean bag is a 5 cent beanbag. The same large chunks of money morons spent on Beanie Babies worth virtually nothing now, could have been spent on some vintage toys that will hold and go up in value. Suckers.
