I recently just changed all my ebay comic listings to offer media mail or priority shipping. The issue I have is the competition is choosing media mail. So, in order to sell books, I either need to eat the shipping cost, or offer the media mail option. I always charge a flat fee because the ‘calculated’ cost that ebay uses just doesn’t work well enough. My total fee includes shipping + handling, and as someone mentioned, buy your own supplies, saves time and space.
What I’m curious to see is how many people will choose priority shipping as the option. I am expecting not many will. I really want to stop using media mail, but when you have someone charging $2.89 for their comic, and yours is $4.95… its hard to up that to $6.00 (depending on their location) for First class, and that does NOT include your materials.
Slabs and higher value items I either charge a flat $15 priority, or calculated priority. Toys / Action figures I let the person choose between parcel select ground or priority. Bottom line is, protect the item inside so you don’t have to go through the refund game. Hate doing that.
Knowledge of the law is not a prerequisite for violating the law. In other words, USPS doesn’t need to tell you they’re going to enforce it in order to enforce it.
If you are informed that your contents do not qualify for a lower rate and continue to use that rate, you are attempting to defraud USPS of the higher rate and so at a minimum it is mail fraud which is a criminal offense which is prosecutable.
They likely have more specific fines for this type of behavior.
The fact that I got any sort of communication from the postmaster general about it is enough for me to stop. Even if they can’t convict me of a crime or slap me with a fine, I choose not to spend a moment debating it with the Postal Inspector, their law enforcement officers, or paying to defend myself against criminal charges. In my book, if you’ve been charged with a crime, you’ve already lost a great deal of liberty, time, money, and productivity.
Send Media Mail all you like, but if you start getting communication from USPS to stop, you’re on notice. It’s also an agency that’s really hurting right now in terms of cashflow, so I wouldn’t test their willingness to start cracking down and making examples.
I can’t believe you received correspondence, thats wild. If i received anything like that I would immediately stop as well as I’m not a fan of going to court, or wasting my time with speeding tickets, drunk tanks, warrants, etc. I’m with you man.
Didn’t someone on this forum in a prior conversation about media mail talk about getting busted for using media mail? I seem to remember a comment along the lines of “trust me, it’s not worth it.” To me, that implied some sort of fine or threat of prosecution.
I believe @drunkwooky that he got notice to stop shipping media mail, but the majority of people are going to have no problem. I mean it’s the first eBay option for comic shipping I don’t understand why people are worried about this. Unless you get some over zealous postal worker or have a package break apart during shipping they have bigger things to worry about than your comic book.
Why take the chance on it being inspected to save a few cents? I also don’t like my packages to be in the post offices hands for long periods of time and media mail takes forever. I do free shipping for the most part and only use First Class or Priority. I’ve had to deal with one of my incoming packages being inspected and I was charged more money at the post office because comics don’t meet the criteria for the discounted Media Mail rate. And you never downgrade postage upgrade only. If I pay for Priority and it’s shipped in a different way you’re well on your way to negative feedback in my book.
That’s not how it normally works. For a short period of time you’re correct. The rest of the time another story. Though most stuff seems to get taking forever nowadays at least with the US Postal Service. I’m blaming that on the idiot in charge of the USPS. You know the one that states he’s bringing it up to date but trying to sink it because he has tons of money in the competition.
What I’ve seen in the last month shipping by media mail or economy shipping as Ebay shows it is a lot of inconsistancy in time to deliver. A package may go across the country to California in 4 days or take 21 days to arrive. This past week 2 buyers messaged me because the tracking had not been updated in more than a week and I didn’t know what to tell them except that I had shipped it out the next business day and that I would call the local post office to see if they could tell me anything and their answer was the same on both cases, that the package was not lost but was in transit to the next facility. That’s their standard answer now but they can’t say where it’s at or when it will be delivered. The USPS is doing a terrible job of updating tracking right now and it’s extremely frustrating for me as well as the customer because you are pretty much at their mercy. Anyone having much trouble with first class or priority shipping lately. I just wondered because I’ve been thinking about going back to them for shipping comics.
I once mailed a set of WW2 history books to a customer about 7 miles from my house. I forgot the exact duration, but it took them over a week to arrive via media mail. If it hadn’t been an ebay sell, I could have driven them over there on my way to work faster, lol.
On the other hand, I’ve had stuff arrive fast via media mail. I’ve decided it’s unpredictable to some degree.
I’ve had quite a few packages come from Texas that never showed any activity until it was waiting at the post office for me. 4 or 5 separate times and always from Texas.
I’ve had several like that lately that had not been updated on the tracking for 10 days or so and then they just showed delivered. I don’t know why they aren’t getting scanned more along the way to the destination. I thought that was part of the tracking process that when they reached another facility they were scanned and when they left to go to the next one they got scanned again but apparently not anymore.
I’ve got one now I mailed the morning of April 6th, it still just says “label created.” I messaged the customer and told them it was already mailed. I suppose it will start showing right before it arrives. Yes, my priority is taking over 4 days in many cases.
Just think how that looks to the buyer. It looks like you printed a label and never mailed it. Especially if it’s a book that recently got hot. They think you’re going to relist it and get more money. It’s one of the reasons I always hand it to the postal employee and get a receipt.
