I couldn’t be more pleased with this policy. I personally just hate media mail as a buyer, mainly because it takes way too long. I know there is no proven correlation between media mail and the way packages are handled but I will say that most (but not all) sellers who ship media mail are “cheap” and they package it “cheap” meaning more likelihood of damage. Again, not saying this is true across the board but I definitely see more damage with media mail.
I hardly ever purchase large stacks of books from one seller to warrant any need for media mail so waiting over one week (and sometimes it has been 2 or 3 weeks) just stinks, particularly when it only cost a few bucks more to get first class service for that 1 book. And don’t get me started on those sellers who charge for first class or priority and still ship by media mail.
Anyways, I’m sure people will still find sneaky ways to ship media mail.
This is good. Media mail here means they will bend and shove in my mailbox. First class means deliver to my door. I’ve had to ask sellers to please ship first class quite a bit (and have offered to pay), but some disregard to save a few bucks which results in me filing a return.
Guess I’ve been lucky. I’ve not seen any difference with incoming books regarding media mail or first class/priority. With good packaging, books have arrived in good shape regardless of shipping type for me. MM takes a few days more, but not by a ton.
I don’t use MM much myself anymore, but I’m assuming an ad-less trade still qualifies, so I’m using it there.
I’ve only used media mail 2 times. Both times the post office sent it back to me and I had to pay for first class to get it to my buyers. I find I have no problem selling books with $5.99 as the shipping rate. I can ship up to 4 books with a Diamond T mailer(way better than Gemini) he secret is to have a bunch of different offerings so when someone sees something they are interested in they’ll likely bundle. Also high shipping rates weed out the riff raff.
You think they were flooded with hate mail?? I think they took a big step forward without thinking about all the things that could fall in the categories they flagged that meet media mail requirements.
Surprised they even tried to take a stand on this. Why is it of their concern if people are not following USPS rules?
I get the tax thing because the IRS was probably going to start breathing down their necks after tax law changed…best to cover their own butts…but media mail? Really?
Is this a case of an ebay seller using media mail and getting caught? This was a CGC slab I bought off ebay recently, guessing the seller paid the extra $8.03 in shipping. I paid $12.95 for shipping originally.
I sold a trade paperback that had zero ads in it and shipped via media mail last week. eBay had that as an option, and that’s how I listed the item’s shipping. Arrived quickly with zero issues. Positive feedback left.
Agreed on the above. That packaging screams shipping violation.
I wonder if this seller was trying to pull a fast one on usps…and you (charging priority, then only paying for media mail). Hoping that usps would not notice the label was media mail. And just keep moving it along,
Look at the sellers history…is this the first thing they ever sold on eBay? Are they a novice, or experienced seller? An experienced seller knows not to put media mail labels on priority boxes.
The post office isn’t suppose to allow anyone to use a priority mail box for normal shipping. They will flag that and collect the postage upon delivery.
