Let’s Talk - The Reality Selling Pokémon Cards - My Shipping Dilemma 

When you don’t pay postage correctly even you don’t think .07 over a oz is justified the buyer has to pay the extra postage and/or go pick it up. And in that case they leave bad feedback or return to sender, I wouldn’t pay extra postage. I am a seller too and have over 2k 100 percent feedback, don’t cut corners and you will be good.

I buy and sell on eBay. I always throw in junk cards & Everything I send is toploaded. Maybe I’m bias but I’d rather receive my purchase top loaded, rather than non-top loaded with junk cards.

You are allowed a .25 inch thickness for standard esus labels. Never go more than two top loaders thick and you won’t have anything sent back if you pay correct postage.

Sell on EBay sounds rough 😨 I guess selling at conventions is better ? I only go to card show 2 times so I don’t know much about it lol

Simple Fix to this issue. Print the Shipping Label + Packing Slip, at 80% instead of "Fit to Paper". Print Shipping Label, place back in printer (ink, face-up)... Print Packing Slip. (Remember, both printed at 80% of the default size). 1 Sheet of paper. The Packing Slip will actually cause it to weigh over. My post master gave me this tip. Never had an issue again.

I got charged an extra 4.50 for a standard envelope. I think sometimes the top loaders jam up the sorting machines and then the post master decides to charge you extra because they don’t know about eBay standard envelope and think it should be first class mail.

I sell bulk all of the time. I prefer using the 4x6 paperboard ebay document mailers - these also eliminate the need for extra cardboard. I always select 2 ounces. If you have a basic store subscription (the 25 dollar level) you get a quarterly coupon for ebay branded packing supplies. I use this to buy the mailer.

I use a cheap digital caliper to measure the thickness. They are cheap online or Harbor Freight. I find a penny sleeve and top loader folded in a sheet of paper has no problems but cardboard added to that is typically over the .25 thickness. And I weigh everything, if its close the the next shipping range I always bump it up. I’d much rather spend the extra cents or repackage rather than delay the shipment.

The thick cardboard DEFINITELY was the problem. It’s thicker than even sending 6-7 cards in a single sleeve. If you’re putting more than 1 card on top of that kind of cardboard you’re certainly going to have problems. I don’t even ship things in toploaders anymore. I either ship them in a semi-rigid Card Saver or stacked on a thin, rigid piece of cardboard (such as the ETB divider you were using). Toploaders are so rigid they run the risk of getting stuck in the sorting machine and damaging the card. If you’re shipping 4 or more cards you can even put them in a sleeve together and ship them wihh the no other protection. Also as far as the accidental Standard Envelope charge goes, you don’t get charged for Standard Envelope until it actually gets scanned by the sorting machine. So if you buy the wrong standard label you can just throw it out and you won’t be charged. Source: I’ve been selling cards on eBay for over 10 years. Never had an issue with the methods I use.

8:10 eB@y support page even tells you no rigidity. Top loaders, extra cards etc are all enemies. Envelope must bend up to 90 degrees, and can't be thick anywhere. Even, light, and bendy all across. At max give 1 or 2 extra cards but no more. Ideal way to pack is sleeve > card saver > team bag > cardboard sleeve

I'll take some extra gold star cards. Lmao jkjk can't wait for live tonight! 151, let's go Nidoking, hyper mew, not sure if there's more or less than that!

It was overweight, for singles I do sleeved into card savers into team bag and then taped into envelope to keep from moving, always less than 1.0 ounces including a few extra cards and sticker. Never had an issue

I have a pretty similar method of shipping. Card>Penny Sleeve>Top Loader>Extras>Team Bag>Bubble Mailer Postal Services can be pretty strick & stiff, sometimes not but mostly strict, even on dimensions of the package, which isnt much of an issue on an envelope but it is with a bubble mailer. It was probably training day at the postal office and they were showing them how to sort by the book.

Trial and error, just try different things and sooner or later you'll find something you like :V Here in Italy shipping is a bit different, the least expensive option that is "kinda" tracked is €3 so it's quite a pain but the positive is that it can weight up to 100g so I basically never have to check anything if it's under 40 cards. As for rigidity I really enjoy Comic Backing Boards, toploaders are kinda expensive here unless you buy a metric ton and I'd like to not use plastic where I can. Comic boards come in a set of 100 and I cut them up so that they're a bit bigger than the card and a good fit to the team bag, in the end I get 800 rigid and thin pieces of cardboard (I use 2 each time) and they come out quite a bit less expensive than toploaders for basically the same protection. Never had a single issue. I also prepare them beforehand in the teambag with something nice written on them with a couple of pokemon stickers too, loading up a card takes me around 5 seconds if I don't feel like throwing in anything else so I'm pretty happy with this method :D

Ever have this issue ? If so what was the real cause ?

I sell alot under 20 that goes in a top loader and in an envelope, it's probably just weight, I usually just do the 2/3 oz option and I almost always charge the buyer so it doesn't take away from my profit margin.

Hey bro just subscribed. What do you think of this deal ? Worth getting ? base ,rocket,fossil,jungle basically be all the wotc sets without holos for £180 in pounds English currency all in delivered

Sup fam! Hope all is well. I've been selling more low cost singles recently, and like others have said it likely was that small amount of weight over OR the thickness. But having one return out of that many transactions is honestly not bad and almost expected as these things happen. My packaging is similar, I just use a Card Saver 1 instead of a top loader (if under $20) as it's cheaper in general (and less chance of being "non-machineable" in the USPS scanners since it is less rigid). I also use a #6 PWE instead of the full size one as it is about .04-.05 oz lighter, and it fits the Card Saver 1 perfectly so there is no sliding around. I've come to realize after trial and error that with this method up to 6 cards is under 1 oz (more if Japanese cards). If there is any doubt I bump up to the 0.83 shipping and in general most buyers have no issue with that (and if ends up only costing 0.63 it does help w/ profit margins over time). I also do a lot of variation listings (for example, the 151 reverse holos) which allows me to off load a lot of my cheaper duplicates within a set as well as rapidly increase my items sold as each card sold within a transaction counts as an item. I do think throwing in extras is a very nice touch as a seller. The most memorable sellers I buy from have all thrown in extras or personal thank you notes. I take pride in ensuring high quality transactions for the cards I sell, and it looks like you do too. Happy holidays bro!

Hey I sell quite a bit and have sent tens of thousands of orders in standardized envelopes like this. It’s going to be because of the thickness most of the time. The thickness also makes the mail too rigid. I believe they get caught in the rollers of the sorting machine used.

I got my 1st $20 n below envelope back last week too, my guess would be the thickness but now that you also had your 1st one sent back so close to mine , now I’m kinda wondering 🤔

It was sent back because it was the .7 oz over not enough postage due should also look into non-machinable stamps a little more expensive but its safer on the cards. It could have been too thick to go through the machine but if it was over an ounce then that's why every piece of tape and paper adds weight. A second stamp will also work. Toploaders for cards over $5 anything less just use a penny sleeve. They were just letting those other letters slide just keep it under weight and it won't happen again.

TCGPlayer seller with around 1100 sales in various sizes. Cardsavers are fantastic. I've stopped using Toploaders because of rigity. So my packing goes like this. For singles up to 4/5 cards: Penny sleeve, Cardsaver, sticker/thank you card in separate penny sleeve, 1 Team bag. I use a #6 Security envelope. I'd say 98-99% of the time I'm at 1 oz on the dot or tettering on 1.1 oz (USPS doesnt seem to care for that extra .1 oz) For orders that are more, if it is only a few cards over and safe to include in Cardsaver, I just pony up the extra postage. Anything 9-18 cards, I use a regular long PWE and put each card into a 9 (18 if doubled) binder page for D or O Ring binders. Funny enough, those binder pages fit exactly with a regular PWE and doesn't allow much wiggling. I do fold and use painters tape to seal the binder page containing the cards to ensure nothing slips out. For these orders, I usually pay up for non-machinable surcharge. Yeah it eats at profit but at least its more likely the cards will arrive to buyer more safely. For 18+ cards, I usually put 4/5 cards within a penny sleeve each, team bag, and then two toploaders to sandwich while using rubber band to secure. Bubblemailer is used after. Haven't had a insufficient postage issue yet. I do feel like top loader + a PWE that is longer than the #6 envelope will make the weight go up too.

I just like Lugia and never opened celebrations lol... I got two singles from different sellers and they were in toploaders and the bag, one in a reg short envelope and the other in a same size but cardboard envelope and both postage was standard envelope and cost 1.11 so Idk what happened

It's because it went over the exact weight, even if the order is __.01 oz. If it is then increase the ounce weight by 1 more. I wish I could send everything at around $0.63 per card but yeah cardboard that you cover your top loader card. I am new at selling on ebay and small things like that is nerve racking. I got flamed on 1 of my recent feedbacks for using a card saver 1 instead of a top loader. I scratch my head for hours.

My bet is on the weight I had them deny one of my drop offs by just being a little over

Could have been the cardboard the envelopes can’t be more than 1/4 inch thick.

use smaller envelopes and there's no reason to use anything more than a top loader sealed with a team bag.. I've sold over 650 cards and never had a return.

Me i dont charge shipping and i loosing cash, because nobody in my area want to pay shipping :(. But i try to open less pack to have less thing to sell.

Y don't u use the 1.11 ebay standard envelope shipping option?it tracks and its fast and u can do up to 3 Oz allows you to give a few extra cards or give u some peace of mind ...thats what I do and never have a problem and my cards usually get to the destination in lest then 4 days ...

It looks like it was unable to be forwarded so they moved and it got sent to a bad address from what it seems. What I do is reach out to the seller and get an updated address and if they don’t respond in a certain amount of time I will relist. Okay back to watching the rest of the video now

Whats your ebay store name?

I recently sold all my 1st edition raws!

Card savers 1s > toploaders

I always ship with a card saver 1

Thats kind of your bad, u always have to pay for enough postage lol. I'm not surprised they sent it back

Dont use cardboard 😅 lol