Say NO to this new eBay feature or risk losing money 

Man I've been reselling for a long time and watching so many different RU-vid resellers, and I've learned more in 2 of your videos than most of the others combined. Keep it up, love your stuff!

Today, I figured my ‘watcher’, to be the seller I did a ‘sell similar’ from. I put my item up for $5 less bc it had a flaw. She then took her price down by $10. My question is… are we viewed as watchers on sell similars bc I’m always receiving offers from eBay for simply viewing + doing a ‘sell similar’.

Officially according to the auction industry vintage is 20 yrs or more up to 99 yrs. Over 100 yrs old is antique. Great video!

The guy who bought the hard drive is going to return it, guaranteed (and he might even intentionally break it and claim it came broken). Anyone who would ask a seller for a partial refund before the item shipped for no reason is someone who feels extremely entitled and is therefore guaranteed trouble.

I also consider anything that is at least 2 decades old to be Vintage. It sounds funny to find Y2k stuff and say "vintage" but I bet people in the 80s felt that way about 60s items and so on. Great content broski 🤙🏽

20 years for vintage is my go-to guideline, too. 🙂 I have had "actual shipping cost" turned on for a long time - stumbled across the setting somewhere around the business policy setup, I think. (Passes the discount along to the customer - like the default will be soon.) Old appliances new in the box are almost always good money - I sold a NIB bagel cutter a couple weeks ago for $75. It was electric and very well-made. My favorite is finding a scrap of gift wrap still taped to the box. 🙂

Thanks for the update. Just signed up and populated our Flipwise inventory. What a livesaver this is going to be. Love it!!

The shipping discount setting has been active on eBay Canada for a while now. I've kept it active and it gave me a lot more US sales. (calculated shipping is really necessary in Canada because the prices fluctuate a lot... it's cheaper so ship to USA than to ship to my neighbor) Only smaller things (less than 0.75'' thick) are ''cheap'' to ship, but even then, there is no tracking.

Aprils pretty slow for me as well but I'm also a new seller trying to get my active listing count up. Think I'll go scope out the local flea market this weekend for the first time to get some new inventory. Thanks for the expertise each week Justin!

As for the new shipping policy, I have had much success with doing exactly what eBay plans to do. In settings, you can select to pass on the savings of shipping to the buyer and, for at least a year now, the buyer pays what I pay for shipping. I ship a lot of golf clubs and the shipping costs was astronomical for the buyer but about $12 for me. My sales have definitely increased due to this. I think it is a good idea but maybe not for every item. You have to consider that you might be paying for boxes and packaging as well as fees on shipping. So factor that into your price.

I think passing on the actual cost of shipping item is fine, the buyer gets the exact shipping cost…we the seller have to pay eBay fees on that actual shipping cost…so sellers are losing money on shipping under the new policy.

That person wanting the partial refund was probably shown the same item for less after buying yours, usually when this happens the buyer cancels, in this case they decided to just ask for some money back. Not cool, but I blame eBay.

Just bought a black and decker food processor. parting it out, seen you do it a couple of times! Thank you for the tip.

If ebay wanted to be fair then calculated shipping (where actual shipping cost is charge) there would be no ebay fees charged for shipping. But then, we are dealing with ebay.

I opted out of ebay giving discounted shipping because i accept low offers to help with shipping and the couple bucks i get from the shipping discount is used for materials to ship.

opt out, opt out, opt out!!!!!!!!!

“She’s weird like that” 😆😆 Shipping is my favorite part too.

Hi Justin, love your vids. I use the calculated shipping and always check what the costs would be for the seller and then pad it a dollar or so just to ensure my shipping costs are covered since I don't pre-box. It's normally much cheaper than the quoted prices the buyer would have received.

The Vintage & Antique shows I do in Oregon require items to be at least 20 years old to be at a show.

I have one of those Saltine tins from when I was a kid! Think I'm going to list it after seeing what you got for yours.

Thank you for the link. I always use ground advantage but never put the actual weight of my items. I know what which weights cost which amount and list competitively. This would cause so much loss to me. Thanks again for the link.

Thank you very much for talking about the changes to eBay shipping! :)

Great Monday Video as always!

Thank you for the link! I was trying to find that page with no luck!

I live in Michigan so a heavy item like stereo receiver is sometimes over $100 to ship to the west coast.I always use calculated shiiping for big heavy items. This also weeds out the riff raff buyers.

Another great vid Justin. Garage sales rock!!!

That jersey is awesome, I’ve been keeping an eye out for one of them. My favorite Blue’s jersey hands down

Justin, can you please show exactly how you add those standard shipping policies/rates to items? I can't seem to figure out how to do that, but it sounds like a fast, efficient way to set up shipping. Thanks!

I am grumpy about the shipping change is because there is more to shipping then just shipping there is tape and boxes and bubble wrap thank you cards ect. I never considered it as a profit just away to off set packaging.

WOW! Thank you for this. I had no idea. And sometimes the calculated shipping has actually come back and bit me - eBay sends a message that USPS had to amend its charges and I'm being debited for extra. I do my best to keep shipping costs down, but damn.

thanks for answering the question about the watcher/view I've always wondered how it was possible. A question I have is: what helped you choose the price point for flipwise?

I was interested to hear someone else's thoughts on the calculated shipping change. I do use it and the buyer is almost always paying more than the actual charge (thanks to ebay's discount) so I would usually upgrade their shipping service if they paid enough to allow it but I always thought, as a consumer, I'd much rather pay less and wait another day or 2 than pay more without knowing. Thanks for your insight!

Good video Justin. Thank you for the education 🤙

Many good tips! Issue w/ thermal paper is the toxic BPA and/or BPS content, that's readily absorbed thru the skin and blood and accumulates in tissues.

With the changes to calculated shipping, a solution to address the cost of shipping materials is to include handling fees in your shipping policy.

With calculated shipping, you can specify a handling fee, to help keep that profit margin in place

can you create a video on how you do a flat rate shipping set up like you do that sounds like a great way to make more sales.

We split duties similar to you. My wife and I thrift together. Items she finds, she lists and packs. Items I find I list and ship. I almost always use calculated shipping. My fear is if I opt out, the eBay algorithm will punish me. So I am opting in. Also if you opt out, your competition (other sellers) who opt in will have better pricing, so I think I will lose sales. Whenever I get a really strange request from a buyer, I'll cancel the sale using buyer requested and then block them. Buyers like this are trouble.

I also did not ship to Alaska, Hawaii, or US Territories until recently. A buyer from Hawaii messaged me about an item she wanted and was willing to pay up on the shipping. I agreed and accidentally discovered Ground Advantage covers those locations. It cost me about $5 to ship a 4 x 6 x 8 box weighing 8 oz. from Texas to Honolulu. I was pleasantly shocked and happy to partial refund my buyer who paid $15 in shipping for a very small and light item. I went back and changed my settings to allow shipping to those places. This policy also includes APOs BTW.

Thanks for all the videos you do, they are a great help. I'm quite new to reselling and am having an issue with Local Pick Up. I started to offer it for bulkier items but sometimes a listing has slipped through with it offered. I don't have an issue with it but out of the 3 sales I have made with it, 2 were bought buy people in other states. I cancelled the first one and refunded the buyer but now I'm wondering if I should let the buyer cancel the order. Does it go against my account to cancel it? I'm fine giving the refund. Also is there a way for the buyer to change it to select shipping, I offer calaculated shipping or local pick up. Thanks.

Wait, HELP! (w/your link) The OPT OUT choices are confusing!! Which to pick if wanting to OPT OUT? , because last option states that; (no labels to use anymore?) we wont get any shipping discount anymore(for ourselves??), AND 1st option says;we will "enjoy using labels and getting a discount (for ourselves?!)".. Are they trying to gaslight us with these descriptions in how its worded??? Here is what I saw: eBay discounted rates 1) "Offer buyers our negotiated carrier rates on all listings with calculated shipping. Purchase eBay Labels once you receive an order to enjoy these rates. Learn more" *OR* 2)"Standard rates without discount Offer buyers standard carrier rates without any discount" - so, im guessing option 2 there to opt out?... but will lose my discounts with printing labels possibly? Makes no sense to me

Hi, new subscriber here your content is by far the best out there! Please could you let me know if I can use flipwise from the UK. Thank you!

Confused because this has always been an option within the settings. Thank you for the business policy’s helps save a lot of time

Vintage on Etsy is 20 years so that's a great tip for people. I have been reselling for over 20 years on Etsy and Ebay. I enjoy your channel very much, and have learned a lot. My husband is going to join in with me Aug 1 when he retires. Thanks of an intelligent channel.

Tomorrow is day 30 of selling on Ebay. Really enjoy your channel so when I found out Flipwise was available I gave it a try. Just the inventory piece has been worth it. The rest is the cherry on top. Going to spend some more time this weekend getting into the other features. Thanks.

I have done better this month than last, but its still down from where I would like to be. I'm still plowing through items. Hoping to add almost double the quantity to make up for the low sales numbers this coming month. That will also clear my "pile" sitting around.

I think most sellers aren't looking at the big picture with regards to this shipping discount. I agree that you will have to eat those fees which sucks. I agree with you about not opting out because your sales are probably going to go up. I am a flat rate shipper also and I have started looking to see how I can lower my shipping because of this change. I think if you haven't opted into this new change I think your items are going to be pushed deep down in search by ebay.

You mentioned getting away from your 'Free Shipping' model - why the change and what is your new strategy to streamline shipping costs? Thanks for posting these videos every week!

Glad to hear it was a bad week on Ebay, I'm just getting started and it was a brutal week. There was also a lot of errors with promotions, so that may explain some of it

Just found your channel and subscribed.

UPS SurePost allows shipping to PO box

found a new-in-box Black and Decker Spacemaker can opener the other day at a thrift store for $10. it was a newer model than yours and it sold in less than 48 hours for over $100. Love selling those things!

Justin, more often than not I lose money on shipping because when I ship to the west coast it will cost more than my estimate. If ebay wants to calculate the correct shipping cost, I'm good with it.

For about the last two years I opted in to pass the shipping savings onto my customers. Customers factor shipping as part of price so that’s why I get off offers like $26.47 because they are coming up with a rounded price. That savings is nice but it costs me nothing to get an item sold $30 or $40 and it costs me $2-4 that I didn’t really have to use for promotion or reduced price.

I have been doing calculated shipping for years, and the price that the buyer pays is the same as the discounted rate I get from Ebay, unless I miscalculated the weight and am able to ship it at a lower weight.

Asking for a partial refund or discount is actually against eBays terms for buyers, its part of the first thing on the list of reasons you can report a buyer for, option 1"Buyer demanded something that was not offered in my listing", sub option 3 "Requested that I give them a partial refund or discount" the best way to combat this is to report it instead of just saying "oh that's eBay" or thinking eBay is not going to do anything about it and just not report it as it seems like Justin did in this video. Report this type of stuff if you are a reseller!

Could you have canceled that external hard drive sale as buyer requested if you hadn't asked if the wanted a refund or do they have to specifically say "I want a refund"?

I actually hadn’t heard about that shipping change but it doesn’t apply to me. I somehow already had that activated. The buyer pays the same amount it costs for calculated shipping. Never been an issue but I haven’t done it any other way so I have nothing to compare.

Thank you for this video and the link. I would have never found it. ......

I have a few questions. Uppon doing lots of research and after watching tons of videos of resellers (mostly from USA saddly and i'm Canadian), I recently started selling stuff on eBay (don't have alot listed at the moment but i don't know if listing regurlarly has an impact or not) as it seems to be the most profitable platform. When you first started eBbay, how long did it take you to be successful and to live off of it? And do you have any good advice/tips to easily sell your stuff online/Ebbay? I'm asking because it's nearly been a month and i'm struggling to get my little online business started... I try to follow the ton of advice i see in lots of videos and i'm trying to keep high hopes but it's just so hard.

I sell almost exclusively vintage. 20 years or older is the commonly accepted definition, likely because that's Etsy's policy on vintage items haha. Vintage is usually long tail so wait one-two years for something to sell isn't uncommon for me. I love when that's not the case but vintage is what I love and that's part of it haha.

As a Canadian, I bought a lot from eBay until their huge shipping costs kicked in. With our pathetic dollar and eBays new shipping charges what I pay is three times your selling price.

I activated this feature myself a long time ago. Most of my items are slow moving and I want them to have every advantage over the 10 other listings on the site that aren't selling either. I do think that ebay should drop the fees for calculated shipping like mercari has though. I know back in the day they started shipping fees because of the work arounds, but it's not 1999 anymore. There's a way they could only allow it on calculated shipping bought through them, they just don't want to lose all that extra money they've been getting for so long.

I am in Canada. The discount shipping has been offered to my customers since last year, so I wonder if it's different in USA. I use calculated shipping. Maybe I am missing something here ?

Vintage is hard to determine since some things become obsolete quicker than others but 30 years is about my number on vintage.

How does one go about finding estate sales / moving truck sales / etc. in their local area?

I started selling in Feb 2024. Discounted shipping has always been offered to my buyers, as a new seller I have never known what it is like to sell without a shipping discount! I did need to start adding in 1.50 shipping and handling fee to offset eBay fees on shipping. Shipping men’s jeans across the country is $9-10, eBay fees on shipping we’re just killing me.

I'm fairly new to selling on eBay (less than a year). Several months ago eBay gave me the suggestion to pass along the shipping discount to buyers and I already made this switch. Yeah I liked that extra little bit of profit on shipping, but I justify it to myself that I'm in business to make money selling things, not to make money shipping things. I think the lower advertised shipping cost definitely makes my listings more attractive to buyers.

Did anyone else not get the 4/17 message from eBay? All my messages have copies to my email as well and I’ve got nothing in either 🤷‍♂️

Question...Is it worth Shipping Overseas? I have some batteries going to another continent and have been in delivery for over 2 months now. Thanks

I'm sorry if it's in here somewhere but do you always go aubction or buy it now format? Thanks for all the valuable information! ❤️

Question; Can a seller change the Flat Rate shipping amount/size/weight AFTER the item sold? Ie; show a listed flat ship price of 15.00, but adjust and purchase for 10.00 after the sale?...if so, then why wouldn't ebay also have an opt in/out for that too???

I don't do calculated shipping but I really wish eBay would list it as "Shipping & Handling". Many buyers don't appreciate that it takes time and effort, sometimes even an hour or more to properly pack delicate/heavy/awkward items. For even the most routine things like a dvd it's still at least a couple of minutes to retrieve it, weigh it, pack it, tape it, measure it, buy a label and print it, not to mention the time it takes to drop off at the post office.

Yup, you need to be careful of those buyers who wants a discount. He or she will try to find a flaw on the item or show you a picture of the item that they are replacing and try to scam you.

I’m interested in the flip wise. When it comes to vintage, I might consider something vintage if the item or brand came out with a new version I will say it’s vintage. It might not technically be 20 yr plus but if it’s the original version so I use the word.

Hi how can I sign up to Flipwise as an UK ebay seller? Thanks

Someone from Alaska bought an old computer magazine off me for $50 and they paid an extra $20 for shipping. I was surprised, but it worked out ok.

Thanks for the info..I've learned a lot from you.. maybe you can help me find a solution for my shipping...I'm relatively new to eBay, about 6 months, but not new to the ideal..I researched and planned for 2 years..I'm killing it in everything but the shipping..Ive been doing everything through the post office.. primarily became im technically ignorant..I got a label printer and scale 2 months ago..and after watching countless videos i can't get my printer to cooperate..so still the Post office it is..

I would like to opt out of the new calculated shipping change, because by the time I buy shipping insurance and signature required on the package, that shipping discount ebay was giving you, is no longer there. So if I don't opt out, I will be paying out of my pocket for the buyers shipping insurance and signature required.

I opt out because for years I have always put T shirts in as 4oz and 8oz as the calculated weight on large shirts To help mitigate the inflated shipping charges by eBay Now I wish I had never started doing that but I have 2k items that I would need to update or I will Lose money on the shipping So I’m going to opt out

I do calculated shipping, and I opted out of the new policy. My personal policy is that if someone ends up paying more than $1.50 over what shipping costs me, I refund that overage. (I once had a gentleman pay $35 for shipping on something that cost me $10 to mail!) I use that $1.50 or so to pay for my shipping supplies.

FYI, you can use any delivery service ie UPS, FED EX, DHL to deliver to a po box. You just need to add the street address of the post office where the po box is located. Size of the item does not have to fit in the box. The post office will leave a pickup slip in the box if it's to big. Please check your information before telling sellers it can't be done.

I haven't sold on there for a couple of years but now it says ebay pymt takes all these diff ways to pay where i only take paypal and no way to turn it off so I'm assuming ebay takes those ways and they pay me through paypal?

I offer free shipping, and I have to ask, when I list an item, if I dont add the weight and size info, I get an error and have to go back and add it. If I am paying why does Ebay need the wt/dimensions for the listing?

I watch stuff like that without clicking its so I can go through after & read into each further & then decide what I want or not so it's not really that weird to me lol

My parents used to own that Nabisco tin!

I have also started to part out Cuisinart food processors and other small appliance, what do you do with the bases or motors, donate them?

Do you know how international shipping works on flat rate shipping polices? The ones I've set say it sells through the international eBay shipping program, but I've wondered how shipping is calculated for them if size/weight is not included in my listing.

I Get A Lot Of Send Offer On A No Watchers. What's That About.

New subscriber. Looks like you sell everything...

I would be willing to "pass my shipping discounts to the buyers" if eBay was willing to "pass their shipping fees" to me. But for me to get true shipping cost from the buyer means I'm actually losing money every time I ship because eBay takes a fee from the shipping cost. I could add a handling fee, but I do wonder if seeing an additional fee might turn some buyers off.

Nice vid

I usually do better after tax refunds come in. February is my slowest month and summer is usually tough.

Do a video on how eBay’s promotion works!

I think so many Sellers use the shipping as an income stream. I do not like that shady side of the business. I do FREE SHIPPING and calculate it per item and blend it in the price. I will Never buy from a seller that inflates shipping costs. And, I buy as much as a can on eBay.

I consider same... 20 years or older is vintage. 100 years or older is antique. Drives me nuts when people write antique in their listing for something that's from the 1950's or 60's. LOL!

You siad in an earlier video that you promote all your listings. What % do you do? Do you leave it at 11.5%? Thanks :D

I sell on multiple platforms and the eBay buyers have been the absolute worst !! I never received poor reviews until EBay. I literally have people their money back and allowed them to keep the item and still have trash review.

Thanks for the recommendation of sending offers as soon as someone watches an item. I have been waiting until and item has only a few days left until it's relisted for me to send offers, to give that person as much time as possible to pay full price, but it totally makes more sense to send them an offer when they are actively shopping. I realize they could watch that same item on several other other seller listings, and if that's the case, the person that sends them the best offer ASAP will get their business. I just sent 30+ offers that I have been holding back on. Thanks again!

Do you use the promoted option? If so, what percent? I've been doing 2 percent and no best offer. I'm on the fence if I want to make a change to this decision.