In buying cards from the US, Beckett marketplace has always had the best variety, but the shipping costs were pretty steep. Trying to price up $15-20 worth of cards would likely leave you with an extra $30-40 in postage charges.
Ebay has become even worse. The main issues being:
- Many American sellers won't ship outside of the US.
- American's charge ridiculous shipping fees. $US7.00 is quite a common shipping cost for sellers to charge to send to Australia. Apaprently US Post charges over $US6 to send a card to Australia. I can send several cards to the USA in a bubble mailer for less than $US2.50
- The farce that is the Ebay's Global Shipping Program. This rather idiotic concept means that instead of shipping overseas, American sellers can ship to an American address, and a contractor for Ebay will then ship it overseas for them. Concept OK, reality is a farce. Using this program means that it can cost over $US30 shipping for a single $US0.99 sports card to Australia. Overseas buyers are learning to pretty much steer clear of any seller using Ebay's Global Shipping Program due to the unrealistic shipping costs.
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| Why non-American buyers avoid sellers using Ebay's Global Shipping Program |
So that's where Check Out My Cards comes into play. $US3.00 flat rate for shipping. Niiiice. After a couple of months of Ebay selling, I jumped over to COMC and made my first ever purchase with them - 89 cards - with my profits from Ebay selling.
Earlier this week, my COMC package arrived, a box full of Autographed, Game Used and Parallel cards of Australian MLB players. Niiiice.
Clearly the USPS had no thought in mind regarding how they would seriously damage international (card) trade when they ratcheted up postage to other countries. With the possible exception of Mexico, it seems like it now costs more to ship from the US outward than it costs ANYWHERE ELSE to ship to the US. It shouldn't cost $6 someone in Buffalo, New York to ship a small stack of cards to someone in Toronto, Ontario, especially when it only costs the Canadian about half that to ship the other way.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear COMC is working out for you. I wonder if they can save any shipping to Australia by sending from their facility in Vancouver?
Thanks. I'll try and mention the Vancouver shipping to the COMC rep on OzCardTraders when next on there. Oh and BTW, I'm interested in the Dave Nilsson Japanese sticker you have on eCrater, but it says you don't ship to Australia ... will you make an exception for me? :)
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