Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Welcome, eBay standard envelope

One of my favorite developments over the last few weeks as been the arrival of the eBay standard envelope. This provides the seller and buyer with the option of what is generally a trackable PWE shipping envelope.

I couldn't be more on board.

As a Tino Martinez collector, I often see his cards listed for $1 or $2, with $3.99 shipping. Unless it's a card I rarely come across, I generally refrain. Once in a while I'll check out other items for combined shipping, but for the most part I HATE paying more for shipping than the card itself.

And as someone who is firmly in the camp of #TeamPWE, I would gladly pay for non-bubble mailer shipping.

I'm not 100% how it works as a seller yet. I know there are three pricing options: $.51, $.71, and $.91. What I'm not sure of yet is if they are enforced, what sort of envelope qualifies for which option, etc. It's still unclear to me.

And I fully expect to see sellers still charging $4 for shipping and using this option. That won't be ok.

Additionally, if I dabble in selling and using this method, I am unsure if I can just drop these envelopes in a normal blue mailbox like I have at my corner, or if I need to make the trek to the post office to have the clerk scan these envelopes like they would a larger package. If the latter, that loses some appeal for me, as a seller.

Regardless, it has helped land me cards like these two for $2 shipped (each). To me, that is much more palatable than $.99 + $3.50.
Welcome, eBay standard envelope. I hope you're here for good.

9 comments:

  1. I got some cards in one of those last week - two weeks past the delivery date as it seemed to disappear in between "label created" and "delivered" in the USPS system. I have no idea if that is because of the eBay envelope or if it was just a coincidence. It had an eBay tracking number instead of a USPS one.

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  2. I'm no expert, but I know a little. I know the 51 cent option is just regular mail. The 71 cent option is the non-machinable option which is what cards fall into according to the rules. Some people get by with mailing cards at 51 cents, but it's riskier both in damage and in getting the cards sent back to you. I was not aware of a 91 cent option.

    As far as enforcing it, it just depends on how big a stickler your post office employees are. From 2000-early 2019 or so I did eBay off and on and was able to get by with skirting the rules a bit. Nothing really bad, just trying to save costs. But things changed last year around the time the post office went haywire due to the new guy the former pres appointed. They got a lot tougher on rules enforcement. So it really just depends on how good your local post office employees are at their jobs.

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  3. I've noticed that PWE's appear to be arriving at my house much quicker than the tracked bubble mailers.

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  4. Just found my first 2 in the mail today, I am all for the new mailing option for eBay sellers.

    You can probably just drop them in a blue box, but maybe take the first one to the post office and ask them to be sure.

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  5. $3.99? Hell, pretty much every card I've looked at in the last year or so has had $4.99 shipping attached to it.

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  6. Super neat and nice looking cards there. Wow! I don't understand the ebay shipping thing but I don't even own a printer, so maybe that's ok? Trackable PWE's sounds super awesome though. Hi.

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  7. I’ve shipped one card using this new service and it seems to be taking longer for the tracking to be uploaded versus a normal bubble mailer.

    I do love the service...when I can find sellers using it. I’ve asked a few sellers why they weren’t using it and it appears it’s just laziness for the most part.

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  8. i love the new PWE service and glad ebay finally got around to it...it's been way too easy for less genuine buyers to say a card never arrived. at least sellers have some form of proof now! and vice versa as well...

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