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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,415
43,304
They'll make a modest profit on shipping and make what they hope is a quick sale.
 

Tomorrow

macrumors 604
Mar 2, 2008
7,160
1,364
Always a day away
Sellers on eBay sometimes do this - they pay the site a percentage of what the item sells for, but not the shipping. So someone trying to circumvent paying eBay a significant portion of the sale simply charges $0.01 for the item and, say, $25 shipping (when the item costs much less than that to ship). eBay gets a "portion" of the $0.01, but not the $25.
 

novetan

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 3, 2010
390
10
Sellers on eBay sometimes do this - they pay the site a percentage of what the item sells for, but not the shipping. So someone trying to circumvent paying eBay a significant portion of the sale simply charges $0.01 for the item and, say, $25 shipping (when the item costs much less than that to ship). eBay gets a "portion" of the $0.01, but not the $25.

In this case, shipping cost is $3.99. Any idea how much the seller earn? I'm curious as to how on earth the pricing is so low and expect to earn something decent?
 

adk

macrumors 68000
Nov 11, 2005
1,937
21
Stuck in the middle with you
Sellers on eBay sometimes do this - they pay the site a percentage of what the item sells for, but not the shipping. So someone trying to circumvent paying eBay a significant portion of the sale simply charges $0.01 for the item and, say, $25 shipping (when the item costs much less than that to ship). eBay gets a "portion" of the $0.01, but not the $25.

That doesn't happen anymore. Ebay charges commissions on shipping now.
 

happyfrappy

macrumors 6502
Oct 14, 2007
343
50
Location eh?
If someone deals in used books/DVDs/CDs/etc they usually have some kind of volume shipping agreement which allows them to pay flat-rate($1-2 media mail padded envelopes) so their profit margin of flea market/yard sale purchases remain decent. In my experience be extremely careful as some sellers over-state the quality of used items, Amazon doesn't have much protection vs eBay as the seller isn't required to provide images of the item appearance of quality/edition. (some used sellers even try off-loading older editions of books or textboks without noting it)

During the dotcom boom era Half.com was a popular place to buy new overstocks/used items, places like Overstock killed the "surplus" market and British used music/movie/games company called "Zoverstocks" leveraged a Funcoland/GameStop presence of pushing used prices painfully cheap(profit via shipping).
 

shawnpuerto

macrumors member
Dec 2, 2014
70
2
As a seasoned amazon merchant, the 1 cent people are only making a few pennies. But they offer the books because they make thousands of transactions a day, and that can equal a decent amount of profit. It's by no means the BEST way to make money, but they do what they can.

I usually don't sell anything that has a value of less than $5 (shipping not included). I maybe sell two or three things a day, but it's worth it for me.
 
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