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How much is your time worth?

How much is your time worth?

  • Free - I suck at life.s

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • $5/hr

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • $10/hr

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • $15/hr

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • $20/hr

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • More then $20/hr

    Votes: 8 72.7%

  • Total voters
    11

Brianpore

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You have to just LOVE a potential buyer, who complains that you charge $2 more for shipping on ebay then the actual cost is to ship the item. He sure is factoring in how much (little) your time is worth. People forget that when an item is manufactured the costs of manufacturing is not just for the raw materials, but for the labor and cost to transport that item, etc to the retail store. Why is it then when I go to sell something, my time and cost of supplies are totally factored out of the equation?

An ever better example is if I buy something on discount from a local retail store and then add a few dollars to cover my costs and make a few bucks for reselling it, aka capitalism. It flabbergasts me at the audacity of some people who totally discredit the time, and expenses (car, gas, etc) you have when going to purchase said item on sale to re-sell.

So I pose this question to the SF community. How much is YOUR time worth?

***This is not a poll for how much you get paid per hour at your every day job (I am sure it is a lot more then $20/hr for almost everyone here), but a general opinion, how much you factor the cost into selling an item***
 
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MrG

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To answer your first question, it's because the prior costs are rolled into the total cost of the good, which doesn't happen when you charge a separate price for shipping. When I buy a shirt at the store, I realize I'm paying for more than the store's cost for that item plus profit margin; the store also has non-inventory costs for doing business. However, that's not what you're talking about doing here.

I don't know the background here, but I'm sympathetic to people getting upset when they pay for "shipping" only to discover the charge was well above the actual cost of shipping. If you want to charge people to compensate for your costs of doing business, that makes sense, but that's not the same as telling them it will cost more to ship than it actually does.

Perhaps it's a question of semantics, but I can see where a complaint could arise. If you want to solve the problem, just call it "shipping and handling."
 

erdawe

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Raise your product price to what you are charging for your labor, and then charge actual shipping in the shipping category.

Less complaining on both buyer's and seller's end. Or if you're doing traditional auctions, make your start price higher.

Your problem is that many ebay buyers are spoiled by sellers that ship items close to actual cost, and you're the seller which stands out who does not. Once people are hooked its a hard thing to break out of consumers even if your point is valid...

Look at amazon and their free shipping on virtually thousands of items and how many people will buy more on there because they know shipping is free. Knowing they'll get free shipping heavily lures them to purchase from amazons marketplace consistently again and again. As well, who knows how many millions of have been placed on amazon that would otherwise be <$25, then add more things to their cart to be >$25 to get free shipping.
 
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junior varsity

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$60/hr = ~ 100,00/year
so figure how much money you wanna make a year then calculate?
and its not 50 because you dont work 52 weeks a year... you vacation say 6 weeks
 
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stevent

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I understand if there's a few bucks extra for shipping. What I hate is when I pick up something on sale and instead of returning it, offer it up for sale here. I'm not trying to sell it to you for a profit but an extra $5 for my effort to go to the post office is reasonable. Especially during the Mr. Porter sale when the cost was so low that I ended up buying random stuff just to try out. You would not believe the amount of members (even ones with thousands of posts on here) asking me to ship to them for the cost I paid including shipping. And if it didn't work out for them to be able to ship back to me to return. I'm not your personal valet / shopper, (especially when it's free returns to Mr. Porter) I'm just trying to give someone an opportunity to get something cheap. Also another member who I won't name who goes around announcing "good" deals are available for quoddys / yuketens from stores. I get a PM for a pair of Quoddys I got from Mr. Porter. I say gonna put them up on eBay and the response I get is along the lines like congratulations go ahead and sell for extra. I think people need to actually value what they are buying versus the actual price paid for an item. I asked him to name a price that would have probably been 1/3 to 1/4 what you normally pay for Quoddys and they won't even offer anything.
 

junior varsity

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on another note - i sell stuff on ebay.
what i sell, i charge $6 in shipping...
i pay $2.65 for postage and $0.35 for the padded envelope. then obviously paypal and ebay take their cut (15% i believe?) so thats another $0.90 gone.
i dont know how much it costs me in terms of printing and paper, to print a shipping label and the tape to tape it up. i would say, $0.50 per label?
that only yields me $1.6 left for my time.. which i think i am being paid like a indonesian sweatshop worker at that wage :censored:
 

Brianpore

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I assume it is always called shipping and handling as it is all lumped under the shipping and handling part. If you could break it out, I would charge the actual amount for shipping and a few bucks for handling. Unfortunately ebay does not give you that option.

I just started this to get other opinions on the situation. I actually have far less complaints about ebay people complaining then about SF people complaining here on the forum. It seems a handful are totally against capitalism and feel they deserve to have a personal shopper as stevent mentioned, spend to the time to find items, pack and ship them to them and then accept returns while you make nothing. And if they find out you made a few bucks (as some of us do this for fun and beer money) then they flip out.

$60/hr = ~ 100,00/year
so figure how much money you wanna make a year then calculate?
and its not 50 because you dont work 52 weeks a year... you vacation say 6 weeks

As noted this is not suppose to be about how much you make at your regular job.
 
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Brianpore

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Than and then are different words.
Thanks...so out of this entire post, you criticize the grammar.
puzzled.gif
ok...
 

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How important is full vs half canvas to you for heavier sport jackets?

  • Definitely full canvas only

    Votes: 55 36.2%
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    Votes: 17 11.2%
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    Votes: 26 17.1%
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