Source
r/Etsy•
smallstakes

Australian sellers - can we talk postage?

My shop is only very new and I'm a bit confused about how to price postage on my items. I sell paper goods which are quite light and usually fit into the letters category when mailing them, but I had a recent order of 3 of my paper buntings. On their own these are quite small and light weight, but 3 in one envelope made it a bit bulky and the Aus Post worker deemed it to be a parcel over a letter and charged me $7.something instead of the $1.40 I was expecting. I had charged the buyer $4 postage so obviously I was out of pocket. I have a decent profit margin on this item so as a once-off I'm not too bothered by it but I'm not sure how to go about avoiding it in the future?

My default is $2 per item then $1 per extra item. I guess in hindsight I could have used a bigger envelope to make the envelope flatter and still fit into the letter category but that won't always be possible. Does anyone use the pre-paid envelopes? I'm concerned that higher postage rates will drive buyers away, but maybe a flat rate of shipping might do the opposite? I don't know, the postage thing confuses me a lot.

Posted Mar 12, 2015, 3:18 AM UTC

26
littletinypiranhaEver heard of turtle tea bags? -> littletinypiranha.etsy.com•

Wouldn't it had been more cost effective to just ship it as two letters of $1.40? If you do that you can just notify the seller that the items will be shipped separately due to cost/size restrictions so they know to expect two.

3
smallstakesOPpapersharp•

Ah, I didn't even think of that. I'd already sealed the envelope before arriving at the post office and didn't want to make my 2 restless kids wait any longer, so I just paid and left. Doesn't it seem a little unprofessional though? I don't know, I think I would probably think it seemed a little dodgy if I was the buyer, but I don't really know why.

3
littletinypiranhaEver heard of turtle tea bags? -> littletinypiranha.etsy.com•

That's why it would help to explain to the customer the reason behind shipping separately. Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't find it unprofessional (as long as I'm giving a valid reason). I mean if they wanted to pay more to have it shipped as a single package they can do that too, I would rather save the money on shipping.

2
geogabs•

You can overcharge a little bit for shipping and refund the difference afterward. You can do partial refunds and specify it's for shipping after a sale.

1
smallstakesOPpapersharp•

Yeah I was thinking about that - I guess my concern is that there's such a drastic jump in between the prices for letters and parcels, I don't want to be charging everyone $7 by default when a lot of my items cost less than that. Even if I state they're offered a refund, don't I risk losing buyers who balk at the shipping? It really only becomes an issue when people buy 3 or more things, but Etsy doesn't have the option to differentiate between higher quantities.

1
geogabs•

I'm a US seller, so it might be different. But Etsy lets me put a shipping price and then has a second spot for price when shipped with a second item. Does that make sense? So when people buy multiple items the shipping price jumps, but not by an unreasonable amount. Maybe there is a way to balance those rates so people end up paying enough.

I get what you mean though. Shipping prices are a pain sometimes and I think if the shipping price is too high you might lose some customers. Have you thought about offering a second listing for multiple of the same item? You could list it for a discount, for example, the buyer could buy 3 $5 items or they can purchase the 3 item together listing for $12. And then the $12 listing would have shipping pricing to reflect the fact that it's being shipped as a package.

I hope that makes sense. Good luck to you!

1