Hey, pootski! [or anyone else with experience selling on Amazon]
Is it just me, or does Amazon's shipping allowance to sellers not come near to covering the postage for anything but small books?
I sold a book earlier this year, just a little bigger and thicker than a standard trade PB but with pulpy, lightweight paper, and the only kind of shipping I could afford was Media Mail. There was a close call because the buyer had given the wrong apartment number and there was nothing I could do to reroute the package, but in the end she was able to get it.
Now I've just sold one of my textbooks from last semester (3 lbs. 3 oz. by my kitchen scale), and again the shipping allowance ($3.99) only covers Media Mail ($3.28). Parcel Post is $9.38 and Priority Mail is more. I checked UPS, not that I have any desire to do business with them, and their lowest rate was $11-plus.
The weird thing is that I had listed the book back in January and thought the listing would expire in a week or so the way they have in the past when I've listed stuff, which was fine with me because I wasn't sure I wanted to sell it after all. Then just last night I got an email that it had sold.
I'm going to use Media Mail this time, but I'm curious to know what everyone else does because I know I'm not the only one in this situation. Is it possible to get delivery confirmation or insurance on Media Mail? Do you suck it up and pay more for shipping out of your own pocket? If it were just a dollar or two I might be OK with that, but I'm not really interested in losing more than 10 percent of what I'm getting from Amazon to cover shipping.
I sold a book earlier this year, just a little bigger and thicker than a standard trade PB but with pulpy, lightweight paper, and the only kind of shipping I could afford was Media Mail. There was a close call because the buyer had given the wrong apartment number and there was nothing I could do to reroute the package, but in the end she was able to get it.
Now I've just sold one of my textbooks from last semester (3 lbs. 3 oz. by my kitchen scale), and again the shipping allowance ($3.99) only covers Media Mail ($3.28). Parcel Post is $9.38 and Priority Mail is more. I checked UPS, not that I have any desire to do business with them, and their lowest rate was $11-plus.
The weird thing is that I had listed the book back in January and thought the listing would expire in a week or so the way they have in the past when I've listed stuff, which was fine with me because I wasn't sure I wanted to sell it after all. Then just last night I got an email that it had sold.
I'm going to use Media Mail this time, but I'm curious to know what everyone else does because I know I'm not the only one in this situation. Is it possible to get delivery confirmation or insurance on Media Mail? Do you suck it up and pay more for shipping out of your own pocket? If it were just a dollar or two I might be OK with that, but I'm not really interested in losing more than 10 percent of what I'm getting from Amazon to cover shipping.