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How to set shipping costs

timtrick1

Hi,

I just got received my business license, I got everything online set up, the only thing that is confusing are the shipping costs. I found a good supplier. And I want to order 25 units of 22x11x5 item (cushion). I do not know the size of the actual package yet, have send a message though and should find out soon, hopefully a little smaller.

I am trying to calculate

Unit Cost: $8

Retail Price: $19.95

If Amazon gets 20%, is there enough room for my shipping costs? And how much will shipping cost the buyer?

Who can help?

Thank you very much

fudjj

Hi Tim and welcome to the forum,

That's an impossible one to answer for you without knowing your total costs, that is the per unit price in your hands. Of course shipping to your customer is going to completely depend on where your customer actually is, if you are selling internationally.

Have you done the research on Amazon to see what the competition is selling them for?

timtrick1

Hey Marc,

thanks for your response. So, the actual package size is 13x13x5 and 3lb. And the cost for me to have them ship it to my storage is $100. Which would be $5 a unit. So now I would pay $8+$5=$13 a unit.

Now, if I wanna sell it on Amazon, I guess would get a shipping refund of $4 or $5. Which would cover my Amazon fees of about $5 at a retail prize of $19.95.

Now I checked with UPS, USPS and FedEx and the cheapest I can find for a package of this size at and weight is like $16.95.

Absolutely not possible.

I just wonder how other retailers that sell large items online do it. If I had a store in the real world, yeah I could sell the item with a $6.95 profit. But online with shipping, how is it possible?

Thank you.

Tim

fudjj

Hi Tim,

The most logical explanation is that others are buying in a much larger volume and getting a much better price per unit. If they are shipping the items to themselves in larger volumes, they may well be getting a better shipping rate as well, even a better shipping rate sending them to their customs.

Is there an option to just sell the covers themselves?

quinnline24

I've run into the shipping costs restricting me to not be able to sell anything under about $30. I have to factor in that it could be $20 for me to have something shipped (could be less), but to cover it. So to buy it and ship, it has to be enough to get a profit.

fudjj

Hi Heather,

20 or even more going towards shipping on a 30 dollar item. When you take out the cost of the item, listing and PayPal fees from that, are you left with anything at all?

I'm assuming although the item must be very inexpensive, certainly well under 10 dollars for you, it must either be large or very heavy for its size to have such an extreme shipping cost?

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