Selling postcards can be profitable, but throwing a bunch of postcards in a stack and not taking time hurts one overall. Member a picture is worth a thousand words. It also means more bids if you have a few cards people want. State what's wrong and be upfront. Personally, I don't like one burries the fact items are not returnable.
Do your research.
A lot of ships in the great lakes sunk. Do any of these cards have a postal history connection (i.e. Postage Due)? Then, you may want to treat a so called commonly seen postcard as a stamp collectible.
Don't rely soley on eBay to find inventory for resale. For example I bought a Cape Elizabeth Fire Station postcard for $2 and sold it for $22 on eBay. There's also a lot of dealers getting rid of excess inventory of cards which at least I keep seeing or are of low interest. There's still stuff out there, but it takes time!
Is it wise to start/quit an eBay store?
I have mixed feelings. eBay keeps raising fees as to the stores, but at least they do market on your behalf and give sales reports. Only eBay is ever mentioned on TV. Stampwants, Bidville are not.
Charging cheaper postage (This is How to do it).
Starting auctions at a penny then charging a few dollars for shipping is wrong to me. Eventually one will lose customers. You can save on shipping by getting card stock and manila envelopes at Sams Club if having access to it.
I'm a buyer, not a seller. By chance, I purchased a card addressed to a family member I was researching. Because I'm interested in genealogy, I now look for cards where the backs are shown or described. Prior to my lucky find, I was only interested in the images on the basis of era and locale.
Large scans are great, but a written description would work just as well. For a buyer, it's not too practical to bombard sellers with queries about who the card is addressed to (or to discover possibly some interesting feature in the message), when this could be taken care of in the item listing.
I disagree somewhat on the shipping charges. We charge $2.50 when we ship postcards but that is to cover costs plus a small handling fee. We ship our postcards so that they are well protected in the mail. We assume all responsibility for our postcards once they are shipped also, unlike way too many sellers on eBay who don't take responsibility after item is mailed. Our postcards are placed in a postcard sleeve and then placed into a small 4 x 6 zip-lock baggie so if the envelope gets soaked in the rain, the postcard will remain dry. If the postcard is a high seller, we put the postcard inside a hard plastic postcard sleeve. The postcard is then placed between two pieces of thick cardboard and placed into a 5 x 7 envelope. This prevents any damage or bending in the mail. The envelopes we use are thick paper also. We use Endicia to ship our items so the items seem to ship unusually fast once they leave our hands at the post office. We also combine shipping and buyers only pay shipping on the first card they purchase no matter how many cards they purchase. If they buy one card or 1000, they only pay $2.50. Since we offer 100% satisfaction and assume all responsibility, people are fine with the $2.50 shipping cost. We have never received a complaint about our shipping prices either, we have only received praise for the time and careful, quick shipping. If we did receive a question with why our shipping is $2.50, we would just do what was needed to make the buyer happy. 100% satisfaction. Guaranteed.
eBay selling is a business and shipping items takes time and time is money as they say. Charging a handling charge is common knowledge among buyers. If a buyer is going to complain about a seller making 50 cents on shipping then chances are that the buyers wouldn't be buying a postcard for $10 or more either. :)
Bottom line is that shipping takes time and it is okay to make a little money off shipping if you ship the postcards with a guarantee and in a very timely manner. Never be afraid to add a small handling charge for your time.
Must use Buy It Now and PayPal.
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