Stu,

digging the pic on your profile much more! Does she have a sister?

Also, I send all my VS cards USPS. 150+ ships and 0 (zero) problems. The one time something went wrong it was with the place I shipped to. Once I confirmed that the package had been delivered through Delivery Confirmation, I got my end of the deal.

Learn to work the system, because the system is good.

This means a lot to traders and ebayers...it isnt good news thats for sure...nothing like zipping a card in a toploader out for about a buck...

Lostshade is a great company...I have bought tons of foils and singles from them...I just wanna say thanks to them...class act all the way

This increase really only cuts into the profit they were making off of their shipping costs. Granted, plenty of Ebay sellers rely on that profit, but that's how it is. Most Ebay sellers of card singles make a rough profit of 30-40% just from their shipping charges.

For a package of singles to cost them $5.00 or more to ship, it would have to weigh a pound, or be in a package large enough to be a dimensional weight of a pound. A single auction of 4 cards in top loaders can be shipped for the cost of $1.98, with an additional charge of about $0.50 - $0.75 thrown in to cover the packaging material. Up to 3 additional auctions of this size can be thrown in to the box for no additional shipping cost.

And now that I've gone on about work related items, I'm heading to bed.

I do a fair amount of shipping through the mail and I fail to see how this is a big deal. I currently send all my cards through the mail in small padded enveloped and a toploader inside. These letters (after the 14th) should be costing me about $2.12 - $2.60. That's roughly $ .80 - $1.00 extra over what I'm we are doing now. I don't think people are going to raise too much hell over paying $1 more for shipping.

Also, I just read over a bunch of documents and it appears that we will be able to sue Priority Flat Rate packaging to send overseas. Rates are supposed to be $23 ro Canada and Mexico and $37 everywhere else (up to 20 pounds) for priority mail. Granted, I could have misread something, but I think this is accurate. It's hardly something to freak out over.

In some cases, the Priority Mail deal becomes better for sending books and such overseas.

And whether we like it or not, these prices are all better than using FedEx or UPS or DHL for small packaging. However, for bigger packages I still prefer DHL :)

One of the big issues with the change is not the rate increase, but that anything that can't be sent through their letter sorting machines cannot be sent by 1st class any more. They will now be classed as packages - with a 1 oz. package being around (from memory here) 80 cents more as a result, I believe.

International packages have gone up significantly more, as noted in lost shade's letter.

As a seller, I do take issue with your "30% to 40%" profit off shipping note. When I charge $1.50 for a single card I "profit" less than a nickel after costs. With an $.80 postage hike, and singles starting at $.10, I have to up my lowest postage level by at least $.85. What lostshade is saying is that this will discourage customers, and I have to agree to a point.

They also mention ebay fees - which are now 10% for store items, and just rose 60%+ for initial listing fees for store items.

Combine the two - plus the fact that lostshade often appeared to be selling at just above cost, and they are now out of the market. Possibly. They also say they are working on assumptions because they can't get all the facts about the change out of the post office. It may just be a good sale.

I personally will keep my store open, but have been investigating moving my store off ebay. That's more about the ebay fees than the postage, though.

As for 50 to 75 cents for materials and handling...
It depends on the seller.
Does this include 1) staff time for pulling 2) gas to get to the PO ($1.20 round trip for me at $3.00 per gallon and not including wear on the car) 3) Postage service subscription (stamps.com or endicia are $16 a month) 4) printer expenses for labelling and packing slips 5) envelopes/tape and related shipping costs to have them delivered (still cheaper than buying locally).

You say, "Up to 3 additional auctions of this size can be thrown in to the box for no additional shipping cost." This just isn't true. At the $1.98 level you're paying by the ounce, so postage will increase by 34 cents when you add only one more of these auctions of 4 cards with toploaders (which weigh 1.3 ounces).


Finally - I was a preservation librarian when 9/11 and the white powder (my brain is failing me at this late hour - what was that stuff called - and I don't mean Coke, which I do remember the name of) hit. The library of congress had all mail irradiated for a while, resulting in discolored paper, shrunken plastics, books with all the glue in the binding crumbled, and bills arriving six months late. I just thought I'd throw that out there because of some of the fun comments. :)

Finally the second- I have had cards protected with cardboard get sent through the letter sorting machines. It is possible for them to escape unscathed, but as a seller or trader you couldn't ever assume they'd get through looking OK. I might try it with 10 cent items, but Mobilize will get the package treatment, and all associated expenses.

If any of you have ever bought from LostShade on EBay, then you know they have the best shipping rates ANYWHERE. I can only imagine how much some others are going to try and price gouge us with the rate hikes. Needless to say, I fight against excessive shipping every chance I get. I was once charged $15 to ship a playmat and 4 cards. They came in a large bubble envelope with about $2 shipping. I got $10 back after threatening their perfect feedback record.

People use shipping as an excuse to profit. $3 to ship 4 cards? Seriously. Welcome to Earth. If you don't like it, then don't buy from them and rely on local trading. Thankfully the 'PCQ's are coming back, so we can draw from larger pools of players to trade with.

People cannot instantaneously change a financial decision that impacts their next few years of living. Unlike purchasing a TCG card on ebay, purchasing a car is not a spontaneous decision. Buying a fuel efficient car based on the price of gas will cost more money in the long run if the current car you have is not ready to be sold yet, as the price of gas is just a small fraction of the total cost of a car. Choosing to go on a road trip is also financially compared to the next best alternative (such as taking a bus or booking a flight), and the road trippers you see have weighed and probably chose the correct decision.

The price of shipping and handling on cards currently can often amount to over 250% of the cost of the actual cards on many $.99 auctions. With the new shipping price increases, this amount can raise to over 500%. I sure as hell dont want to pay seven dollars for the playset of The Annihilation Wave I won on ebay for $1.07. However, it is not realistic to sell my $25,000 SUV because the price of gas per gallon has raised more than a dollar in the last year.

The increase of postage from .39 to .42 cents is inflation at work. The package rate increases (and the different definition of what a package is) certainly screws over the trading card internet market. You are comparing apples to oranges sir.

As an avid customer of LostShade via eBay, this is of great concern to me. I would usually buy 2 boxes of the latest set, and use eBay as my means to get whatever playsets that I wanted. With the increased shipping rate change, that changes everything. Also with LostShade apparently stopping with online sales, this worries me greatly.

Ironically, after having a bad experience with lostshade I have gone from spending 200.00 a month on ebay in magic, vs and wow cards to trying to get all my cards from the 3 local shops. I usually only use ebay now, when the 3 shops do not have the cards i am looking for. I kinda agree with Foilball, if ebay is the only place i can get the cards im going to pay the extra price to get the cards i need.

Hehe... Billy just got Batowed.

I was actually at Lostshade yesterday, and until they actually know how much this change will effect them, (i.e. May 14th), they are still in doubt as to whether or not they can stay in the singles market. If the change does not cost them as much as it sounds like, they will stay in. Their biggest worry at this point is the worst case scenario, huge shipping costs, which means relying on the Harrisonburg area to support any singles sales.

Well, as long as you can fold her in half she's still regular postage.

But if you could do that, would you really want to return her?

<ducks... again>

Well as someone who's done a fair amount of business with them, I hope they stay in the market. I'll pay more for shipping if that's what it takes. They offer a great value and over several transactions I've never had a bad experience with them.