Discount Shipping Costs...

[Alex]

I recently purchased a Super-8 Camera from England. The camera also came with a cool metal camera case and other accessories, however all told it weighed 9 pounds.

Shipping was going to cost over $60.00, almost as much as what I paid for the camera & case. The seller was very gracious when I suggested we ship the product in two boxes.

In the first package was the camera and nothing else. Not even batteries. I always ask that the camera be completely wrapped in bubblwrap and then the bubblewrap is taped shut so that it does not open up during shipping. The bubblewrapped Super-8 camera is then put in a box that is filled with styrofoam peanuts.

This dropped the weight to under two pounds, and the cost to ship the camera five-day air dropped to $25.00! The seller did an excellent job of shipping the camera this way, bravo!

The second package contained all the accessories, including the camera case. This second package was supposed to be shipped surface mail, which can take up to sixty days to arrive, but by some type of mix-up, it came only a day or two after the camera arrived.

I felt badly for the seller because they must have paid a bunch of money to ship the camera case so quickly when I had told them to ship it a much cheaper way.

But the idea still seemed to work well, as the cost of splitting the contents into two shipping methods probably saved at least 20 dollars, and perhaps a bit more.

[etimh]

Good idea Alex--I seem to get perpetually shanked by shipping costs on ebay. I now vigorously discuss ALL shipping costs with sellers before I bid. And I won't ever bid on anything from Australia anymore--way too expensive under any circumstances.

Tim