General Forum

Sorry about that blank post.  Just wondering on others thoughts on what threshold do you use on small trades before you include tracking on your shipping option.  Recently I've had some small trades and the other trader sent me tracking info.  I personally would have preferred to save money on shipping cost (I'm usually short on funds in the summer), but didn't want to be a bad trader, so replied in kind.  What is your threshold between paying first class or adding tracking to a trade?

I'll use a PWE for whatever I can fit into no more than 2 toploaders (max 4 1980s Donruss cards). Anything more than that would take it over the 1 oz anyway, so bubble mailer at that point, which in turn means tracking info.

What vrooomed said.

I suppose if there were only one or two cards, but their value exceeded....$10?....I'd go with tracking. It's nice for the recipient to see tracking info, but it's actually more of a benefit to the sender, in my view. As the sender, I'd give a complete refund to anyone to didn't receive what I sent, my fault or not. It's never happened, but it just seems like good "business." So I want to see the tracking to know it got there. As the recipient, tracking just satisfies my curiosity about when my package will arrive. (Although I'm feeling pretty annoyed right now that an eBay seller still hasn't marked a purchase as shipped. Maybe it's shipped without tracking, maybe it's not shipped at all. But, again, that's just my curiosity and desire to get my cards....)

v3

I'm a PWE guy, receiving and sending. My threshold is the USPS threshold. All bubble mailers are considered packages, are priced as a package, and automatically get tracking. Any mailer over 1/4" thickness are considered packages, also.  I use photo mailers and keep them less than 1/4" thick to avoid the cost jump to package.  I've at times split the trade into two photo mailers and it was cheaper than the package price.

Here in Canada a bubble mailer with 30 cards or so will cost $6.82 to a US address. I asked about tracking. The price jumped to over $18.00. Needless to say I skipped the tracking.

If I go over 4 cards I'll typically go to a bubble mailer (normally a recycled one). That's my own preferance. If you ever do a trade with me, you'll probably get a tracking number. That does not mean that I need one in return. As long as the cards arrive safely I don't really care how they end up in my mailbox.

I always use bubble mailer. Although I've only ever once had a card come damaged via pwe, I don't want to take any chances. It was  a redemption from upper deck no less. They automatically track it but I'm usually so scatterbrained I forget where the receipt is by the next morning. I basically only retain car, card and sports knowledge and purge everything else instantly, lol. 

I’ve been using bubble mailers every since my third trade ended up getting lost in the mail. We waited 3 weeks for them to show up and when they didn’t I resent them with a tracking number (luckily I had more extras). I’m glad I had the tracking number on those because there was an unexpected delay and it took a week to get the cards delivered. In the end both packages were delivered (he sent them back to me which wasn’t necessary) but I don’t want to be in that position again where the cards I send aren’t received.

As stated above, tracking is included with your cost for shipping a package. I will PWE if it's only a couple cards of common status, but will pay for the comfort of knowing a package is secure and has tracking for most deals. I want the recipient on the other end to know I cared about what I was sending, and hope they'd do the same. The tracking feature is nice, I like to know that what I sent was delivered.