General Forum

I have been uploading missing images to the checklist and adding what I paid for the card. On the pricing page there is a slot for shipping and I don't understand why. You buy a card for $1 and pay $1 shipping, I buy the same card for $1 and pay $4 shipping, does that mean your card is worth $2 and mine $5 even though we both paid $1 for the actual card. I live in Australia and buy cards from some dealers who do free international shipping for a certain price of order. I also use a forwarding company which charges me for the storage and then posts every thing in one package to reduce shipping costs. Should I then factor all these costs into the price of the card and inflate the price. Interested in other opinions.

When site pricing was overhauled and revamped about two years ago (I think), one of the biggest debates was exactly what you just described. Consider shipping costs? Ignore them? What about international costs for buyers and sellers? To combat this, Admin made the shipping cost a separate field.

As such, the shipping portion of the price is not factored in when the "median price" is calculated and shown on a card's page. Take a look at this card. I bought it and added the only pricing data to it. You can see a price of $49.00. When you click on it, you then get more information and can see that I also paid an additional $3.00 shipping. So, the "price" of the card is shown, and additional details can be gathered with more searching if you so desire  

Now, as far as what you personally do? That's up to you. Some consider shipping costs a cost of the hobby and ignore it. Some consider it part of their budget and in the price of the card. Some do both depending on the circumstances (me). No right or wrong way - whatever fits your needs best.

That makes a lot of sense to me. I am an international buyer. I try to buy from dealers that give free international shipping if you meet their price point or buy from dealers that give free domestic shipping and get them sent to my card forwarding company. In both those instances there is no shipping cost to me but a holding fee at the forwarding site and eventualy shipping costs from there when cards are forwarded. I don't buy many from EBay as when I factor in price of card plus shipping plus holding fee it is usually cheaper to purchase from dealers.

Yeah man...shipping to AUS would seriously inflate the median price of cards. I am constantly buying auctions with multiple cards with combined shipping, I just put what the card itself cost and then enter shipping price of the combined cost. 

I do have a question on this.  Say there are 2 identical cards, one is $1 plus the $3 shipping and the other is $3 with free shipping.  I'm obviously going to the purchase the $3 card since it's cheaper overall.  What price should I put in?  Obviously there is no such thing as free shipping and it was built into the $3.  Is it preferable to put the cost of the card as $3 or $1 and assume the shipping was $2?   

I just put in the cost of the card whatever it is. If I purchased the first I would put in $1 if the second $3. If a dealer offers free shipping say over $30, if you puchase $30 you don't pay shipping only the cost of the cards. If you only purchase $29 you will pay shipping. so there is free shipping. I'll admit that on EBay a lot of sellers build the cost of shipping into their sales.

For me I would say it is worth $1 because that is what I paid. If I were trying to make money I would say I have invested $5.