This message board has been great for info.

Hi there~welcome to the world of selling on eBay. I quit using the shipping calculator about six months or so ago. It was never really accurate, and the USPS rising prices often made shipping prohibitive. It does depend on what you are selling, however. I sell a lot of pottery & glass, so my boxes tend to be heavy. I do use my scale to get the proper weight, and then I use the USPS web site's calculator and base a cost to coast estimate. I've been using flat rate shipping with fair success.

As far as payment is concerned, soon we we will only be able to accept Paypal or another form of electronic payment (can't remember the name), and we will no longer be able to accept money orders/checks.

Best of luck!

Thank you for your quick response. Another thing I am not sure about is either using flat rate boxes, or regular priority boxes.

I also plan on selling the stuff from my grandmothers house. She was a HUGE antiques collector, I mean HUGE. With two of her own shops in the back. And since she passed away, we need to clean out the house and the barns because my grandfather will be moving in with us. But this won't be for a while because I want to get my feet wet with little things first, like purfume bottles, etc.

There is so much for me to learn, I guess it's going to be a trial and error type thing.

So it would be safe for me to input the weight, dimensions of the box on USPS and just use my zip code (I live in NY) and a destination zip code for somewhere like California, to try and determine a shipping cost estimate that way.

I am sorry for asking so many questions, I just want to do everything right, and try to get a good reputation and to be fair.

I feel like a deer in headlights right now, LOL.

It sounds like you're doing everything right so far
Adriana is correct--the calculater tend to be inaccurate and I don't use it either. But I mostly sell clothing, which is very easy because it doesn't weigh that much...Weigh it, print Paypal label with Delivery Confirmation (VERY important) and drop it in the mailbox.

You'll NEED a scale, if you have a food scale at home you can use that for for lightweight items, or you can find them on Ebay for under $20. Just remember to ALWAYS get delivery confirmation, it's well worth the extra few cents. If you're shipping Priority go to USPS.com and use the Postal Store to order free Priority mailers and boxes.

As far as recieving payment, just make sure you're email address is correct everywhere and you should be good to go.

I remember the rush of watching my bids go up higher & higher on my first sales...lotsa fun
You can also find a wealth of information (and interesting predicaments) by reading here:

http://pages.ebay.com/community/answercenter/

Good luck!

Here's a link that I use all the time, just to figure out a reasonable price for shipping..I use any zip code from NY (because it's furthest from me) Just to get an idea.

http://payments.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EmitSellerShippingCalculator

OK, so far so good. I have already ordered boxes from USPS, I took advantage of the free boxes. I also ordered a scale off of Ebay last week, which is scheduled for delivery tomorrow. I have my bubble wrap and packing paper also. I guess it helps that I worked in a warehouse type environment for a while, so I love packing up stuff and shipping it out. I know I am weird

Thank you for the advice on delivery confirmation, I will make sure to use it.

I can't thank you guys enough for the advice and links. This is a great place.

Here's a small money saving tip too. I found that bubble wrap and packing materials are pretty pricey, so I same all my plastic WalMart or grocery store bags, crumple up newspaper, fill the bags and tie a knot. This makes good "stuffing" for some items and it keeps the newsprint from getting on your items.

I'm also in NY. Check out USPS for a Zone chart (by zipcode). It will help you decide whether to ship via flat rate priority box or use your own box and go Priority. (after you know where the buyer is).

For packing material, I empty my shredder. Put all those credit card offers to good use!