At least the selection had improved.................somewhat.

LMAO

It’s not unusual for companies to mark up shipping. The questions are:

1. How did they calculate their costs?

2. What kind of profit margin or markup are they using?

Well, if you order multiple items, cbid is gonna bend you over, no lube.

Most other places have a flat rate up to a certain amount (weight/dimension), which is quite generous.

I remember a few years ago, I got an order from the other place which was essentially the same as an order I got from cbid.

My cbid shipping costs was about triple the other place.

Then again, like Z said......"Pay for shipping"?

Lots of places offer free shipping these days...

heh heh

KOTC, to your first point, obviously CBid assigns a value to every item and doesn’t deviate from the per-piece model. At the other auction place that offered flat rate shipping, I tended to push my bids for boxes over to them. Then, if I won a box, would bid on more items to take advantage of the flat rate. Of course they grossed more revenue and profit but perhaps just as important, kept a competitor from getting a sale.

I’ve been pretty much out of the auction game but when I do buy, have tended to go with places that either offer free or flat rate shipping.

David

Yup!

You can declare that henceforth, you shall not pay shipping, nor shall you pay sales tax, and you can actually make it so! Not technically, but effectively, which is monetarily 100% just as good.

EXAMPLE:

There's a box of cigars up for bid. $70 is as high as you want to go.

You haven't won anything yet this week, and the item is marked as $7.00 for shipping.

Also, CigarBid charges 6% sales tax on shipments to your state.

Without your personal declaration of effective exemption from these fees, you enter your AutoBid max as $70 and, assuming it's maxed out when you win, would ACTUALLY end up paying $70 + $7 = $77 x 1.06 = $81.62

With your personal declaration, you'd simply place an AutoBid max of $59 instead, meaning you would ACTUALLY end up paying $59 + $7 = $66 x 1.06 = $69.96

You will win less often, but every lot you DO win will effectively have free shipping and no sales tax.

I have done these calculations and bid-adjustments on every item I've ever bid on here, since day one. Therefore I've effectively never paid shipping or sales tax on anything (even though I technically have on everything).

The best part is, it's all completely legal because you're just bidding a bit lower to negate those things.

Pretty cool, eh?

.

Losing 25% of the time is unacceptable

Ha!

=d>