The Cost of Destash

I was going to bid on something in a Facebook destash group the other day.  It was a $5 item.  I was ready to place my bid and then I checked shipping.

It was $3.50.

I know that the actual postage for that item would be $2.54.

Something inside of me balks at paying an extra dollar to ship something that is an inexpensive destash item.  I hear lots of destash sellers bemoan that they still have handling costs and need to be recouped.  I'm going to disagree (mind you, this is all personal opinion, nothing more).

• It's destash so the packaging doesn't have to be fancy.  When I ship my own jewelry, I do use nice new jewelry boxes, ribbons, tissue, bubble wrap, etc.  But destash items can usually be shipped with bubble wrap and/or recycled bubble wrap, recycled jewelry boxes, folded cardboard taped closed, etc.
• You just aren't going to get me to pay 70% of the item's price for shipping/handling.
• The other day I shared my sources for low cost new supplies (again, you can go recycled for about zero cost).  My total for brand new bubble mailer and brand new cardboard 3x3 jewelry box is $0.42 (see below for my sources).  
• My logic as a seller of destash items says: "I'd rather suck up the $0.42 postage on every single transaction and make 100 times the transactions as some of my fellow destashers."  After talking with many destash buyers, I see a lot of them agree with me that shipping costs above the bare minimum often dissuade them from initiating a transaction.  In other words, if they see you tacking on $1-2 dollars in "handling" costs, they walk on by.  These are generally really low-priced items we're talking about... most can't justify paying $4 to ship a $2 item.

In the end we all have to do business the way that works best for us.  And through experience, I have learned that I'm much better off selling 95% of my destash and making less profit per transaction than selling 40% of my destash with a little profit padding. 

BTW, if you do want to keep some new shipping supplies on hand for when you run out of recycled packaging, here are my sources.  The costs shown include shipping.

I have Amazon Prime so these bubble mailers come out to $0.12 each:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GHXWI4

As for the boxes, at first glance these seem like a super low price, but these guys add big shipping charges. Interestingly enough, however, even with the shipping charges, it’s lower than anyone else I could find. I order two lots of 100 each and they come to $0.30 per box including their shipping charges: http://www.storesupply.com/pc-13187-1007-cotton-filled-jewelry-boxes-kraft-87403.aspx

Both these items shipped really quickly. Bonus.

If you're interested in seeing what destash group I'm talking about, here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SRAJDdestash/ 

We destash everything related to jewelry making (tools, beads, findings, books, displays, etc). I pretty much list my destash items at garage sale prices. After all, I'm trying to get rid of things so I can get more things. :-)