Hey I appreciate your detailed retort. Here is mine. I could not start the listing in garagesale lol.
Well anyway this is a circular now, I will leave you all to it. Thanks for your help.
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Size matters on international and the weight has different thresholds of 8 ounces, 24 ounces and so on. Weights of 4, 8, 12, 16 ounces matter for 1st class. If combining sales ebay needs accuracy to know when to go to priority at over 1 pound
I enter sizes because I may sell something that is over a cubic foot or that goes out via FedEx or UPS or internationally via First Class International or International Standard Shipping that all use dimensions. Also, I create some listings on other channels later and use the weight and size information for that as I do not keep it elsewhere. (BTW, the eBay calculator for ISS is all screwed up for anything over 166 CI. But that is another long rant. LOL.)
You cannot fix lazy.
eBay cannot accurately calculate combined orders. Unless you are selling a bunch of widgets that all have the same exact size and weight every time then you cannot hope to create a set of shipping rules that allow eBay to accurately calculate combined shipping.
With just 100 different items there are 4,950 different combinations of two items. If we increase that to 3 items that can be combined at a time then there are 161,700 different combinations.
Each object has its own unique shipping requirement such as glass needing to be double boxed and the special requirements of consumer commodities. Certain combinations of items will not work such as trying to combine a book with a screwdriver and trying to send it Media Mail. Then we have to factor in USPS shipping guidelines such as maximum weights, length surcharges, dimensional weights, the different services, optional services such as cubic pricing from Pirateship.
Working out such a ever changing giant matrix of data would require considerably programming skills yet the above can be completed manually in your brain within a few seconds simply by looking at the items the buyer wants to combine.
My question was in regards to entering sizes for domestic items shipped via USPS?
This is a total waste of time unless the item exceeds a cubic foot in volume or one of the length surcharges. Leaving these blank will result in eBay charging the customer the buyer a rate for a package that is below a cubic foot and below any length surcharges.
Actually First Class is limited to 15.999 ounces - 16 ounces would be Priority Mail.
If you have you eBay settings set to charge customer the retail rate while you pay the commercial rate then you do not want to go above 13 ounces since the retail rate is limited to 13 ounces. For items in the 13 to 15.999 range you want to use the maximum weight of 13 ounces. If you use 14 to 15.999 the rate will bumped up to 1 pound.
The difference between the retail and commercial rate pays for the FVF on shipping. You do not need to edit your listings when rates go up as that will automatically be taken of by eBay using calculated.
Anyway, this is all taken care of by creating a series of 1st Class templates for different weights within GS. Currently First Class packages have various price breaks at different weights but this could change in the future - they could decide to charge different rates for each additional ounce. So if you created a bunch of listing using the existing price breaks as opposed to the item’s actual shipping weight in ounces then you could find in the future that these listings are now be charged more shipping that they should be, thus making them less likely to sell. I use a series of templates from 4 to 13 ounces so should USPS alter its current price breaks in the future I will never have to edit any of these listings again.
Then create a series of templates within GS for different services and weights.
But are not the size rules similar to domestic packages in that if you leave them blank eBay will assume your package is not exceeding a given threshold and thus charge buyers accordingly?
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