General Forum

New question and update:

Question: How often do you ship to Box? I have one box order and don't want to wait too long to send. When you ship to box do you wait a certain amount of time or accumulate a certain number of orders? I've had my store up for 6 weeks and have 15 orders, only the most recent one being a box order so who knows how long it will be before I get more.

Update: I did enter discounted prices for box shipping per suggestions on this thread. I also started adding images for SN/AU cards and tweaked some prices from the conversation here.

Edit: Didn't read the context properly. I suck...

supergajit wrote:

New question and update:

Question: How often do you ship to Box? I have one box order and don't want to wait too long to send. When you ship to box do you wait a certain amount of time or accumulate a certain number of orders? I've had my store up for 6 weeks and have 15 orders, only the most recent one being a box order so who knows how long it will be before I get more.

Update: I did enter discounted prices for box shipping per suggestions on this thread. I also started adding images for SN/AU cards and tweaked some prices from the conversation here.

I’ve been selling on Sportlots for about 3 years. It took a few months to start getting consistent orders. It still can be up and down. I ship my box orders once a week. I’m on the cheap side for shipping. I offer free box shipping and free shipping on orders over 50 cards. I figure this somewhat offsets the fact that a lot of the 20 cent cards aren’t really worth 20 cents. I just do this for fun not trying to pay my mortgage with the money I make on there. I add images for any card I have listed over 50 cents. An image will get your listing to the top so it’s helpful to do. Good luck with your venture. Mike

As a buyer and using the box for a lot of the sellers.   Almost all of them reach the box withing less then 3 weeks.   There have been some taking a month or more.    I did cancel one purchase after a month of it not getting to the Box.

I HAVE to jump in on this RE: box shipping frequency...

When I first started buying on SL, this was a huge point of annoyance for me. If you read the seller's handbook on SL, it provides guidance on box shipping frequency. However, they make ZERO effort to enforce it. As a buyer, you have rights to report the order as not received, which starts a set of 5-day timers that go back-and-forth between buyer and seller to respond.

My advice: ship to box every 2-3 weeks. Anything less feels exploitative as a buyer. Anything more is likely to erode any savings you might otherwise gain.

My biggest issue with Sportlot is some sellers prices are way off on cards compared to the market. I’m a player collector of guys who aren’t the biggest names in the sport too so it makes no sense why sellers insist on inflated prices for basically niche collections. 
 

Also doing a box shipping option and having to wait for that final seller to send to box while 10-15 other sellers do it asap is for sure annoying. I am currently waiting for this 1 seller for about a month now to actually ship his card! 

I tried to go towards the low end for prices, esp for cards there are over 100 of. I think I'll go with the every week or 2 weeks at most option for Box shipping. Thanks to everyone for your input on this. 

I'm not a seller on SL but I buy a fair amount of cards from the site.  (Actually, if you ask my wife, I buy A LOT of cards from SportLots.)  If a seller offers $0.00, or around $1, box shipping I will buy from that seller, especially if I'm not in a hurry to get the cards. I will purchase cards for box shipping and then let them accumulate for almost a year before I have them shipped.  I currently have 27 or 28 purchases in my box, the first one was purchased the end of January 2023.  I'm waiting for 4 more to arrive before I pay and start again.  I think it was $9.50 for shipping after I had 4-5 envelopes and now, with almost 500 cards in the "box" it will be $11.  If you're not in a hurry to get the cards, and I'm not usually in a hurry, I think it's a great option.  

To answer the original question about how long to wait before shipping: I'd suggest adding a note in the Seller's Shipping Policy section that you will ship box orders every __ weeks.  Whatever you decide, the buyer knows in advance what it will be and can make his/her decision from there.