General Forum

So I have been considering using sportslots for a month, to add to my collection. Last night I spend quite a bit of time looking for approximately 65 cards.

I took the cheapest box shipping possible and when I got done I realized I'd have to pay more shipping to ship my box of orders. The cards cost approximately $18. The shipping cost between the sellers plus the shipping of the box was approximately $20. Needless to say, I deleted the whole order. I couldn't justify paying that much in shipping. 

Shipping costs are killing the love of the hobby, and not just sportslots. Rant over

Sportlots shipping is like that because the cards are coming from different sellers (the sellers store and ship their own cards). I think the sellers can choose how much to charge for shipping. To save on shipping at Sportlots you need to do one of two things. First is to buy from just one seller. The other way is to sign up for their box shipping option, the service they provide for Canada and international orders, where the sellers are required to ship the cards ordered to Sportlots so that Sportlots can gather the order and ship as one package. Obviously this means you don't get your cards as fast. At one time the box ordering was not available in the USA but I think it is now.

Sportslots is great and cheap when you figure out the trick.  When Im looking to check some cards off my lists, I'll look for one or two sellers that look like they have a lot of cards, and reasonable shipping.  Add a few cards to cart.  Then sort by "cart sellers only". You will only see what cards that seller has available.  You probably won't find all that you are looking for, but the shipping would be only a few bucks, or less from that one seller.  

Also, If you have the sellers ship to Sportlot first, you can save a lot on shipping.  Some big sellers even ship to SL for free.  You will have to pay for the shipment from SL too, but its usually $10 if you have over 1lb of cards.  I usually have cards shipped to my SL box, and wait a few months before withdrawing.  It does take longer to get your cards, but you can save a ton of money.  

I think people missed that the OP noted that the shipping included the eventual shipping from the box as well.

With that I have found to save on overall shipping using the box. As noted, the key is to consolidate sellers as much as possible to save on those individual costs. I'll also add to an order (sneaky move by the seller mind you) when they have low cost cards, but higher shipping. This way I can at least justify the shipping by spreading the cost over more cards. If shipping is the same for 10 cards and 50 cards, might as well bump up the card number to spread the cost out. Not like my W/L is low.... 

I do small orders regularly.

I search for one card that I need the most, then when I find that, I add other cards from that seller's inventory only to get to the 4 card or 10 card limit before shipping costs rise further..

the box option was not a fit for me with my smaller orders, but I see how it could help others that order more

mark

A lot of sellers up thier shipping to cover for the fees charged by Sportlots.  If you are a small seller, Sportlots takes 50-75% of the fees off the cards, but nothing off shipping.  Then if a buyer pays with paypal, that fee gets passed on to the seller as well.  
So like eBay way back in the day, a lot of sellers pad s/h charges since there are no fees on it.  Granted, due to minimum pricing, sellers still need to be competitive with s/h.

As for the box, I don't understand it.  It's no cheaper for me to send my cards to sportlots in the USA from Canada, than it is to send it direct to buyer in the states from Canada.  So I provide no discount.  I also don't see why anyone in the US would discount shipping to a Sportlots Box as opposed direct to another US buyer either.  As far as I am aware, sportlots does not offer any incentive.

Sellers can discount shipments to the Box because often times they'll bundle multiple order together and then send to the box. By doing this they can offer lower individual buyer costs and spread their shipping costs across multiple buyers. A Priority box half full or completely full still costs the same so better off trying to fill it all the way.

When buying from Sportlots you do have to pay attention to shipping cost for each seller that you are buying from.  With out knowing how many or which sellers your were purchasing the 65 cards from it is hard to give you any advise.

2 ways of shipping.   direct from each seller and through Sportlots (The Box).   

Pay attention to each seller's prices for both ways.   There are sellers that it is just as cheap to have them ship them to you and not using The Box.   Other sellers charge you zero to send to The Box.  So If you get a lot of the zero types of sellers, even if the purchase is just one or two cards it is cheaper to go the Box route.  If you have a seller that charges you .75 for one card to you and .75 to the Box there is no need to have it sent to the Box.

My two shipments (per the Box) from Sportlots  saved me only a few dollars each but I did pick up more cards that I would have not purchased as they were from sellers that charged zero for the box.   

If you have an item in your cart from a dealer and want to search for other items the dealer has, follow these steps.

1. Open the shopping cart

2. Click on the magnifying class next to the dealer you want to search. This will open their dealer page

3. The tabbed page can be searched, but I prefer another option.

4. If you go the Main Search field under the My Accounts menu item while on the dealer page and type a search term, the main results screen will launch and filter the dealers inventory according to your search. I prefer this search because you can see way more items on the Main results screen rather than the dealer screen, it also allows you to filter on the dealer serial numbered, autographed and relic cards which you cannot do from the dealer page. 

The downside is that if you want to do a new search on the dealer's inventory, you need to go back to the dealer page and type a new search on that screen.