How do I set shipping fees for my products?

How Price + Shipping Impacts Your Order Volume

TCGplayer makes it simple for a buyer to shop by putting product prices in order by the lowest price + shipping rate. This means that prices listed toward the top have a combined price + shipping rate that is lower than those below them and, therefore, more likely to sell faster.

When you first launch your store, you begin as a Level 1 Seller. This restriction limits your available shipping rate options. Once you become a Level 4 Seller, you can set your dynamic shipping rate to nearly any value. Additionally, you can set different shipping rates based on the size of your item (Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large).

• To adjust your shipping rates, you can visit Shipping Settings in your Seller Portal.

• For more details on Product Sizes, please read Shipping Sizes.

• For further information and advanced shipping examples, please read the Shipping FAQ.

The shipping rates that you assign to each Shipping Size (Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large) are added to your item prices across the site. If you have a Small item listed for $5.00 with a shipping rate of $1.99, then the overall calculated cost of that product is $6.99. Therefore lowering your shipping rate has a huge impact on the overall placement of your products and can greatly increase the likelihood that your items will sell.

Many customers utilize our TCGplayer Cart Optimizer®, which scours all of our online sellers and rebuilds their cart with the most affordable available combined price + shipping rate. This is another reason your orders will greatly increase if you decrease your shipping rate.

Once you lower your shipping rates, a store that receives 5 orders per day may receive more than 50 orders overnight. If you feel that you will not be able to handle a large volume of orders in a timely fashion while adhering to the TCGplayer Safeguard, you should not decrease your shipping rate.

To find the shipping rate that is best for your store, experiment with raising and lowering both your price and shipping rate and monitoring how your sales increase and decrease within 24-48 hours after the change.

Considering Shipping Costs, TCGplayer Fees and Processing Fees

When you lower your shipping rate, you must also take into account the actual cost to ship a product in the mail. Your shipping costs will vary depending on the carrier used, the shipping service of the package, rates you have access to, package weight, and where you are shipping your package.

Listed below are the estimated costs of shipping a small item using USPS (assuming commercial USPS rates using Ground Advantage service, shipping a 4oz package to zone 5):

Small item with Tracking: $4.29*

(Bubble mailer = $0.17, Ground Advantage Shipping with Tracking = $4.02, Top Loader/Sleeve = $0.10)

Small item without Tracking: $0.84*

(Envelope = $0.06, Stamp = $0.68, Top Loader/Sleeve = $0.10)

*These prices are examples only and actual costs may vary based on supply and postage costs.

You need to factor in the costs of shipping along with the TCGplayer Fees when determining which items you want to list for sale. If you have hundreds or thousands of items for sale, you will entice people to buy multiple items from your account. When offering a limited inventory available to customers, especially with items under $5, there is a chance the TCGplayer fees and your shipping expenses may outweigh your selling price.

For example:

You list a Small item for $1, and it sells with a shipping rate of $1.27.

You must factor in:

Shipping & Fees = $1.27 (shipping) + 2.5% + $.30 (processing fee) + 10.25% (TCGplayer commission fee)

The total cost of selling this product = $1.69 in shipping and fees for an item that is listed at $1, thus you would be losing $0.69 on this sale. Many high-volume sellers occasionally do lose money on small orders like the example above. But they balance this against an increase in multi-item orders that they receive because of their lower shipping rate.

The USPS site has further details and exact shipping costs, which will assist you when deciding upon your small, medium, large, and extra large shipping rates for TCGplayer.

Additional Costs for Shipping High-Value Orders

We recommend that you ship any package over $20 in value with delivery confirmation or tracking for your own protection. Additionally, for orders of $49.99 or higher, you must include tracking/delivery confirmation. For orders of $250 or more, you must include tracking/delivery confirmation and signature confirmation. You may also want to protect yourself by purchasing insurance. Please take the time to read our Shipping Guidelines to familiarize yourself with the expectations for sellers on TCGplayer.

Managing Increased Orders

If you have read and understand all of the information detailed above and choose to lower your shipping rate, please keep in mind that if orders become too overwhelming, you can temporarily deactivate your store inventory via your dashboard:

Simply log in to your Seller Portal, and in the upper right-hand corner, you will see a box containing your Inventory Status. Click on the Edit link and then press the Hide Your Inventory button.

Once you have caught up and have shipped all of your orders, you can reactivate your account via this same Edit link.

While your Inventory is hidden, you can still send and receive messages, and payments will be active for your account.

If you have any difficulties reactivating your account, please contact us for assistance.

Change Log

• 6/8/22 - Updated shipping estimates.
• 8/9/23 - Updated shipping estimates.
• 2/28/24 - Updated shipping estimates.
• 7/17/24 - Updated shipping estimates.