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The cost of postage in your lenses bills
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:56 pm    Post subject: The cost of postage in your lenses bills Reply with quote

Idea

From time to time this topic resurrects in exchanges here on the forum. The lens may cost little, but compulsive buying and postage fees devastate our (electronic) wallets. At what extent? Well, it's difficult to estimate GAS effects. But quite possible to count postage fees.

I summed up my equipment expenditures for several years and cleared out the precise faction I paid for shipping all over these years. It makes 25% of the equipment cost, or 20% of my total expenditures.

I think, it tells a lot about the way I acquire. I buy more in internet than in real life. And then, I bought a bunch of not too expensive and not too cheap lenses and other stuff. It's quite easy to calculate. If I bought only one Noctilux shipped through that time, the shipping fee would be less than 1% of the total cost. And if, on the contrary, I bought five 1-euro zooms from different sellers, the postage fee should count like 80-90% of the total.

Considering these 25%, it sounds a kind of tax on pleasure when using legacy lenses. If I buy an old lens for 50 euros, I add a "tax" of 25% and the real cost I paid mounts in reality up to 62,5 euros. Difficult to say if it is much or not taking into account that second-hand prices for most labels (except Leica and some others) are still gentle, and you pay 5-50 euros today for what could cost 250$ or 500 DM.- in the day of production. Sometimes that idea fires even more your GAS. But if it is not your last money, no tragedy.

Have you ever counted with precision the postage fees you paid over years? Is your postage "tax" close to mine?


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No, i haven't. But i have bought only twice or three times some stuff from abroad, since the combined postage, taxes, custom duties and other fees can sum up to "crazy" amounts. I remember buying a nice lens on ebay for roughly 75 CHF - until i had it on my desk, it cost me nearly 160 CHF. There were the following fees:

* Postage & package
* Taxes
* Customs
* Customs handling fee (!!) CHF 20.-- (for opening the package and checking the content)
* Customs storage fee (!!) CHF 25.-- (for keeping the package for some two weeks instead of delivering it)

After two such experiences (and another one where, surprisingly, a correctly declared package worth CHF 1000.-- went through WITHOUT ANY FEES) i decided that this was too unreliable / expensive to be continued. And honestly, there's enough interesting stuff on the Swiss market ... more than i can possibly buy Smile

Stephan


Last edited by stevemark on Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:30 pm; edited 2 times in total


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I keep a log of the lenses I buy. Since I am running a project this year to shoot only (mostly) rangefinder lenses so I went to that spreadsheet and did the math.

Lens cost: $3,877.85
Shipping cost: $165.09
Percentage: 4%

I have a habit of passing on lenses where I believe the seller is pumping up the shipping costs to cheat Ebay. If you are dishonest in one thing you'll be dishonest in others.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have not counted it but I often buy from the Shopgoodwill auction and the shipping/handling sometimes costs way more than the lens.
Pete


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 10:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

newst, lucky you to pay only 4% more for the old rangefinders! You are quite right saying about overpriced shipping! I do the same when deciding to bid or not to bid. But even with a range of shipping fees from 5 to 15 euros, depending on the item weight and distance, I arrive to pay 25% more...

I looked through postage fees in US-ebay when shipping to the US. The fees are between 6 and 12 dollars. That means buying in internet you got between 15 and 30 items for your project, and each one costed you in average $100. But old rangefinders are not all that costy. It's an average bidding price for Olympus 35 SP or Lynx 14. So, you acquired more but also found many interesting ones on garage sales and in local shops, right?

Stephan, the examples you expose are just impressive. Customs handling fee strikes my mind.

Pete, your way to acquire is also impressive. But for the opposite reason. You may have the cream for the lowest price. And does the quality of the lenses you buy in goodwill shop correspond to what makes you pleasure? I mean, is it always good or some lenses you receive go directly to your trash bin?


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not surprised most folks ignore all the incidental cash they hand over to Big Oil...this is only one example.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm trying to sell a bunch of cheap lenses on Gumtree, the UK's Craiglist, and having no success at all. I've just changed the adverts to include postage in the same original price I was asking for the lens, I'm hoping that will work, because the postage cost is 25% of a cheap lens.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 11:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i've stopped buying lenses from USA because of excesive hike in p&p. since Croatia entered EU i'm more oriented to UK because of more reasonable p&p and also packets from UK arrive within a week.


PostPosted: Tue Mar 08, 2016 11:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

alex ph wrote:
Pete, your way to acquire is also impressive. But for the opposite reason. You may have the cream for the lowest price. And does the quality of the lenses you buy in goodwill shop correspond to what makes you pleasure? I mean, is it always good or some lenses you receive go directly to your trash bin?


I usually buy unusual stuff like old X-Ray lens that cost $7 US. I sometimes find old press camera lenses and I used to buy Polaroid but I have enough Polaroid now. You need to look carefully at the pictures because they don't know enough to describe and sometimes I find a deal on old Nikkor lenses. I look for lenses with the factory AI kits and don't get carried away with the bidding. Overall I have done pretty well.
Pete


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I spent around $5500 on lenses so far this year, probably a bit more - I don't enter numbers in the spreadsheet before a lens arrives. But. I could not care less what the postage cost - I simply treat it as a part of of the total cost. Similarly, I do not tabulate my postal expenses - if I sell a lens the only thing I am interested in is a net price.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 12:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

newst wrote:
I have a habit of passing on lenses where I believe the seller is pumping up the shipping costs to cheat Ebay. If you are dishonest in one thing you'll be dishonest in others.


You can't cheat ebay this way - when you sell on ebay you pay fee on the entire amount you receive, including shipping.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 2:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like to ignore it as it upsets my "what a great deal paradigm". I have been burned a couple of times on ridiculous shipping costs so I try to pay close attention to it.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 3:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It depends on the lens for me, for a rare lens, I pay what I must, for common stuff, I look for cheapest combined cost, I will compare the condition of the lenses and look for a sweet spot, my Canon LTM 50/1.2 was a sweet spot, really happy with it.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 6:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do not have a list with the shipping prices.
I mostly buy from Germany, some lenses from Europe, and only few ~1-2% lenses from USA,Russia and Asia.
On a lot of the lenses I bought shipping is the major cost - I like to buy cheap lenses. But the more expensive lenses reduce the overall shipping cost to a percentage under 10 I guess.
Before I bid I do calculation how much the lens will cost me with shipping and probably customs. Additional I have to visit the customs office for most lenses from US, so I have to calculate ~two hours for the pick up at the customs office :-/

But sometimes I think I am a package delivery company sponsor.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 7:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do ebay now for more than two decades, in this time it did change the photo-world:
Here in Germany most of the small shops where you could buy used photo equipment had to close in this period of time. Only some greater ones are able to run in economic borders.

Looking for a special item there are two ways:
Driving hundreds of kilometers to a specialized shop or photofleamarket and hoping to find what you need. Mention time & gasoline....
Or surfing the net (most ebay...) and buying for reasonable price & paying shipment.

Visiting photofleamarket is a (pricey!) joy on it's own: Here I can find items I did not kwon yet or bargains I did not specifically search for. Talking and discussing to people with the same insaneness like me is nice too.

On the other hand: I sell from time to time on ebay, only asking for the pure shipment (3,69 - 19.90 depending on weight & land) and buyers don't give me 5 stars for shipping fees, why? Packing, driving to post office & ebay fees on top of shipping are payed by me. What can I do more??

Curious is the situation with ultracheap items from Chine, shipment for free: Buying 10 lens cover for one Euro and transport around the half world, how is this possible?


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Most of the time, the shipping costs I paid is about 15 to 20% of the net price. Sometimes, the shipping fee is about 100% of the net price on some cheap items.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 9:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

duckrider wrote:


Curious is the situation with ultracheap items from Chine, shipment for free: Buying 10 lens cover for one Euro and transport around the half world, how is this possible?


it's because China finances it's sellers when shipping to the rest of the world


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 9:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

alex ph wrote:
newst, lucky you to pay only 4% more for the old rangefinders! You are quite right saying about overpriced shipping! I do the same when deciding to bid or not to bid. But even with a range of shipping fees from 5 to 15 euros, depending on the item weight and distance, I arrive to pay 25% more...

I looked through postage fees in US-ebay when shipping to the US. The fees are between 6 and 12 dollars. That means buying in internet you got between 15 and 30 items for your project, and each one costed you in average $100. But old rangefinders are not all that costy. It's an average bidding price for Olympus 35 SP or Lynx 14. So, you acquired more but also found many interesting ones on garage sales and in local shops, right?

Stephan, the examples you expose are just impressive. Customs handling fee strikes my mind.

Pete, your way to acquire is also impressive. But for the opposite reason. You may have the cream for the lowest price. And does the quality of the lenses you buy in goodwill shop correspond to what makes you pleasure? I mean, is it always good or some lenses you receive go directly to your trash bin?


Actually they were all Ebay purchases as there aren't any local flea markets/thrift shops that have camera lenses. Lens prices range from $!) to $500.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 10:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I mostly buy from Germany, even much more than from my own country, since having very good re-sending company that crosses with parcels through the border faster than postal companies do. Good old western neighbour, such a vintage lens superpower. Feels like robbing Russian Red Army cold war firepower storages Whoo Turtle I think my postage costs are up to 10% max.

My best ever deal was to smuggle 400mm 2,5 kg telephoto from US by plane Very Happy


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 1:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's getting harder to make a good deal when postage costs seem to go up every year. When this happens a good deal turns to a so-so deal so you really need to make an effort to find those rare deals where you end up paying more for the postage costs than for the goods and you still get good value for money.

Nowadays when I rarely buy stuff my main focus is to choose EU countries only and preferably Germany since they're postage costs are sometimes below €10 with DHL delivery which is really a sweet price. The UK for an instance is almost out of the loop, the price Royal Mail is currently charging for <1kg stuff is nuts in my opinion...


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 2:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here in the US, my two main non-local sources for lenses are eBay and shopgoodwill.com. Usually the postage fees on eBay are reasonable -- about the same as what they would cost if I were to go to the post office to mail the same package. Forget about UPS or FedEx, though. They are way too expensive.

So anyway, with eBay I'm figuring the shipping costs are pretty easy to keep track of. But with the Goodwill auction site, I find I have to be careful. It isn't unusual at all for them to charge $15 or more to ship a lens that would cost about $6 to ship if it were an eBay seller. Goodwill not only pads their shipping price, but then they add a handling fee, which can be as much as $5 -- sometimes it's a percentage of the sale. There have been many times I've passed up bidding on a cheap lens or outfit because of what they want for shipping it. But sometimes their shipping charges can be cheap. So I have to check shipping with every single auction I might be interested in.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2016 3:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Folks, thank you for the interesting precisions! It sounds like if you have a project or an interest for particular lenses and cameras which may go high in price, your postage fees are 10% or lower. The same is if you find a good trick or you visit regularly sales and thrift shops. If you buy for curiosity and you often target bargains (but not all the time), you have a 20-25% postage fares in your expenditures. I wonder if someone arrives to keep him- or herself in a tight budget and to buy only for cheap, so that the cost of shipping overcomes 30-35%, with low general expenditures. I ask that because I read in some threads that some of you "never pay for a lens more than..." And this "no more than" could sound as little as $20. If some of you manage to do that, I take my hat off, it must be a real masterpiece of patience and knowledge of the market.

Like many of you I stopped buying overseas three years ago or so, for the growing shipping costs. Also true for me, German ebay is a good source of lenses for Europeans even if you do not live in Germany. Sometimes you may have a 8 euros delivery for EU whereas in France, Italy or UK you pay 10 to 12 euros just to get a parcel within the country borders. So duckrider, thank you for keeping fair shipping prices. I always reward people like you with 5 stars and try to mention that in my evaluation sentence. Please go on!

Marek, could you give more details of your trick with the resending company? How do your lenses arrive both faster and cheaper than with German DHL or Hermes? Normally, it's either faster or cheaper.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 12, 2016 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Its hard to be specific because everything depends on the lens. Two examples of my lenses with high postage/purchase price:

100/2.5 Uran-27. Purchase price, 1 Euro. Postage, 25 Euro.
900/10 Apo Saphir. Purchase price in USD: ~ $100. Postage: ~ $100.

Given the lenses' weights, the delivery charges weren't outrageous.

I'm happy to have the lenses, think the delivered prices were quite reasonable. What matters to me is the price including delivery charges.


PostPosted: Sat Mar 12, 2016 10:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I buy rare and often exotic lenses, so I don't mind, even often use my UPS account to ship them fully insured, fast and fully traceable. I'm more concerned about them getting lost or damaged, than the actually shipping cost! Wink


PostPosted: Sat Mar 12, 2016 10:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Right ? Priority mail for me please. Smile