www.coinmatters.com

[ThePetersTrio]

One thing I've learned already about geocoins in general and about having them made specifically is that the learning curve is steep.

Lots of you out there have been through the sale process and I'm hoping you all can give me some advice so that I can avoid making mistakes and try to keep the whole process smooth.

I've obtained an email address with the specific purpose of taking reservations for the sale. Is it kosher to ask that trade requests be postponed until after the sale?

Is it a good idea to have a home postage stamp thingy? I can't even remember what they are called, but you prepay the postage and print out the stamp after you weigh the package. Or do you all just plan on lugging the outgoing mail to the post office and having them do it piece by piece?

Regarding overseas shipping - I know I'll need customs forms and I know not to say the contents are coins ("game tokens" is what I've used in the past) - but do you all "track" these packages? Do I need to worry much about packages not arriving and if that happens, how is it typically handled?

Isn't there something through Paypal where you can make your labels and track your shipping too? Is that horribly expensive to do?

Any help or advice that you can give me is greatly appreciated!! Thanks.

[Tooey]

I don't really have experience of having a coin made for sale, my only coin design was a co-operative effort between myself and Jim Canning and it was to be sold through his store, since I am overseas from the main market that would seem to me to be the easiest solution if I were to choose to have a personal coin made. But I'll leave it to other with more experience to give you advice on the selling side.

As for shipping coins, you are right, never put 'coin' on the package, I always state 'game token'. Buying postage through ebay - i can't comment from a USA perspective since I have no experience, however, in the UK it will link to the Royal Mail and so long as you are accurate with the weight information it will provide a printable label for postage together with the address. I've seen items listed on ebay with the most incredible postage rates shown, I think that is because the lister has not entered the weight in the correct format, I think from memory it all has to be in grams.

I would be more than happy to use the ebay/paypal postage system from here but unfortunately the post mistress at my local post office does not like it, and even though everything is correct - for some reason she has to enter everything on to her system manually, there is no bar scanner to read the information on the label, and the process is even longer and more time consuming than if I just took the package in and hand it over the counter for weighing and paying. So, in short I do it all piece by piece, but I rarely have more than 10 items or so to mail at a time.

I've only ever had one package lost in the post, that was to the Netherlands, fortunately I had another coin the same to send, but it does worry me when sending coins that I only have one of, so I always keep proof of posting - but internationally I'm not sure how helpful that is to the buyer. I hope I never have to put it to the test.

Being organised and methodical I would say is key to having everything run smoothly for you and preparing the way with a specific email address is a good start.

Good luck with your coin

[The Klever Boys]

(Quoted from my post over at the serious place!):

As for postage, it seems the best/most cost effective way to send coins over to the UK from the USA is to use USPS 1st Class International, which appears to only cost a couple of dollars for a single coin and will get here in 7 days or so.
I have seen some huge costs quoted for even a single coin with long (surface mail) delivery times - some up to 42 days, which is in excess of the UK-USA rowing record

Mailing costs auto-calculated by PayPal are usually very high and although you might think it gives you peace of mind, be aware that the "signed for" service that might be offered doesn't mean too much when the coin arrives at this end, IMO.
The postie only knocks on my door when he sees a red (Royal Mail) signed-for sticker on the envelope and will usually ignore a foreign one, so in the event of a non-delivery, probably the best you'll ever get is confirmation that it has entered the country, not that I have actually received it. Save your money.

As already mentioned, please fill out the CN22 label not using the word "coin" anywhere and place a low value and you'll be fine!

[ThePetersTrio]

[PengoFamily]

We sold our personal geocoin but traded more than we sold. Make sure your paypal account is set up to receive credit card transactions or tell people that you will only accept existing paypal balances or account transfers.

Make sure for the shipping that you include the price of the mailers too. It costs money to buy those. A flat rate shipping fee should include that. Figure out the costs of shipping 1, 2 or more coins so you also know what to charge people.

I did not use tracking as in Canada it's not offered unless you pay A LOT more. I think mailing in the US you can have tracking at a lower rate but I am not sure about to Canada or Int'l.

Keep a few coins aside for lost mail, etc just in case. I think the average is 5% of what you mint. Could be wrong on the figure.

Keep a record of your sales; name of cacher, address, date mailed, etc. If you keep a record from the start it makes it a lot easier to track people's coins. If they have paid, if it has shipped, etc. i used an excel spreadsheet.

Hope that help! Good luck with your first sale.

[ThePetersTrio]

[RedShoesGirl]

i have shipped lots of items over seas and never had to fill out the custom form. either too small or not valuable enough or something, so that is a relief.

lara

[tadpole379]

I did the sales myself for my two personal coins. Def keep a spreadsheet of some kind so you can keep track of who orders what, when it is paid for, and when it is shipped.

I accepted payment for my coins from paypal which is quick and easy, but make sure you take into account the fact that paypal does charge a fee for each time that your account receives a payment (they charge more to receive international $) I don't remember what the fee is offhand, but the paypal Q & A should tell you.

I also printed off all of my US postage from paypal. They use the first class mail and they automatically add tracking to each package. They charge you something like 17 cents for the tracking but I think for a personal coin sale that is good for piece of mind so you can check when coins arrive, and they Post Office charges a lot more than 17 cents for the same tracking. But for paypal shipping you do need to know how many ounces your package is. If you don't have a scale that measures in grams or ounces, go to the PO and have them weigh a package with one coin, two coins, etc, so you will know how many ounces each one is for calculating postage. I did this and never had a problem with the postage or delivery of any of my coins. For international shipping I took everything to the PO because paypal international is really expensive and unnecessary.

My PO doesn't ask me to use a customs form unless the package is above a certain weight, so I have only needed one a handful of times.

For the second personal coin that I did, I limited each person to 3 coins of each color, because I found that some people will request like 10 coins of each color with the intention to sell them on ebay. I minted 300 coins so the numbers available were fairly limited and I wanted to give as many people a chance to get one as I could without having a few people corner the market on my coins and people could still get extras to trade, release, sell, etc.

Hopefully some of this is helpful and I will prob think of something else that I found useful.
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[ladybee4t]

I pretty much always use paypal shipping to send within the US. The del confirmation is only $0.18 and when someone doesn't tell me it was received I can at least check that. If you have a postal scale or weigh the packages at the post office as Tadpole suggested you should be fine.

If you sell your coins using paypal and someone says they didn't receive it, unless you have a delivery confirmation number they will win the dispute every time. Paypal can be sticky as they want everything shipped within 7 days of receiving the money. A few people had their accounts frozen as someone complained about that even though they knew up front it was a presale

I have been told that even though on this end they might not require the customs form on the receiving end they might require one and it could hold up the delivery. I always fill it out because of that. I also put novelty token, gift and a low dollar amount so they won't have to pay duty. I've never insured or got tracking for international because of the cost. If they want it though I would as long as they pay for it.

When you decide your cost be sure to include all the paypal fees you will have as well as the supplies. Oh yeah use LOTS of tape especially to overseas. LOL (The tape companies like me for sure!)

[ladybee4t]

Oh yeah I forgot to add.

I know that jackie said that she limited the sales of her last coin but there is something else to think about. I routinely order for 3 people here to save shipping charges as one doesn't have a paypal account. That means that I might want to order more than the limit so one of us might not get what we want. Then I tell Tom he has to order his own!!

[ThePetersTrio]

VERY helpful you guys - thanks.

So let me ask some other questions about mailing through Paypal. When you ship through Paypal it prints out the postage tag to attach to your mailer and debits your account for the amount? Is that right?

I notice that Paypal gives you the option to print the address label. Do you need to have special labels for your printer? Or does it just spit out a paper with address on it that you mail to your envelope? Does it print out more than one address per page if you've got multiple mailings?

As for weighing the mailers/coins, I have an infant scale that I use for my job that measures out in grams, so hopefully that will work.

[maldar]

[maldar]

What did you pay for the mailers? I just checked Uline and they are more expensive than the fix priced auctions on eBay. It looks as if I'll be able to save $40 on mailers between Uline and eBay.
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[maldar]

Just noticed that this server is screwed-up.

ElliPirelli made a post before me and it keeps moving down and I was wondering why that was. It was Monday July 21th when I made those two previous posts and it says that I made them Fri July 18. Too Funny.

maldar

This post made Monday July 21th at 0055hrs.

[No edit edit by Admin]
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[Administrator1]

I don't find it funny at all
Will investigate further.