If You Send Heavy Wholesale Orders, Who Pays For Shipping?

Who is paying the shipping costs for so many of the bulk orders we see day to day in our industry? It’s a question many coin dealers have, especially when they get into shipping bulk lots of coins, such as bags and rolls of moderns, junk silver, and other physically heavy items with generally low profit margins for the selling dealer. So, we at CDN set out to get the answer from a few coin dealers who deal in bulk orders on a daily basis. Here’s what they said…

“If you are a coin dealer, 99% of the time you pay the shipping when selling. It is built into the price, whether it’s a $3 mint set or bag of 90% silver. Now, the exception is when some dealer’s promoter accounts needed something five minutes ago to fill an order, so it’s gotta be shipped faster than usual. In that case, the buyer helps pay the shiping. A package of, say, five-ounce gold with a 1% margin is hardly worth shipping. So, even on marginal bullion deals, the shipping is still picked up by the seller.” ~Matt Draiss, Olde Saratoga Coin

“The vast majority of time, the seller pays for shipping. On rare occasions, the buyer pays to get material expedited to them for an order. An important note: the creation of the flat-rate shipping box program through United States Postal Service dramatically changed the buying and selling of low-margin, heavier items. It used to cost $60 or more to send a 70-pound package, and now you can do it for about $15 for a medium-flat rate shipment. ~Wayne Miller, Wayne Miller Coins

“On bulk orders, I usually pick up the shipping and just absorb it in the price, as you know people like free shipping! Only charge on very small orders, as it’s usually a bigger pain than worth but try to accommodate everyone.” ~Stephen Gonzales, SAG Enterprises