How do you do your trades?

[LadyPinwheel]

Hi all!

I have a question to pose to all of you. Today I was talking with another collector about trading ponies, but at the end we didn't get to an agreement on how to trade.

The way I have always done it is that when both parts agree on the ponies, each part send the pony to the other person and each part covers their own shipping costs. But this other person I was talking to, told me that where he came from they didn't work like that, that I had to pay the shipping. I want to learn how things work in different places.

So, in order to learn... How do you do your trades? You pay for shipping to the other person or do you just pay the shipping from the pony you are sending?

Thank you all! ^^

[Rainbowrific Renia]

If the shipping is going to be roughly the same for both parties, I feel that you should each cover your own shipping.  There should be no exchanging of money for shipping at all.  At least this is how I normally do it.

Only recently did I end up in a different type of situation.  In this instance, I'm trading 1 pony plush for 4 pony plushies.  The cost of shipping for me is obviously going to be much less than the person I'm trading with, so I offered to send her money to make up the difference.  In the example I gave her, I said something like:

If my shipping ends up being $5 and hers is $15, I'll send her $10 so that we're both essentially only paying $5 for shipping.

In most cases though, to me, trading ponies means you're just trading ponies.  As I said before, no exchanging of money should be involved.

[ooizza]

^ Agreed!

Any trades that I have done are with ponies of approximately equal value and each person pays to ship their side of the trade. Any differences in shipping are made up by the person who will receive that package (money or equal amount of pony value ).

I've never heard of anyone doing any differently besides new traders who might ship out their side of the trade first and then when that package shows up, the other person ships their end of the trade.

I'm curious, did they want you to pay their shipping AND your shipping charges?

[Sebby6]

I'm curious too lol. I've only ever known that each person is responsible for their side of things

[mopthebunny]

Every time I've traded, we've both paid postage for whatever we're sending It makes the most sense that way.

[kitkatvintage]

Typically both parties pay the shipping to send their items to the recipient.

I have run into a situation where the shipping was known to be very uneven from the start. In that case we factored shipping into the value of the trade. For example: Person A sent $50 worth of ponies and paid $45 in shipping for a total of $95. Person B sent $85 worth of ponies and paid $10 in shipping for a total of $95. The terms of factoring in shipping costs were discussed at the start of that deal because we knew it would be unbalanced.

[Aadra310]

^ Agreed! ^

Personally, I think shipping should be about the same for both parties or an arrangement needs to be made to make it fair.  I've traded toys sold in the United States only for ponies being shipped from overseas.  My end had all the toy packaging and was much larger than the ponies I wanted.  It wouldn't have been fair for me to pay $50 in shipping while my counterpart only paid $15 for items of relatively equal value.  Shipping costs most definitely are considered part of my transactions.  I don't just trade items for items without regard to postage.

Every trade could be different depending on items and locations so I think it needs to be discussed for every transaction up front.

[goddessofpeep]

With sales, it's standard that the buyer pays for the shipping, unless of course the seller is offering "free shipping" for the buyer, or the shipping cost is worked into the price of the item(which is really the same thing).

In trades, it's standard that both people pay to ship out their end.  I've never traded with anyone who insisted that one person shoulder the entire cost of the shipping.   I've traded with people from all over the world, and not once encountered anyone who even suggested that I pay for everything.  If they had, I'd reconsider dealing with them at all.  In the case where the shipping is very unequal, most traders take that into account.  Some people offer to send money to offset the differences in cost, some people toss in extra items to cover the difference.  I usually go the extra items method.  Both people in the trade still contribute to the shipping costs.

It's a trade.  Both people are sending items, so it's only fair that both people have to pay for some postage. Postage isn't free, and a lot of times it's not cheap either.  Forcing one person to pay all the postage costs is unfair, and personally I wouldn't want to trade with someone who thinks it's ok to force their trade partner to take on the entire postage cost while they get all the benefit.  I don't even understand how that would work.  How do you decide which person is getting stuck with the shipping?  Two people are sending out boxes, which one of them would have to pay for both boxes, and what would be the justification?  I'm betting the real rule the person is trying to enforce is "anybody but me" pays for it, which is not how it's supposed to work. 

[Ringlets]

Hmm sounds a bit odd 

Typically both parties pay the shipping to send their items to the recipient.

I have run into a situation where the shipping was known to be very uneven from the start. In that case we factored shipping into the value of the trade. For example: Person A sent $50 worth of ponies and paid $45 in shipping for a total of $95. Person B sent $85 worth of ponies and paid $10 in shipping for a total of $95. The terms of factoring in shipping costs were discussed at the start of that deal because we knew it would be unbalanced.

This ^^   Both parties pay for their own shipping
 unless:
 The cost is going to be really uneven - in that case it needs to be worked out first  for example in the way that KKV mentions here.
The other trade situation is as ooizza mentioned - where one of the parties is a new member and so they ship first (and the other person ships when the parcel arrives, or the new person has shipped with tracking/DC so then the other person has proof of shipping from the newbie and so they can then ship their parcel without having to wait for the newbies parcel to arrive before shipping)