Round 1: I'm not the winner

So I had this great idea - encouraged by an article on my jewelry supplier's site - to dye some pearls. Not any dye job either, mind you, but a lovely ombre blue. Imagine - a pearl necklace that naturally shades from light to dark blue - how lovely would that be!

I understand the concept of ombre, and since I've seen pearls in every shade imaginable, figured I could make this work. I'm an engineer after all!

I purchase a packet of the darkest blue I could find (since I want some REALLY blue), and patiently dipped my pearls in blue water over the stove. (No, I'm not sharing all the details, in case it does finally work) After 30 minutes, I rinse...and instead of blue ombre, I have all one shade of blueish-grayish-purple.

Admittedly, it's a pretty shade - it's just not what I want! (That white one is the original color, just for contrast)

Got to figure out what happened, and how to make the next batch successful.

My eBay shipping experiment

What do people most value in their eBay shopping experience? Actually spending less, or just feeling like they got a good deal?

eBay is really starting to push for sellers to offer "Free Shipping". This is, of course, an obvious ploy for more fees - after all, they earn a fee only on the sale price, not on shipping and handling. (I'm not even going to touch on the problem of fee avoidance)

The question is, does free shipping draw more buyers, and can you still make the same (or more!) profit that way.

So, for the moment, I'm running an experiment. I know my standard profit margin on items where I charge S&H - for 6 weeks or so, I'm going to offer "free shipping" but with a higher minimum bid, and see how it works out. Let's run some numbers so you understand what I'm talking about.

Let's say my standard item is a shirt. I bought it for $3.99, and typically sell it for $19.99, including $5 for S&H (total price to buyer - $24.99).

eBay takes a listing fee of $0.55 and a final value fee of $1.75. (We'll ignore PayPal fees, since they would be the same) If shipping costs $4.75 (normal price), that leaves me with a total "profit" $13.95 to cover my gas, time, bills, etc.

Now, if I move the $5 S&H price into the original listing price here's how my fees work out.

Listing fee = $0.55, Final value fee = $2.19. Profit = $13.51. I've lost $0.44 for the privilege" of offer Free Shipping.

However, if my Free Shipping listings generate more business, and my items sell for more than minimum bid...I will quickly make up that amount. Should be an interesting experiment.

And in case you are wondering - no, I don't plan to run this with Etsy as well. Mostly because Etsy, unlike eBay, does NOT list shipping cost when you search for items - so having free shipping won't catch anybody's eye in a list of products.

What do you think - would Free Shipping draw you in?