I have finaly opened an ebay account so that I can sell some bits and bobs, need a bit of help.

[insertwittynicknameHERE]

I would like to use royal mail to send small items, is it best to go for tracked items or recorded items?

And also how do you work out postage costs?

weigh your items including the packaging on your kitchen scales and then look up the cost on the royal mail website. add a few pence to cover the cost of packaging.

Thank you

Always do recorded as you will be covered if anything goes missing.

Don't forget size also matters for postage costs. Large letter vs parcel can make quite a difference. I bought myself a size guide to accurately calculate costs.

What's the value of your items? If you get proof of posting from PO your item is insured up to around £34.(Excludes glass, china) I have claimed twice and had no problem getting a refund.

I used to send everything with POP but got fed up queuing in PO - esp as some of our local ones closed. weighing it up with the time taken / value of parcels I decided ages ago that unless goods are worth more than £10 (I sell mostly dvds) I would just pop them in the post box. This saves me bags of time and I have only (just recently actually) had a buyer claim non-receipt of a parcel for which I was happy to simply refund.

I don't know if I'm just being dead lucky with the type of items I'm selling attract only nice buyers who don't try it on etc

PS I send approx 10-15 parcels a week.

For parcels, bear in mind that bubblewrap, jiffy bags, tape etc can weigh quite a bit - not usually a problem unless this pushes your item over 1 kg which is the limit for 2nd class postage, and 1st costs a lot more!

You can get an idea of postage from searching Ebay for the same item (and if it's worth bothering to sell yours) - you can then make yours a bit cheaper if there's competition.

If you don't know if your item will sell, wait until there's a bid before wrapping it - but then you can't predict the weight so well.