It’s been awhile since I sold a bike on eBay…is it really over $200 to send one now? It’s in a trek domane box (so a little taller than “a small bike box”, it’s an XL frame, and it’ll be 40-45#'s once it’s all packed in there, mummified. But…$200…whoa!
Joe
Depending on where it is going and what service you use, yeah, you can hit close to $200.
Worth noting that shipping costs are pretty high right now across the board…huge demand.
What service are you looking at using?
Bikeflights last time I did it was around $100 or maybe even less.
I tried ups and fedex when I made the ad on eBay…over $220 for each!
Here’s the ad.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/254894042967
I’m not sure how to use bike flights with eBay…but if there is a way I’d be willing to check it out for sure because this shipping is going to kill my sale price!
Joe
When I sold a frame in the past, I just did free shipping and raised the price to cover bikeflight’s cost.
I’ve used bikeflights.com and shipbikes.com and both were good. I think shipbikes is newer and they were less than bikeflights. Does eBay make you use a particular service? All of my shipping was pre-pandemic so maybe prices have really been affected.
Did you sell it via eBay?
yes, usps, ups, fedex … or, charge what you want and ship how you want. The usps option is super handy for small items, before that got easy I always lost money on shipping. I’ll check out both of those options, thanks 
I did. I was trying to find the listing but apparently doesn’t keep an archive of old sold items (one of many reasons I hate them).
Shipping rates are step functions. Cut the box down to your needed size and then enter the dimensions. A one inch change can more than double the shipping rate.
I’ve sold ~10 bikes on eBay, and thought the $200 - $250 shipping was normal, but BikeFlights is way cheaper and an excellent company to work with. I’ve shipped for $60 - $80 almost every time since then (I also use them for my personal bikes when on vacation). Can’t recommend that company highly enough.
I don’t know about the US, but in the UK the shipping costs can easily double if you’re insuring a high value item inside such as a bike. So baseline costs can be pretty cheap but if you dont want to risk being uninsured if it’s damaged in transit, the extra cost is worth paying IMO
I’ll definitely check them out. I was going to mail my bike on my last trip but it was $$$ and American charged me only $25 (bike box and an underseat backpack were all I brought).
Thanks for the tips guys!
Joe
It can! $50 is probably the minimum. Using Bikeflights / Shipbikes (really just discount codes to Fedex/UPS), or a discount code will save you $$$. There are a few critical dimensions to both UPS and Fedex. If you exceed one of those in any dimension, you’re doubling the cost of the shipment. Second, getting a bike packed can cost $50 if the shop does it.
Those dimensions are about 28in on one side and 10in on the other. Serfas makes a case for this - https://www.serfas.com/shop/products/bike-cases/sbt-serfas-bike-transport/ If you’re ever going on vacation and mailing the bike to yourself / a fedex store/a bike shop, take a minute to play with those websites to figure out the optimal box size. It may cost $30 less to ship a bigger box thats 1" smaller on one side.