How is this possible?

[TonyM]

Just had a delivery of mousemats and was pricing them up on ebay.
I paid around 75p each and they are nice quality thick mousemats.
The paper is 15p a sheet and with the ink we are looking at a minimum of a pound a pop to produce, not including time effort electric etc.
Postage large letter is £1.20 not including safeguards of a signature and the A4 envelope 5 for a pound.
So a pound to produce, £1.45 to post. £2.45 before I start.
So how can people sell coloured mousemats for less that the cost to post?
£1.23 for a coloured mat with free postage.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-LARGE-NON-S ... 35c04dfa07

As I say in the title how is it possible when it costs more than that to post?
I give in.

[TonyM]

Oh yeah but 2 get one free.

[viccar]

But there just normal coloured ones, not sublimated ones.
Plust big business, maybe gets reduced postal rates

[bms]

Oh yeah but 2 get one free.

How also can anyone make money from the following...
£1.38 buys a 750ml bottle of car cleaning solution. Delivered by courier free of charge. Delivery person was paid £3.50 to deliver package.
£1.52 buys a charger for a handheld device. Delivered free of charge from other side of the world.

There are very busy fools in this world!

[purpledragon]

as viccar says they arnt sublimated ones but still causes people like us problems . joe public sees them for a couple of quid and thinks you should charge the same the concept that you are adding a photo on yhe item is lost to most people

[socialgiraffe]

Many moons ago when my ex business partner scum and I purchased a failing screen printing company it only produced mouse mats. They were, together with Listawoods, the two biggest manufacturers of mats in this country. While trying to steer away from mats (because there was no sustainability) we ended up in a bit of a price war for a while with Listawoods. The end result was that I think both of us were printing mouse mats for 50p each. These were bulk and even at 50p there was still plenty of profit.

If this guy is purchasing them from China he is probably getting them for about 15p each.

Postage will not be 90p as he will have negotiated a very good discount based on how much this guy is selling.

A quick look on RAJAPACK shows A4 envelopes for less than 10p each

So I would imagine he is making between 15-30p per mat.

times that by the number of items that are going out everyday and then you realise that its probably worth his while.

Its a bit like Lidl, stack it high and sell it cheap.

[John G]

They're plain, unprinted and not specifically for sublimation. Also, i'd reckon on 90p "large letter" 1st class post or around 69p "large letter" 2nd class post.

[socialgiraffe]

Incidentally

Did you know that it cost Sony more to manufacture the Playstation than what they sell it for? Same with Xbox as well.

The real money is in the games and licenses once you are committed to one format.

[viccar]

The ones i buy are £1.20 to post LL as they weigh 128g (same dimension as seller) plain A4 envelope

But they prob get franking or royal mail discount anyway

[viccar]

Incidentally

Did you know that it cost Sony more to manufacture the Playstation than what they sell it for? Same with Xbox as well.

The real money is in the games and licenses once you are committed to one format.

suppose that makes sense with those two big companies and also explains why the games are so expensive