How to price pasabuy orders

Guide · 6 min read

Pasabuy works because you are already travelling: buyers back home save on international shipping and get items that are hard to find locally, and you earn something for the time, risk and luggage space you give up. The hard part is pricing. Charge too little and the trip barely pays for your excess baggage; charge too much and buyers go to someone else. This guide walks through a simple, transparent way to price every order.

The two parts of a fair pasabuy price

Most sellers end up combining two charges on top of the item cost:

• A service fee – a percentage of the item price. It pays for your time looking for the item, queueing, handling the payment abroad and the risk of the item being damaged or confiscated. Common ranges are 10–20%, higher for luxury or limited items that take real effort to get.
• A handling fee per kilo – a fixed amount per kilogram of the packed order. This covers the luggage space the order uses. Heavy, cheap items (snacks, canned goods, detergent) earn almost nothing from a percentage fee, so the per-kilo charge keeps them worth carrying.

Using both keeps you fair: a small but expensive perfume pays mostly through the service fee, while a heavy box of chocolates pays mostly through weight.

A worked example

Say your service fee is 15% and your handling rate is ₱150 per kg. A buyer orders two items:

• Items subtotal: ₱3,480
• Service fee (15%): ₱522
• Packed weight 1.8 kg × ₱150: ₱270
• Buyer pays: ₱4,272 — and you earn ₱792 for the order.

Pasabuy Tracker does this maths for you. When you create an order you can slide the service fee for that order, and once you enter the packed weight on the order details screen, the handling charge and the buyer’s total update automatically.

Convert currency the same way every time

Prices abroad are in dirhams, yen, dollars or won, but your buyers pay in pesos. Pick one rule and tell buyers up front — for example, “today’s GCash or bank rate plus a small buffer” — and record the peso price you agreed. Changing the rate after the buyer has agreed is the fastest way to lose trust.

Remember your hidden costs

Before you settle on your rates, list what the trip really costs you for pasabuy:

• Excess baggage or an extra checked bag
• Transport to malls and outlets, and time spent shopping instead of resting
• Packing materials: boxes, bubble wrap, tape, zip bags
• Local delivery or meet-up costs after you land
• Bank or card fees when you pay abroad

If your expected earnings for the whole trip don’t cover these with something left over, raise the handling rate first — it is the part buyers most easily understand.

Common pricing mistakes

• Pricing only by percentage. Heavy, cheap items will quietly eat your luggage allowance.
• Forgetting to weigh until the night before. Weigh each order as you pack it so you can still decline or re-price.
• Changing fees mid-trip without notice. In Pasabuy Tracker, fee changes on a trip only apply to items added afterwards, so earlier orders keep the price you agreed.
• Not asking for a downpayment. See our guide on tracking downpayments and balances.

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