Your opinions, eBay question.

Lately I have been getting a lot of people asking about international shipping. I guess I have it clicked that I do not provide international shipping because I heard that it is just a flat out hassle. I just got three separate potential buyers asking me about international shipping; would you change this and allow international bidders to bid? If so what is the strategy here, or things to look out for? Also potential shipping costs?

For the longest time I always shipped internationally. Only had a problem or two, but to me it was more of a hassle just to go to the post office because paypal's international rates are atrocious. I then placed a statement in my auctions that if someone wants to bid outside the United States to contact me on shipping and then I would proceed to give them the going rate for international tracking. If they were willing to pay the higher shipping rate, I would let them bid.

First class international is fairly cheap, but it does not provide a tracking number. My suggestion to you is that if you want to take the chance on lesser priced items and ship first class international, make sure to check out the bidder's feedback before letting them bid.

prospectorgems said:

For the longest time I always shipped internationally. Only had a problem or two, but to me it was more of a hassle just to go to the post office because paypal's international rates are atrocious. I then placed a statement in my auctions that if someone wants to bid outside the United States to contact me on shipping and then I would proceed to give them the going rate for international tracking. If they were willing to pay the higher shipping rate, I would let them bid.

First class international is fairly cheap, but it does not provide a tracking number. My suggestion to you is that if you want to take the chance on lesser priced items and ship first class international, make sure to check out the bidder's feedback before letting them bid.

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I use to do this exact same thing. But I don't see what the point of checking someone's feedback now is. Since buyers haven't been able to get anything less than positive, a buying account for a "not so honest person", would only show positive feedback.

The OP, I listed 70 some auctions last week with only US shipping. I had so many people asking about it, I have added international to all my future listings, but charge $14, which is about the price of registered shipping. One thing you have to keep in mind about blocking countries you don't ship to is, is someone is registered in another country because hey are in the Army (or whatnot) they will most likely have a US shipping address even though they are registered in another country.

i43770 said:

prospectorgems said:

For the longest time I always shipped internationally. Only had a problem or two, but to me it was more of a hassle just to go to the post office because paypal's international rates are atrocious. I then placed a statement in my auctions that if someone wants to bid outside the United States to contact me on shipping and then I would proceed to give them the going rate for international tracking. If they were willing to pay the higher shipping rate, I would let them bid.

First class international is fairly cheap, but it does not provide a tracking number. My suggestion to you is that if you want to take the chance on lesser priced items and ship first class international, make sure to check out the bidder's feedback before letting them bid.

Click to expand...

I use to do this exact same thing. But I don't see what the point of checking someone's feedback now is. Since buyers haven't been able to get anything less than positive, a buying account for a "not so honest person", would only show positive feedback.

The OP, I listed 70 some auctions last week with only US shipping. I had so many people asking about it, I have added international to all my future listings, but charge $14, which is about the price of registered shipping. One thing you have to keep in mind about blocking countries you don't ship to is, is someone is registered in another country because hey are in the Army (or whatnot) they will most likely have a US shipping address even though they are registered in another country.

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some of those buyers are just as bad as the international ones

I also have international bidders blocked.

I do say in my auction though that international bidders can contact me if they are interested - that way I can make a decision based on feedback, discussing shipping charges/method beforehand, and what the potential value of the card is and if it is worth the hassle.
Personally I think that is the best thing to do - because then you can control it a bit, as i'd hate to see a $2 card sell and have to ship to another country, which could happen if it's open and anyone is allowed to bid. Just not worth the hassle and potential problems to me.

I only allow shipping outside of the US and Canada on cards I know will sell in other countries. And in those instances, I charge about $15 for shipping, which allows me to charge for Registered, which has Delivery Confirmation.

Otherwise, I ship to the US and Canada - I sell a lot of hockey stuff, so to not sell to Canada would be stupid. I generally don't put tracking on anything under $10 anyway, so if I sell lesser items to Canadian bidders, then it's not a big deal, I'll deal with it if someone wants to file a chargeback. If someone has high/good feedback, I don't worry TOO much about shipping non-tracked to Canada.

I use Stamps.com for shipping, so it's regular rates to ship to Canada and I don't have to go to the PO (even though it says they need to be dropped off to a teller - I never have, and haven't had issues).

I've had so many people tell me that Canadian bidders have screwed them that it's not funny. I think there's a handful of people that just like throwing charge-backs on people.

With that said, I'd much rather have someone charge 12 (i think that's the going rate) for a tracked package than someone charging 5.99 to ship a package that I receive with 1.87 postage on it.

I do however look at that like they're offering their own insurance and shouldn't be pissed hwen they get a chargeback.

If you make 4 dollars on every package, you only need to sell 4 packages to cover $20. Since a charge-back is probably a 1 in 20 proposition, you've basically got yourself covered.

I have no problem shipping international.

I charge $4 to ship first class. If I think an item is going sell for more than $40 then I offer to pay up to half the shipping for my protection which amounts to $6.50 for each of us to ship international registered mail (which gets proof of delivery and sig). This only applies to the Far East, not Canada.