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So I’m wanting to turn in international shipping for some (most) of my items, but I’m a little scared. I had a dude contact me several weeks ago who wanted to buy a photo from me, asking me to please do international shipping as he was in Spain. I turn it on, he purchases, and then when I go to ship, I see he paid $6 for shipping and the actual charge is $13.
What advice do you all have for someone wanting to start selling internationally? Most of my items probably aren’t at a high enough price point to warrant GSP. Should I create an international shipping policy and apply in bulk? Do I do First Class if under 4 lbs? And if so, how do I ensure I don’t get a jacked calculation like last time.
Thanks!
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If you are first starting out, I would just turn on GSP. It is really easy, and all you have to do is ship the item to the Kentucky center and eBay takes care of the rest.
Outside of that, International is not too daunting. Use First Class International for items under 4 lbs for the cheapest rate, but you don’t have tracking or insurance, so if the item does not get a delivery scan, you will have to refund the buyer. This is the biggest risk, though it only has happened to us about 4-5 times since 2013. If the item is higher priced, I would only offer Priority International to get the tracking and insurance.
There are different forms that print, but eBay labels handles that. Get some plastic pouches for Priority International from your local post office. Do some YouTube research on International Shipping and they will take you through it.
Not sure what would have happened on your Spain issue. If you see that again, before you pay for the label, call eBay and ask what happened.
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I offer non-GSP international shipping on an item by item basis.
Some items (usually large or very valuable) are not worth the hassle if someone has an issue to try and sort out return shipping from a foreign country.
There are countries that have great postal services with excellent tracking (U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Japan, Australia) and others that I would never send to without knowing I’m taking a risk.
Also, you can setup your seller preferences to accept only bids/offers from those with higher feedback scores that are more trustworthy – however, that may eliminate some buyers that are local.
As a buyer that is located outside of the U.S., I can tell you that if I want something, I’ll pay the GSP extras to get it to me safely and guaranteed. I do appreciate the odd seller that offers direct shipping to Canada, but it is a risk to the seller.
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” you can setup your seller preferences to accept only bids/offers from those with higher feedback scores that are more trustworthy – however, that may eliminate some buyers that are local.”
Is this true?
I think you can only eliminate buyers who have two strikes against them for not paying within 6 months. Nothing to do with stopping people with 0 feedback. -
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This is what i see:
Block buyers who:
–Don’t have a PayPal account
–Have received 2 Unpaid Item strike(s) within 6 Month(s)
–Have 4 Policy Violation report(s) within 6 Month(s)
–Have a feedback score of -2 or lowerSo you cant say “only sell to buyers with 500 feedback.” Or “Dont sell to people with 0 feedback”
You can only say “Dont sell to buyers with -2 feedback”. The bar is set very low.
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Interesting. We haven’t looked into that in a long time. I think when you open the box, the box for restrictions on number of feedback used to go positive as well. Looks like now it is only -1, -2, or -3.
There is an expanded section below that says:
Buyers who may bid on several of my items and not pay for them
Block buyers who are currently winning or have bought of my items in the last 10 days.
Only apply this block to buyers who have a feedback score of or lower.
Consider selecting this requirement if you are selling expensive items and don’t want to sell over a certain number to any single buyer. Learn more about how this requirement works.Detail:
Buyers Who May Bid on Several of My Items and Not Pay
How this buyer requirement works
Below are 2 examples of how this buyer requirement will affect buyers who bid on or buy your items.Example 1
You select “Block buyers who are currently winning or have bought ‘10′ of my items in the last 10 days.” You also select “Only apply this block to buyers who have a feedback score of ‘5′ or lower.” Two eBay members, eBaydaisy (feedback score of 7), and johneBay (feedback score of 3), are currently winning or have bought some of your items and are interested in bidding on or buying more.eBaydaisy (feedback score of 7) is currently winning or has bought 10 of your items in the last 10 days. When eBaydaisy tries to bid on or buy another of your items, she will not be blocked. Although you are blocking buyers who are currently winning or have bought more than 10 of your items in the last 10 days, eBaydaisy has a feedback score of 7, which is higher than the 5 you set as part of the requirement. johneBay (feedback score of 3) is currently winning or has bought 10 of your items in the last 10 days. When johneBay tries to bid on or buy another of your items, he will be blocked. johneBay’s feedback score is 3, which is lower than the 5 you set as part of the block.
Example 2
You select “Block buyers who are currently winning or have bought ‘10’ of my items in the last 10 days.” You do not select “Only apply this block to buyers who have a feedback score of ‘0-5’ or lower.”eBaydaisy (feedback score of 7) will be blocked when she tries to bid on or buy another of your items. This is because you are blocking buyers who are currently winning or have bought 10 items from you in the last 10 days, and you have chosen not to apply the block only to buyers who have a feedback score of ‘0-5’ or lower. In this situation, eBaydaisy will be blocked regardless of her feedback score.
johneBay (feedback score of 3) will still be blocked, since you have chosen not to apply the block only to buyers who have a feedback score of ‘0-5’ or lower. In this situation, johneBay will be blocked regardless of his feedback score. In fact, any buyer who is currently winning or has bought the maximum-allowed number of your items in the last 10 days will be blocked, regardless of their feedback score.
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I ship international and virtually all my items do not go through GSP. I love this vecause it makes a reasonable potion of my sales. When you had the shipping undercharge situation, were you using calculated or flat rate shipping?
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Just be careful with International shipping via First Class International. I just had to do another refund for a lost package. Priority International will have much better tracking, so anything of high value, only offer Priority International. More expensive, but worth it for higher value.
The number of lost First Class International shipments in the last 2 months (3) where we have had to give refunds is why we flipped to GSP for this year. Giving it a year to see how it works.
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For sure you can lose something via first class. I haven’t had it happen yet. But if I were sending something that I had money into, then I would list it as priority mail option only. T-Satt, which countries did the package get lost in? I have no fear in countries like Canada, England, France, etc.
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I dont think you can say that any one country is “trouble”. When we were willing to ship First Class before GSP, we lost packages in Australia, Germany, England….
The issue is lack of tracking. Once tracking stops, you just hope that the buyer doesnt complain because you have no way to prove the item was delivered. International buyers love first class postage because you take all the risk. If you don’t mind assuming the risk, it’s all good.
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I am unclear how you do international from the eBay site with figuring out postage customs forms etc…
Is there a drop down menu with prices for shipping international ? Right now I have Gsp turned on with nothing else..
I’ve only tried GPS with very good response. So far in less than a year I’ve sold to Japan Germany Canada England Netherlands Australia Spain.I may be willing to try some of the countries listed with good tracking info if it saved them some money and gave me more sales.
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99% of the International Forms are done for you on eBay. For First Class International, it is a single form and is similar to printing Domestic. For Priority International, there are 4 copies of the form. Attach one to the package, and put the other 3 in the Clear Plastic Envelopes from USPS. You can check YouTube for videos on how to do that.
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Well I give up on that. I have gotten screwed up before trying to set the preferences for the shipping.
I tried (as an experiment) to list for one item only with shipping exclusions to certain countries actually most countries except the ones that have decent tracking.
then I went on to my account and ‘excluded’ all the countries I would not ship to also leaving the box checked for override for GPS..
When I went to look at my listing every listing had all the exclusion and the priority shipping without the GPS listed. It was very confusing.
I called eBay and they helped me reset everything back to GSP only. She said it would be very difficult to do GPS & international shipping with exclusions also.Way to much for my brain today to process.
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First Class International packages get end-to-end tracking in lots of countries now. List here:
https://pe.usps.com/text/imm/immc2_022.htm
EBay hasn’t kept up to date with the post office on this, and will warn you that you’re not going to get delivery confirmation for some of these countries — France, for instance — but you actually do get it.
Oh, and Bingbong, check the “package type” on your listings. $6 sounds like the price for a large envelope to Europe and $13 sounds like the price for a package.
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