Buyer from France but I only ship to Australia

[thereallygoodbookshop]

Hello everyone,

Small dilemma.  I have only ever shipped to Australia on Ebay but somehow a buyer from France has purchased an item for shipping to an address in France (but hasn't paid yet).

I double checked the item and it still only has ship to Australia so I don't know how this happened.

Is this some sort of Ebay glitch?

[*tippy*toes* · Accepted solution]

Just not showing international postage doesn't block overseas buyers. You need to go into your postage preferences and make sure all the countries (or regions) are ticked. http://cgi5.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ExcludeShippingList Don't forget to tick the box saying to apply to all current live listings.

It also pays to have buyer blocks set up so you can block buyers in locations you don't post to. Set up the other blocks while you're there to block buyers who have too many unpaid item strikes http://offer.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BuyerBlockPreferences Again, don't forget to tick to apply to current and future listings.

As it stands, it's unlikely the buyer won't be able to pay as there will be no postage cost showing for them. To protect yourself, wait 4 days and open an unpaid item dispute. Go back 4 days later and close it. Doing that means the buyer can't leave you negative feedback if they get upset that you won't post to them. If they do leave bad feedback while the dispute is open, it should be removed once the case closes, if not, get onto eBay and tell them it was from a non payer and they should remove it while you're on the phone. If they don't, remind them that it's in their policy to remove feedback from non payers.

[thereallygoodbookshop]

Thanks Tippy,

I wasn't aware of the exclude shipping list.  Thankyou for the link, I have updated it now.  I'm still learning about all of ebay's little quirks.  Just when I thought I had it all right another issue like this pops up.  I had the buyer block preferences all set up but for some reason I never noticed the exclude shipping list and I naively thought that restricting the postage options to Australia only was sufficient.

I ship overseas from my website but with ebay's seller fees on top of international shipping makes it unviable to really ship overseas on ebay.  Plus I am scared off by the chance of defects for slow international post etc.

Thankyou for all your help and advice.  The buyer hasn't contacted me at all about it yet.

[springyzone]

We got caught out like that once.

It's a right royal pain, isn't it!

I consider it one of the faults of the ebay set up system.

We got a shock too when we thought we had Australia only on an item.

We went ahead, much to our regret. There were problems and complaints all along the way from the buyer although she insisted she would not cancel. We lost money because then she claimed it was faulty(we know it wasn't) but she would keep it if we refunded half the postage.

You're better off ditching that sale if you can, right from the start.

[glenbankloel]

AAAGggghhhh, Thanks Tippy I too didn't tick the box.

Flipped back as fast as I could, and now all done...Phew.

Yep, always learning on here, sometimes don't know what I would do if we didn't have discussions boards, have learnt so much over our years on Ebay. Thanks to everyone who gives their time and knowledge to help others over and over again.   

[casbit33]

I also only post to Australia but once had a buyer from USA.

I worked out the postage cost for that to USA, then contacted them.

they were still happy to buy the item and pay the international post cost.

I just made sure I told them to wait a few weeks for it to arrive as postage in this country is slow.

all went well.

[phorum_junkie*]

You don't have to specifically exclude any countries. If you want Australia only just make sure the no international postage is showing in the postage section and tick the buyer block to block members with a primary delivery address you do not post to from buying.

[thereallygoodbookshop]

Hi PJ,

I did have the buyer block box ticked for buyers in locations to which I don't post and I did have no international postage showing on the listing, only Australia.  But I think because I didn't have all the regions ticked in the exclude postage locations page the buyer from France was still able to buy, but she was not able to checkout or pay for the item without a postage amount.

I have sent an invoice with the postage to France to her now to at least give her the opportunity if she still wants the item as it is my fault for not having all of the settings in place to stop her buying etc.

I don't think she will be interested in $45 shipping on top of a $29.95 item however.