topic Re: Question for folks who sell internationally in Selling

Question for folks who sell internationally

stickerswa — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 06:21:14 GMT

Just wondering if folks who sell overseas have much go 'missing'. Thinking abou opening up to sell OS but being small untracked letter items I am just wondering how much I am likely to loose!

Thanks for your time.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

foxinsox2000 — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 06:31:22 GMT

I do this - stared just sending as letters ($3) which was cheap.

Probably had about 5 - 10% loss rate.

Changed to adding insurance and charging $12 - still no tracking - but you get the more official looking triplicate customs form.

Now I would estimate the loss rate down at about 2 - 3% - but at least I can claim it back.

I could change less and 'self insure' but I am happier having a lower rate of loss.

Surprisingly, increasing the postage price from $3 to $12 did not have a dramatic impact on my O/S sales. They did drop back a bit but I appreciated less stress about lost items.

Right now the only problem I have is nominating a postage service for the listings as eBay have just removed the "Economy, untracked 11-35 days" option. If you select 'Standard International Flat Rate' the only trouble you might have is the eBay delivery estimate seems to default to 1 - 2 weeks so you are more likely to have undelivered cases opened because the allowable delivery time before opening a case is shorter.

Do I over think things? Yes lol but you kinda have to!

Good luck with it 🙂

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

chameleon54 — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 10:16:16 GMT

Around 20-25% of my sales are to international clients as large letters, usually untracked. The loss rate is definately higher than Australian sales and has increased quite noticably in the last six months. The margins on the items I sell range from 500% to 2000% so i can afford to lose a few, but items going missing is definately becoming quite a problem with international sales.

If you are working on profit margins of less 300-400% it could become pretty maginal as evey time you lose a letter, you lose the postage cost as well as the item.

edit, - all of my items go standard international flat rate. Maybe that is part of the problem

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

clubesquire — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 10:25:58 GMT

Last time here and this time back we haven't lost any (looking for wood to knock - ah! Forehead), but 98% is sent tracked. Not big seller, but Getting close to 1,900 items overall.

Melina.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

melbourneclearance — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 10:42:06 GMT

I have never had tracked parcels to overseas go missing, not so lucky with untracked $3 letters. Over 20% of the untracked items to USA have one sort of claim or another. Either their postal system is very **bleep**py or their customs office holds everything or they just have a lot more fraudulent buyers than all other countries. Canada is around 6% refund. All the other countries I sell to are perfectly honest and not sneakily wild wild west.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

digital*ghost — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 11:25:51 GMT

I'm not really brave enough to offer untracked mail to international destinations via eBay. It's not necessarily the buyers that worry me, though I wouldn't exclude it as a concern as different markets attract different people, it's more ebay and their meddling with things like delivery ETAs and dates, and requiring proof of delivery for an MBG claim (I get proof of post for all untracked mail I send OS via the lodgement terminals, but that only has a chance of helping me in non-eBay situations). Plus the FVF on postage makes things a lot harder for me since international postage is anything from $3-$50, and I baulk at the idea of paying an extra $4 or so in fees for the same sale just because the buyer lives outside of Oz.

I do post that way daily to international destinations, though. I know this is not everyone's experience, but percentage-wise, my international sales are less problematic than my domestic ones. Sure, I've had some OS people send me some interesting messages, or get a bit antsy after two weeks (or sooner, sometimes - had a US buyer purchase on Good Friday, package posted on Tuesday and the order updated accordingly. Got a message on Saturday saying "still waiting for my order, I bought it one week ago" Had to tell her that it's not only perfectly normal, but that she could expect to wait a while longer -_- ), but I've only ever had chargebacks from Australian buyers, the instances of INRs are much higher from Aussies, and so is the percentage of buyers who try to claim their orders are missing items - I get about 5-6 Aussie buyers trying that for every 1 international buyer (I do have a much higher volume of Aus buyers, but I've taken that into account) .

The only thing you can really do is just test your market with some lower-value items for a while, and see what buyers are expecting and whether it's going to be worth the risk.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

jfmgray — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 11:26:19 GMT

I mostly send untracked large letters internationally, at about 15% of my total sales. I have only had 1 international item go missing in the last 6 months (New Zealand) so I have no concerns. BUT you should avoid some countries with a high strikerate of postal problems (for me I do not ship to Canada Central & South America and a few more places). Vast majority of my international sales are to USA and England and I find their postal services very reliable.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

jellybirddesigns — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 11:31:13 GMT

It's definitely worth it to offer international sales, but be selective about which countries you will send to.

My sales to the US and the UK account for around 40%-50% of my business, which is huge. However, I will not ship to places like the Far East, the Middle East, South America, Canada and most of the Southern European countries.

In 13 years of selling, I think I've had less than a dozen items go missing in over 3000 transactions, and of those, 4 were overseas sales.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

portpiro — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 14:45:42 GMT

Why is Canada so dodgy? Posted an untracked parcel cheaply to save buyer money and it didn't arrive. It was a Facebook friend so I'm inclined to believe her. Corrupt postal workers?

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

lyndal1838 — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 14:57:48 GMT

No, not corrupt postal workers....just a very large country with very bad weather over many months of the year making for slow delivery. Their postal rates are also very high.....if you think AP is bad then have a look at Canada Post.

My OH is Canadian and when his parents were alive we had to allow at least 6 weeks for a birthday card sent by airmail to arrive.

As far as ebay sellers in Canada are concerned, they have a bad habit of underquoting on postage and then sending by surface mail to keep the postage within reason.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

bjlcr — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 04:58:18 GMT

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

bjlcr — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 05:07:50 GMT

I have been selling internationally since 2002

.Mostly things go smoothly and really well,,I have had only 3 instances 'Of

Buyer saying item was not delivered.

.Netherlands Belgium and UK.All had tracking

.The Belgium and Netherlands parcels got as far as the countries customs and just dissapeard,,Ebay refunded the payments to the buyers.

The Uk one was delivered but Ebay gave the money back..

Apart from these 3 I have posted to many countries some months I have only had international buyers,I have posted to Spain and Chili and Russia with no problems at all.

All Items are with tracking..I wouldnt send anything without tracking.

Most of my buyer s have been UK or USA,

But ones listed are the only ones I have problems with.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

jellybirddesigns — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 05:56:21 GMT

The other problem with Canada as a postage destination is that, from what I've heard, tracking does not show up in the Canadian postal system.

Apparently they stopped INBOUND tracking a couple of years ago.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

joztamps — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 07:11:55 GMT

Going by the condition of the stamps on their mail tp Australia, one of the reasons for Canada's slow mail is an inordinate delay in their mail processing centres, while they run each and every letter back and forth through their line cancelling machines, 6 or 7 times.

And then do it again, just to be on the safe side.

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

jellybirddesigns — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 08:14:02 GMT

@joztamps - Having lived there for 2.5 years, I would agree with that statement!

Re: Question for folks who sell internationally

masterstroke.eng — Sat, 21 Apr 2018 22:12:04 GMT

I send 100's of DVD's a month overseas by airmail Letter rate (no tracking ) about 3% get lost or take a long time to be delivererd .New Zealand is the worst place on earth for mail deliveries sometimes taking a month! I happy to wear the losses as tracked airmail parcel rate is way too expensive and i would not be able to compete