topic Re: More Questions About International Selling in Selling

Re: More Questions About International Selling

trulyspecialgoodies — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:01:50 GMT

I average sending between 2 and 5 items a week to USA and Canada and have never (touch wood) had a package go missing. I send by regular air mail but also print out the PayPal packing slip which shows buyers address and get the post office to stamp it as verification of the address it was sent to. I have no idea whether this would be at all effective or useful in the event of an 'item not received' dispute - luckily I haven't needed to test it yet.

Judging by my two new red dots - maybe American buyers are less willing to communicate when there is a problem and that's something you might need to think about...

Re: More Questions About International Selling

digital*ghost — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:21:13 GMT

My local PO once offered to stamp a handwritten list of names and addresses (during the C&S outage), and I did wonder whether that would be as good as a lodgement form (they refused to do it on a lodgement form unless I actually purchased registered), but I suppose that means they would likely be amenable to stamping the packing slip, which may at least help with an appeal at a higher level (except to US and UK, probably).

Sorry about your negs 😞 That's the thing I'm most worried about. Not problems, per se, but that people won't contact me about them if they occur. My Oz buyers are awesome, and I thankfully have really never had any problems that weren't my own fault but able to be sorted very quickly without drama (with the notable exception of one buyer who negged without contact at the end of 2011 for a black skirt being black and not purple). I know there are sure to be awesome OS buyers as well, but standard practices, procedures and expectations are bound to be different, and I have only ever heard about the bad stuff, so I suppose I'm wondering if there's enough 'good stuff' to balance it out.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

chezzy — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 02:34:57 GMT

It's a tricky one - I decided to give it a go recently but for the moment I am only

allowing it with smaller, flat items I can send in the International pre-paid

envelopes. It keeps it simple for me - I can pop them in a post box after hours

and I am not too concerned about the items being tampered with for their

pretty stamps 😉 Of all the ones I sent recently only one is yet to arrive at

its destination. But it is still less than 2 weeks since I posted it so I am not

too worried yet.

Obviously I am not getting official 'proof of posting' but I do take photos of

the items just before I mail them so I have extra records of the address

and packaging I used etc - should I ever need the information.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

davewil1964 — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:06:54 GMT

I sell books, mostly mass market paperbacks. As such, given I am pushing to compete with dropshippers offering new books sourced from the UK or USA, I sell OS.

I have the odd rare/valuable book, but I figure if anybody REALLY wants one of those they will find a way to contact me. But postage would be expensive as they would go with fully compliant Paypal tracking. Which often means proof of delivery, not postage.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

michael_500 — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:06:49 GMT

If people are preparred to pay postage why restrict your audiance?

I once sold a heavy cast iron motor (18KG+) and the only 2 enquiries were from the USA & Vietnam, postage estimates for both were between $250 - 400 from memory. Anyway after advising of postal costs I thought "well they wont be buying" and you can imagine my surprise when the item price jumped from $20 to $960 in the last 5 seconds and the only 2 bidders were these 2 guys. The American won and even wanted the item double boxed and paid the extra postage to do so! from memory his postage costs were around the $460 range, so dont assume they wont pay if they really want the item! Also I have never had an item not arrive. I used to sell approx 10% OS but since our dollar has gone up it is generally less, maybe 5% now.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

jensmanchester-australia — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:18:48 GMT

DG - I sell quite a bit overseas and the only time I had a problem was with postage going to the US during last December when the USPS couldn't cope with the volume of parcels going into the country.

Usually on the USPS and Canada Post tracking sites the number on the green customs declaration form is trackable which helps if there is a Paypal claim.

For parcels which weigh over 2kg the blue customs provides proof of posting and is trackable on both those sites.

Generally the International Buyers are reasonable to deal with but the US buyers can be the most difficult of all as they have a tendency not to read descriptions and seem to think that everyone should list to suit them ie list in inches and not in cms. From my experience they are not very good at contacting sellers if there is a problem but with the new changes with the US buyer protection policy I think that is going to help sellers.

I also find that there are lot more non payers from International sales particularly from the US Buyers.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

digital*ghost — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:31:26 GMT

Thanks for everyone's input. 🙂 I'm not sure how much of a difference the items I'm selling makes to anything, but they're not any kind of rare or collectible items in the traditional sense - handmade fashion jewellery, albeit often unique and not in an overly common style. I doubt they'd ever be the subject of a bidding war, and sure there might be one person every now and then that would like a $20 item enough to pay $25 for the kind of P&H that qualifies it for SP, but it seems a bit pointless to me in the long run to do it that way - I just know that more people look for this style of jewellery OS than they do here (rough estimate would be about 15-20 international hits on other sites to 1 from Oz).

That probably makes it look like a no-brainer - the US is where I get the most inquiries from on other sites, but they've only converted to a sale once. The thing is, it's not exactly selling overseas that bothers me, to be frank, my items are (or were) available worldwide on other sites and it's impossible to qualify for Seller Protection with those transactions, it's selling overseas on eBay. ;\

The trepidation is kind of ingrained and automatic after all I've read, but I probably should probably just get over it and see what happens. :8}

Re: More Questions About International Selling

cezm2012 — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:35:37 GMT

I used to have all my items on my main selling ID available for overseas buyers - I've stopped because I'm working away from home at the moment and it's more difficult to answer any questions.

The take up rate wasn't huge but I have never had a parcel go missing. Customers have mainly been from the US (including a $15 book with $60+ postage), Canada (including a Canadian souvenir bought there in the 80s!), Italy (usually postcards) and the UK.

I have sent everything (bar the book) by regular airmail and have never had a problem yet. Because the items are relatively low cost, I'm prepared to wear it and refund if the item is lost.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

zenremix777 — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 02:26:40 GMT

Just send them as parcels. I think customs fees only apply to things over 500g or thereabouts, so you should be fine with anything under that. If in doubt, you can just state it in your listing like alot of sellers do.

I rarely send overseas but haven't had any of my parcels go missing. Aslong as you register them to be eligable for SP, all should be good. If anything, it may mean an Aussie buyer wins at a higher cost because they got into a bidding war with a buyer from overseas.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

digital*ghost — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:12:30 GMT

Aslong as you register them to be eligable for SP, all should be good. If anything, it may mean an Aussie buyer wins at a higher cost because they got into a bidding war with a buyer from overseas.

That is one of the main issues - I can send them for around $6 without seller protection, and keep myself somewhat price-competitive, or I can send them for $20-$25 and qualify for seller protection, if the items are delivered, but be a considerably more unattractive option.

I honestly don't have a problem refunding for lost parcels, but there are some things I do have a problem with and they seem to occur with higher frequency on eBay.

Coincidentally, I have just recently received an inquiry from a buyer in the US - y do u not send to the us for - as the sole content of that inquiry, it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. :8}

Re: More Questions About International Selling

zenremix777 — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 09:06:56 GMT

That is one of the main issues - I can send them for around $6 without seller protection, and keep myself somewhat price-competitive, or I can send them for $20-$25 and qualify for seller protection, if the items are delivered, but be a considerably more unattractive option.

I honestly don't have a problem refunding for lost parcels, but there are some things I do have a problem with and they seem to occur with higher frequency on eBay.

Coincidentally, I have just recently received an inquiry from a buyer in the US - y do u not send to the us for - as the sole content of that inquiry, it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. :8}

Postage stars are another issue, as an overseas buyer paying upto $25 for something under 500g may mark you down for that. If you don't mind about the occasional postage markdown, I would add the option for overseas. At the least, test it on one or two listings. Put something in the description to address any possible concerns and only sell to countries that you feel comfortable with. Of course, for high-priced clothing items, you can also test out adding $10 onto the cost and taking it off the overseas postage cost, as an incentive.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

elephant_walker — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 19:59:01 GMT

Hi, you make a very good point. The usa in my EBay experience, have "NEVER" paid for anything that we or our friends have sent. The only way to solve this inherint usa behaviour, is to BLOCK, ALL usa anything.

Rather sickning when this magnificent EBay Website is so potentially "PERFECT!!!!"

Re: More Questions About International Selling

wehavethatau — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 21:18:11 GMT

All my items are listed worldwide with an international postage charge.

I ship 10-20 items overseas daily.

In the past year I think I have only had 1 item go missing. If you open your listings to be sold anywhere, you might be surprised with where you have a new buying market.

Why restrict your audience to 20 million people when it can be billions?

Re: More Questions About International Selling

ajarnjenny — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 00:08:30 GMT

Have you thought of opening an Etsy shop for your jewellery? In general, Etsy shoppers are more willing to pay postage than Ebay buyers.

Most of my Etsy sales are to the US, but I think that I have sold to almost every other country on earth, too.

My items are different to yours, though, but there are lots of Aus sellers on Etsy, who seem to do ok.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

digital*ghost — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 02:07:51 GMT

@ajarnjenny wrote:
Have you thought of opening an Etsy shop for your jewellery? In general, Etsy shoppers are more willing to pay postage than Ebay buyers.
Most of my Etsy sales are to the US, but I think that I have sold to almost every other country on earth, too.

My items are different to yours, though, but there are lots of Aus sellers on Etsy, who seem to do ok.

Yes - thought about it, I mean, haven't quite reached the "just do it, you chicken" stage. 😄 I opened an account there a while back, and I think it would probably be the best environment to test the international market.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

ajarnjenny — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 05:21:18 GMT

It is a bit gentler than Ebay, although it doesn't have the same traffic, I do well there (relatively speaking) average about 3 sales a day, but different items of course.

You only pay the 20 cents listing fee up front and if they don't sell, that is all you are out.

Have a go at it, you have nothing to lose except 20cents per listing. You do have to have attractive photos and learn the Etsy search engine tag thing, but it is not difficult.

If you can sell jewellery making supplies and be competitive, you could make a ton.

Jewellery making supplies are the biggest and best sellers on Etsy.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

digital*ghost — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 05:40:47 GMT

@ajarnjenny wrote:

Jewellery making supplies are the biggest and best sellers on Etsy.

Interesting, that's all I've ever bought there myself, and since I posted this thread, I've actually stopped selling clothing all together and branched out into the kind of jewellery supplies that I often searched for myself, but could rarely find anywhere (the benfits were two-fold - I bought wholesale in bulk, so had a ready supply for my own needs, then listed the excess. Most of the items I've chosen so far have been doing quite well, thankfully.

Photos aren't my strongest suit - at least, I can get nice clear shots with a lot of detail, but I suck at taking photos of my items with anything other than a plain (usually white) background. Photos with attractive props, backdrops and all that like I see on etsy just look like an amateur mess when I try the same thing - I bought this hand thing for bracelets n' stuff, and I seriously don't understand how other people can use them as a prop and get nice looking photos.

Re: More Questions About International Selling

ajarnjenny — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 05:48:57 GMT

No DG, Etsy loves, loves, loves white backgrounds. Look at their front page! Nothing without a white background is ever featured there. No props, no busyness, just white backgrounds.

I think that you would not lose much by giving it a go. If you do, send me your shop link and I will do some faving (that counts on Etsy, although I am not sure how much it gets you up in search, but it does seem to matter a bit)

Good luck!

Re: More Questions About International Selling

digital*ghost — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 06:20:35 GMT

Thank you 🙂 Now I just need to decide which stock to list.