Have never brought from overseas in all the years I've been with Ebay, what does the community think? Stick with Aussie sellers or go ahead

[hireagrader]

Has anybody had any bad experiences from buying overseas?

[msmalevolent]

Buying locally is always ideal, but I buy stuff from overseas all the time. 
I've only ever had one purchase not reach me out of 100s of items. A couple of things (cheap costume jewellery) have arrived broken, but the sellers always refunded me.

As I live in New Zealand, I've never actually bought anything on Ebay from NZ. I mostly buy books & dvds from Aus that are out of production / unavailable here, usually takes a week; crafts, stationery, small household items from China/Hong Kong/Singapore/Thailand/Taiwan, takes anywhere between 10-50 days; and occasionally clothes from Aus, UK, USA, Canada etc..

I always look for auctions with free shipping, which many Asian sellers offer, and when they don't, the postage is usually pretty cheap.

Books, dvds, posters, flat things are generally all good in the mail but the shipping cost, as with clothing, can be ridiculous. I often look up that country's post service site to get an estimate of how much it should cost (often sellers have a blanket international price and will only charge cost price if you ask).
But yeah it's usually fairly expensive. Don't buy electronics. Other than that it's ok as long as youre prepared to wait.

With the Aussie $ so high though, it is a really good time to do it (convert currencies at xe.com). So yeah, depends more on what you want to buy