Postage will be the end of ebay

[*lee42]

Overseas postage is really unaffordable, I wanted to buy some fabric the cost of the fabric was around $93Au for 5mts.

The postage was $100, that's more than the item itself

.

Why don't you buy in Australia I hear you say, well that's because us sewers have only spotlight

and its so boring and beyond "nanasville"

Australia actually manufactures fabric and sells it all over the world and if you can find it here,

It will cost you more than overseas! ......fed up.....

[typhoon4u]

I really would have thought by now a major world shipping "player" like Fedex or DHL would have done a deal with ebay to set up a fast and cheap worldwide service. We must be talking hundreds of millions in postage costs, worldwide?

I'd be interested to see Singapore post have a crack. http://beta.singpost.com/about-us/corporate-info/our-businesses

Sellers like me are screaming out for it!

Locally, every change  AP make increases prices and lowers service, making a move by a major player easier. 

[springyzone]

I understand your pain. Just feeling the same sort of frustration this morning, although not with the ebay site.

 I don't know that it will be the end of ebay any more than it will be the end of a lot of other sellers/companies.

What I am finding is that a lot of big sites, and I am talking eg Amazon, are much the same. You find a product you fancy and on Amazon, half the time they won't ship to Aust at all, full stop, so that's the end of that.

Then this morning I was looking at a makeup website (urban decay) for a present for a niece. They don't ship here either. If you want to deal with them, you have to subscribe to a different company to set up a US warehouse address, then pay for shipping (which they say will be at a good rate) from there. Probably worth it if you were making a lot of different purchases from US. Urban decay website gave all the details of how it works & links.

I think eventually some more general economic postage options might be set up but it could be a while.

In the meantime, if you find that the US seems to have a lot of what you want to buy, it may be worthwhile looking into that subscription to a US warehouse shipping option.

[englishrosegardens]

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@ahappeningthing wrote:

Overseas postage is really unaffordable, I wanted to buy some fabric the cost of the fabric was around $93Au for 5mts.

The postage was $100, that's more than the item itself

.

Why don't you buy in Australia I hear you say, well that's because us sewers have only spotlight

and its so boring and beyond "nanasville"

Australia actually manufactures fabric and sells it all over the world and if you can find it here,

It will cost you more than overseas! ......fed up.....

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If you're being quoted that much for postage then someone is either really inefficient or they're making a lot of profit on the postage, or they're tired of scammers and are now using a service that covers them better.  If it's the latter, you can't blame the postal service for a situation that has been caused by scammers.  I haven't bought fabric from overseas for a while but I do know what current costs are.  Assuming you're buying from the US, your fabric should post for around $34 US, which is less than $48 AU.  That's dear enough in itself but when I buy I get together with friends and we buy enough to fill a large box and bring the postage cost way down per item.   

[davidc4430]

maybe its because any new player to the international parcel moving business in australia would need an agreement with the federal govt to get the parcels out of APs hands. and the feds cant afford to have AP sacking thousands of worker bees when an elections due.

[lyndal1838]

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@davidc4430 wrote:

maybe its because any new player to the international parcel moving business in australia would need an agreement with the federal govt to get the parcels out of APs hands. and the feds cant afford to have AP sacking thousands of worker bees when an elections due.

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If a new international courier starts up they would not need an agreement with the government.....they would not be taking anything from AP unless the customer wants them to.   They would just compete for customers like any of the established international couriers.

[*lee42]

Its the UK post

[englishrosegardens]

Unless you're talking about heavy upholstery or curtain fabric it still shouldn't cost anything like $100. If you're talking about quilting fabric it shouldn't weigh more than 1kg, possibly a fair bit less.

[*lee42]

I'm talking about 5mts. of prestigious curtain cotton fabric not heavy.

I also just received another postal price from another seller, same

fabric for 25GBP.

Its getting better. thanks everyone