International postage

[philb264]

For the last two days I have been unable to post international parcels from my local country SA post office, including UK, US and other parts of Europe. I have not found any information online regarding this ban. Is anyone else experiencing this?

[chameleon54]

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@philb264 wrote:

Hi, I have contacted each of my overseas buyers and 90% have asked that I post when restrictions have been lifted. With this in mind, I also contacted eBay regarding this delay in being able to post items and the effect that late shipment would have on DSRs etc. In our transcript of conversation I was told that I have nothing to worry about and that they would fix manually.

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I would be very cautious about following that advice, even if you have a transcript of the conversation. The restrictions / delays are likely to persist for many months and some international buyers who have payed for their items are going to start to squirm in this period of time.

The CS advice is also at odds with a recent ebay message sent to sellers which advised them to respond to item not received enquiries in the usual way. ie refund the buyers for the cost item and postage costs if the item does not arrive by ebays estimated delivery dates. I am not aware that ebay have pushed out their delivery estimates by four to six weeks ( or changed them at all ) to reflect current international postage times, so every international sale is a ticking time bomb, primed ready to explode in the sellers face at the moment.

As mentioned I am already getting messages from international buyers who have waited several weeks for their item and trying to explain to them that it might be a few more weeks before they see their item is not cutting it. I have already started the refunds and are cancelling most international sales..

[mic-s-korea]

I received an AP express item from Australia to South Korea (where I live) last week ... it took 2 weeks ... shifted to DHL mid way, went via Singapore to HK to Seoul.  

Nothing is getting out from here or Japan to Australia at the moment. Even EMS is out. UK has **bleep** down most fligths and Heathrow processing centre doesn't seem to be working through packages even if they make it that far.

[chameleon54]

I am getting heaps of sales of cheaper items to new, low feedback international ebayers at the moment. Obviously they are sitting at home in isolation and buying stuff.

The problem is these newbies will be the first to panic when their item does not arrive by ebays estimated delivery date. I have been cancelling the sales using " problem with buyers address " reason, but it has got to be such a problem I have just bulk edited all of my listings on my largest account to remove the international postage option.

Its going to be a big job to revise each listing to re-instate it all once the crisis is over.