Question for folks who sell internationally

[stickerswa]

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. 

[foxinsox2000]

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 🙂

[chameleon54]

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

[clubesquire]

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.

[melbourneclearance]

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.

[digital*ghost]

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. 

[jfmgray]

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.

[jellybirddesigns]

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.

[portpiro]

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?

[lyndal1838]

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.