Selling on ebay Canada from overseas: Shipping options

[atxpoint1]

Sorry to ask but I couldn't find any proper info in ebay's quagmire of help pages, and I don't want to waste skype money by calling them (in my experience getting a simple question answered can take up to an hour on the phone).

My question is about shipping from overseas. It seems I can only make one specific shipping cost for certain countries, one for Canada ("domestic", even though for me that isn't true), and then for any other countries it's "contact seller for shipping cost", unless I specify free shipping worldwide.

Japan Post has three tiers of prices by region, so I'd like to specify those actual three different tiers of shipping costs (Asia, North America/Europe, South America/Africa). Currently, I just include the shipping cost in the item price (equal to North America/Europe rates) and offer free shipping, except for South America and Africa. Despite what ebay seems to recommend, I believe buyers are more attracted to a low item price + reasonable shipping, than to a higher item price with free shipping. That's why I'd prefer to specify actual shipping by programming in 3 tiers of shipping costs. Can it be done?

[pocomocomputing · Accepted solution]

If you list on eBay.ca, here is how you can get close to what you want.

Domestic

1) Choose Flat Rate shipping.

Choose one of the generic shipping options like (Economy or Standard or Expedited) shipping from outside Canada. Base it on the delivery estimate times.

Put in the shipping cost that you want for shipping from Japan to Canada. Your domestic cost here is you real international Japan to Canada.

In the International section. (Make 4 shipping options).

1) Choose Flat Rate shipping

In the first shipping option, choose Custom Location and then select Japan only. Put in the shipping cost for Japan.  This is your domestic shipping.

Choose Standard or Expedited International Shipping . Most likely Standard.

2) Choose Offer Additional services

In this shipping option, choose Custom Location and then select USA, Mexico, Europe. This is your North America/Europe shipping. Please note that the Domestic Canada above is part of this group so make the Canada price the same as this group.

Choose Standard or Expedited International Shipping. Most likely Standard.

3) Choose Offer Additional services

In this shipping option, choose Custom Location and then select Asia, Taiwan and Australia. This is your Asia group.

Choose Standard or Expedited International Shipping. Most likely Standard.

4) Choose Offer Additional Services again.

In this shipping option, select worldwide. This will be a catch for all other countries. It should pick up South America and Africa as the leftover no defined above. New Zealand will end up here to as well as other countries like the middle East.

This is a close as I can get to what you want.

To test how this works, create a test listing in the Everything Else test category, mark the title as TEST DO NOT BUY  and enter the minimum description (TEST) and other options needed. Set up the shipping as specified above and put in a different price for each of the above so you can tell what option was selected by the price and submit the listing.  Use Fixed Price 30 days so you have a lot of time with this test listing to experiment.

Then test what shipping cost shows up when you change countries in the Shipping & Payment page of a listing. Choose Canada as the country and see if it matches the price you put in. The try United States, Mexico, UK, Germany, etcetera to see if the right price shows up for how it was described above. See what countries end up with the wrong price. Then see if you can adjust the way it is set up.

Then revise the listing to change things if you can to get  it closer to what you want. Post the listing number so forum helpers here can advise on any issues they see or questions that you have.

[atxpoint1]

Thanks! I didn't notice the 'offer additional services' button. That's pretty close to how I wanted it, but there's no option to type in the cost for worldwide (all the unspecified places like S America). Also, it's weird how ebay lets us choose certain specific countries and continents, but doesn't let us choose S America, Africa or many other specific countries.

[femmefan1946]

Yet it is possible to Block specific countries.

What happens (if you don't Block a country) is that the eBayers in, say, Ecuador, can see the listing. They then use Contact Seller and ask for shipping cost. Since nobody can list for them, Ecuadoreans are used to this.

You write back and give the correct fee.

The other reason is most sellers will not deal with anywhere in Africa (thank you scammers in internet cafes all across Lagos) and many will not deal with South America. The reasons are language, scams and terrible postal/customs services. Also small populations and low incomes.

For Africa, the only countries I will deal with are South Africa, Morocco and Egypt, because I have friends from all three. Silly reason, I know.