Safely sell to Europe?

[superdupersalesbuyingaccount]

Without requiring registered mail, which would mean my stuff would never sell anyway, is there any safe way to sell items to Europe, or is that just asking for trouble through negative feedback and forced refunds as stuff gets "lost" or whatever? Are there any countries that are "safe"? I know South Europe in general is egregious (especially Italy).

This is for stuff that is mostly sub-$50. $25 for registered overseas.

[fatdane]

I send stamps all over the world and ship mostly with plain old lettermail or airmail. I might have a problem with non delivery once a year or so and its normally a small amount. For "dicey" countries I do suggest registered mail.

[pocomocomputing]

How do you ship to Canada and the USA? Lettermail/Letterpost/Light Packet? You sell cards so I would expect that you use the lowest cost option now with registered mail or other proof of delivery service for higher prices items.

What is your current amount of Item Not Received claims? Are your buyers honest and not making false claims now? Most items arrive in the mail because the world postal systems are reliable. The issue is false INR claims by buyers. Are your items attractive to postal workers in other countries if a country has a theft problem?

How often do you use Registered Mail now?

If so, you are currently using self insurance. Self insurance is a simple risk analysis. How many items will I have claims of Item Not Received?  What is the dollar loss versus the extra sales you get.  Then you decide on how much loss you will accept.

So if you sell internationally (other than USA) and have 1 INR claim in 100, do the other 99 sales make up for the loss.

For example, items under $25, 100 sales brings in $2,500. You lose one $25 sale. Sounds like a good risk to to me if you consider that having Registered Mail costs will drop sales to a few if any.

Decide what is an acceptable loss per 100 sales and the dollar loss to you versus extra sales dollars and higher bids and  higher prices.

If you  are currently using the Lettermail/Letterpost/Light Packet to Canada and the USA and use 100 grams service, the shipping cost is under $3.  Shipping internationally is around $5 -$6. You might want to consider Free Shipping worldwide. Since International buyers have no shipping constraints, then your items might have more bids and higher prices for sale to Canada and USA buyers as well as additional sales internationally.

You might be able to get third party insurance for some of your higher priced items to insure them against loss. So you might be able to use low cost Light Packet or Small Packet with third party insurance. Third party insurance does not cover all items and do not cover some countries so be careful when to use them.

I would use the My eBay shipping preferences to restrict the countries that you ship to. You might want to remove Africa (keep South Africa ?) and Asia (keep Japan and South Korea and Taiwan), keep Western Europe countries and block Eastern European countries, and keep Australia and New Zealand.

[femmefan1946]

I would suggest that you NEVER use Registered Mail.

First because that particular service is apparently not recognized by Paypal as being electronically visible.

Second, because Registered Mail is "foreign speak" for "steal this valuable package".

Instead use an insured and Delivery Confirmed service, like ExpressPost International, and give the barcode number to the buyer, so he can see it is on its way.

Or go with Letter/Light Packet, since as mentioned the world's postal services are very reliable (customs holdups are the usual problem) and self-insure with a few pennies on your Handling charge for the odd crooked buyer.

The problem is often managing the customer's expectations rather than delay or damage in transit.

[roblinsgarage]

I've shipped to 65 Countries the cheapest way possible.  Out of 1,083 sales last year, I only issued 5 refunds for non-delivered items.  Tracking & Insurance isn't worth it to me.