European Sales ?

[rainbow71113]

Hello, 

I have a customer in Germany who is trying to buy a listing I made for her-it complies with all the necessary elements for international sale. Seems she has a problem with paypal/ebay.  I noticed that over the last few years I haven't had more than 1 Germany sale and that was a couple of weeks ago. I used to get a lot of sales from France,  Netherlands, UK and Germany and then suddenly nothing. Now, I understand shipping is expensive and that might be a deterrent but I have a lot of items using lettermail rates so I usually got the occasional sale.  Has anyone else noticed a huge drop in European sales?

[brettjet38]

"Now, I understand shipping is expensive and that might be a deterrent but I have a lot of items using lettermail rates so I usually got the occasional sale."

IT IS ILLEGAL TO SHIP ANY MERCH VIA THE LETTERMAIL/POST

ALL GOODS and MERCH must have a customs declaration and be shipped as a package.  

[femmefan1946]

Seems she has a problem with paypal/ebay.

If they have a problem with Paypal it is on their end. Sellers have not been able to offer PP as a payment processor for some years.

Has anyone else noticed a huge drop in European sales?

Not really.

International sales run about 5% of my total.

I charge shipping for overseas sales (usually Flat Rate* and based on whether or not I want to self-insure) while my North American sales are mostly Free Shipping.

I had one outlier weekend where all my sales were either Canada or EU/UK. No US sales the entire weekend.

*To be clear most of my listings are on dotCOM where only Flat Rate is available. When something is bulky I use dotCA and Calculated Shipping.

[femmefan1946]

Another thought.

Are some of your "US" sales going to addresses in Delaware, Florida (particularly Doral) or Oregon?
You may have EU /overseas buyers using freight forwarders, which is not a problem, since shipments to forwarders have more Seller Protection than domestic or unforwarded, direct shipments.

Particularly, most forwarders deal with their clients' import fees, making the Customs Hold scam impossible.

[rainbow71113]

that might be the reason....my buyer says she can not see any of my listings on dotcom but all on dotca. Now how many buyers worldwide think to go into dotca instead of dotcom. I never think of going into the UK or German sites directly either. 

[rainbow71113]

I have some Chinese buyers that ship through Oregon....now ebay has been shutting them down for years because of the delay in the time that they actually get their items but for sellers it's okay because if it's tracked we have proof of delivery.  What is the customs hold scam?