Anybody shipping to Australia light or small packet?

[musicyouneed]

Good Morning,  last year I had over 5 packages over November and December (different dates, different PO's) sent to Australia that were taking about 2 months to get there.  They all arrived but all late.  

Australia was having some serious problem with their mail, so I blocked Australia.  

Has anyone been sending light packet or small packet there and how have the delivery times been?  Parcels with tracking won't help me, just want to know about light and small packet. 

Thanks

[ricarmic]

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@dutchman48 wrote:

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@ricarmic wrote:

I think for almost all of us on this board, we wouldn't exceed the $75,000 threshold to have to collect the taxes even if it does go forward as planned.

I have a lot of Australian customers, as mentioned by others, I have a number of very good repeat customers.

I did lose 2 packages to Australia last year, one early in the year and one sent in November.

So far this year no losses to Australia (touching wood) and no complaints of long delivery times (touching wood).

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It is not per seller. They are trying to have Ebay, Amazon, etc collect the taxes and remit on behalf of all sales to Australia.

And they I am sure do well over $75,000 per year.

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The other companies quoted in the articles are different (Amazon may be too) because they sell the taxable items/services. eBay doesn't sell anything.

eBay simply provides a venue for us (or even large companies) to sell things, we (or the large companies) are the ones accountable for collecting any relevant taxes for anything we sell.

Perhaps if anything they would try to incorporate it into the Australian portion of the GSP but again as I understand it, that is a "service" outside eBay directly and "we" wouldn't care if we lived in GSPland.

I may have missed something, but nothing I saw even hinted that the vast majority of those of us here would ever need to worry about this, even if it did come to pass....

[rose-dee]

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@dutchman48 wrote:

It is not per seller. They are trying to have Ebay, Amazon, etc collect the taxes and remit on behalf of all sales to Australia. 

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Maybe they got the idea from Etsy.  This is precisely what is done on that site with the European VAT, and they do it logically.  The VAT is charged directly to the buyer at the point of sale by Etsy, the seller never has to get involved in collecting and remitting.  

[musicyouneed]

Well, I guess, I will still continue to block my Australian buyers, too bad.  I love them but cannot afford delays in the mail or lost packages.  I'll revisit this in a couple of months and see how they are doing.  I have never sent surface but the light packets took as long as surface mail.  If it was just one and the same PO I would have thought that it maybe went that way.  But no, all different days and 3 different post offices over 2 months.  All had airmail stickers on them. 

[ricarmic]

Sometimes it is good to look at stuff like this from a math perspective instead of an "emotional" perspective, if the math perspective is possible of course.

I track my losses by country as folks know who ready my annual cookie jar insurance statistics.

I don't have a way to track my sales by country, but I did look at it this way:

All my losses to Australia for the last 2 years were 30% of my 1 days sales to Australia 2 days ago, and I've sold a lot of stuff to Australia in the last 2 years.

All my losses to Russia for the last 2 years are 13% of one large order from Russia I had last year. I don't sell nearly as much to Russia but still a decent amount.

So, at least in my (stamp) world, the physical cost of losses to countries with problems is marginal (very marginal to Australia).....and I'd be doing myself a disfavour by blocking them.

Not saying this is true for others, but if one has the numbers sometimes the actual cost isn't as high as the frustrations make it feel it is.... 

[dutchman48]

But you sell to a generally risk free class of buyers. Stamp collectors tend to be very honest and if an item is lost, it usually is the truth unless stolen by customs.

[ricarmic]

Certainly compared to some other categories stamps is safer.

My point though is that while I've lost 6 items to Russia in the last 2 years, which is frustrating and gets me thinking block the Russians on an emotional level, mathematically, the loss rate is very low, likely in the range of 3% $ value wise, which is still very survivable from a cost of goods sold perspective.

If I reacted emotionally, I would be out thousands of dollars of sales, which would be a bad decision mathematically.

That's all I was trying to get across.

The hard part likely for most of us would be having the raw materials to do the math. I have lots of numbers but I can't definitively identify the loss rate on a country by country basis. It would be very interesting to be able to do that.....

[dutchman48]

I shipped 3 to Russia when I shipped internationally. One for $100 never mad it. I never shipped a 4th.

[silverpinups]

Russia is a big shipping NO-NO!

[pjcdn2005]

I have found that shipping to Russia is faster and more reliable now than it was a few years ago.

I do agree with ric that it is best to look at these things on a percentage basis rather than on an emotional one. But sometimes that is easier said than done.

[silverpinups]

It has nothing to do with a emotional decision, it's just common sense that there's 99% chance the package will be lost in the mail (most likely due to postal theft). 

I use to ship to a guy in the Ukraine, another shipping no-no, but he used to receive all his packages (expensive Marilyn Monroe photos). I was young and dumb at the time and I attribute this delivery success to some kind of mafia connection.   

[momcqueen]

(Or maybe he worked at Customs.)

[ricarmic]

My own experienced loss rate mathematically was too high for both China and Brazil.

To resolve that, I forced tracking on all packages to Brazil and China. The sales rate to the two countries dropped to almost zero the first year, last year (2nd year) I had a number of sales to both countries, generally larger sales (they group items together to make the tracked shipping cost palatable) and I would hazard a guess that my total $$$ sales to the two countries last year with the forced tracking was actually higher than in any of the years that I didn't force tracking.

I have a 100% loss rate to French Polynesia ($80 package). I've only ever sold one item to that country. I just figure that one was bad luck.

I also have a higher than I'd like loss rate to India, however much to my surprise the last few items to India arrived aok (touching wood!). India presents a challenge because I can't just impact India by itself because "Asia" is as close as I can get and that will include other countries like Malaysia, NZ (as far as I know). Hopefully the recent improvement in deliveries makes that issue to ponder go away...

I evaluate on a country by country basis and I try to make myself evaluate based on the cost of the lost items (cost in $$ and time) against the estimated sales by that country/area. I'm determined to try to maintain my "I sell everywhere" mantra, and so far I've been able to find ways to allow determined buyers to still purchase material from me in ways that seem to be working so far.

(As a note, my worst country so far this year for losses by lost count is Canada.....more so far this year than in the last 5 years or more)

[sylviebee]

I absolutely agree that decisions to exclude some countries are usually emotional and almost always not the most profitable choices.

Moreover, eBay sellers tend to gage their losses at the amount deposited into PP accounts, and that's not realistic.

If seller receives $100 for item + shipping, and then issues a refund for $100 if the item goes missing, the seller did not lose $100.

Instead, the seller's loss is the amount the item was purchased for plus shipping costs, but that assessment varies depending on the item.

For example, if the item cost the seller nothing and could be easily replaced with another item at the same cost, the loss is shipping cost only.

If the item cost the seller nothing but is one of kind and can never be replaced, then the loss is $100.

Most items fall somewhere in between.

Numerous sellers sell items which cost them virtually nothing, but when they have to refund they experience the loss as the amount the buyer paid.

That's a purely emotional reaction.  Yet most of do react that way because it's a natural reflex reaction which is difficult to control.  Emotion has to be factored out of the picture in order to realistically assess these situations.

[ricarmic]

Yes if one has very good margins, the loss may not even be a loss.

For example, item costs 10% of sale price, lets say sale was $100

Costs of postage and ebay fees etc already written off against the original sale.

The $100 loss is fully processed against the sellers overall income, so $100 comes off one's taxable income.

Say ones income tax rate is a measly 15%, then one saves $15 off one's income tax, meaning that in theory one still made a profit on the item.

Of course one needs to have really good margins for this to work and to not count the time it takes to resolve the loss....

[tobyshitzu]

Love Russia and the other Eastern European countries, and get higher prices for shipping there being many sellers falling over each other lowering prices to get a sale don't

[silverpinups]

(Or maybe he worked at Customs.)

Yes that's a possibility, but all the photos he purchased were in the 200.00-400.00 USD range and I don't think a customs agent in the Ukraine makes that kind of money. 

[silverpinups]

To resolve that, I forced tracking on all packages to Brazil and China.

Sending packages with tracking numbers is the only way to have success in these high risk countries......  

[momcqueen]

I think that's what I said at the start of the thread.

[pjcdn2005]

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@silverpinups wrote:

It has nothing to do with a emotional decision, it's just common sense that there's 99% chance the package will be lost in the mail (most likely due to postal theft). 

I use to ship to a guy in the Ukraine, another shipping no-no, but he used to receive all his packages (expensive Marilyn Monroe photos). I was young and dumb at the time and I attribute this delivery success to some kind of mafia connection.   

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I have quite a bit of common sense thank you.  Experience has told me that the chance of losing a parcel to Russia isn't any greater than of having one going missing in any other European city. Perhaps others have had different experiences recently but I can only relay what I've experienced or what others have reported and be as specific as I can.  If someone is uncomfortable sending something there, that's fine...then they shouldn't ship there.  But when asked about a country, I can only say what my experience is and perhaps what other people have reported. But I've never seen anyone say they have actually lost the majority of their packages that have shipped there. Is that what happened to you?

[silverpinups]

You have a great deal of common sense and you've helped me out on a few of occasions, so please do not take it as an offensive comment directed at you.

Yes, I have had nothing but problems with Russia and have long since blocked the country....