I've had it with international shipping!!!

[musicyouneed]

So far in the last 6 months, 4 parcels sent to Australia at different times took 3 months to arrive when I shipped them airmail.  

One parcel to Spain, One to Germany and now today one to the Netherlands did not arrive.  For the last 3 I lost $30 alone just in shipping.  I can't afford to send international anymore.  

I don't have that many anyways but 1 out of 4 go missing, I just can't afford it when I only make a couple of dollars on a CD.  This last one was $6.99 plus $10 for shipping total 16.99.  I paid $10.10 for shipping, 2.89 in fees, .75 for the envelope total $13.74 and then add in the cost of the CD, say $2.00. My profit was a whopping $1.25.   I will have to sell over 10 CD's to make up for my loss just for the shipping.  Now I realize I will get my fees back less 30 cents.  but jeeze. 

So sad but I can't afford the losses.

[rose-dee]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
The ONLY thing that makes eBay different than other ecommerce sites in my opinion is that it puts buyers and sellers from across the globe in a room together.

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I'm sorry, this doesn't make sense.  I can think off hand of at least 3 major other online venues that do precisely the same, they just don't have the complicated multiplicity of specific national sites that eBay has.  In fact, on 2 of which I'm very familiar, the meeting room is a lot less messy, particularly in terms of buyers' ability to seamlessly check out in any currency they wish.  With automated online translation now widely available, even language is no real problem anymore.  

Back in the day when eBay was new on the scene, and far fewer people shopped online, especially in countries other than the U.S., I can imagine it was both a technological and marketing advantage to have country-specific sites.  Those sites gave eBay more exposure in the local currency and language than it might have had otherwise.  It was no doubt a real benefit as well to have country-specific sites when dial-up internet was the main access available to most buyers, and worldwide digital and IP technology still had serious limitations.  

I'm not so sure the conglomeration of sites is an advantage to eBay anymore, but they're stuck with the system they initiated.  Since the early 2000's, other sites have developed much more streamlined and efficient single-node sites that serve the entire world.  

EBay's concept may have been necessary back in the late 1990's to allow them to dominate the worldwide online market then, but in my view others have taken the idea and improved upon the means of bringing buyers and sellers from around the globe together. 

[momcqueen]

That's totally fine; you're not compelled to make sense of anything. 

[momcqueen]

If you disagree, feel free to say that. Don't tell me my assertion makes no 'sense' as that clearly tells others you're trying to discredit my statement. Thank you very much. 

[rose-dee]

I apologize if you've taken umbrage at my not being able to understand the point you were making.  I honestly couldn't make sense of it on its face, and that's all I meant to say.  

Perhaps if I misunderstood what you were saying, you can clarify and respond with a further explanation, rather than reacting?  

[patphotog]

Here's my 2 cents on this matter;

Selling on ebay and offering Worldwide shipping is the way to go as long as you are willing to part with your item in a lost.

Do not sell overpriced collectable item...it is not the good platform for it...it used to be ...not anymore. Seller protection is a smoke screen...the protection is 100% for the buyer and they know it.

The only thing you could do is to block those buyers for coming back again. I wish, we seller, could have a platform so we could share the information about all those buyers abusing Ebay protection policy and give all sellers the option to block those buyer as well.

Some buyer will bluntly lie about not receiving their item and it is not limited to overseas sales...Canada has his share of those as well.

95% of the buyer on ebay are good people like you and I...sadly all the rules and regulation needed in this society are created for the other 5%.

Cheers! and keep selling

[femmefan1946]

I would like to share with you the Good News about Cookie Jar Insurance.

I notice our newest convert to the faith is musicyouneed*.

Cookie Jar Insurance is just adding a small amount, perhaps only pennies, to every asking price and putting those virtual pennies into a virtual Cookie Jar.

It's a form of self insurance.

If the buyer has a complaint, the seller reimburses from the Cookie Jar.

WalMart has said that their shoptheft losses are about 1% of sales. I suspect that for most eBayers, losses are lower than that.

*musicyouneed targets his CJI to an extra dollar on international shipping. A variation on the theme.

Or possibly a heretical new cult. Ready the comfy chair and soft cushions!

[momcqueen]

I now use tracking on 85 per cent of my product line but on the 15 per cent where I don't, I have had zero Items Not Received claims in three years. It was, however, Small Packets Airmail that drove me to abolish untracked shipments on the parcel-sized items. The final straw was a buyer who had received and listed for sale the item they bought from me while opening their INR and then taunted me about it in feedback. 

On the whole, I agree that INRs represent a very small number of most ebay seller's sales. Even smaller when tracking is used.

Even though it has somewhat impacted my overseas sales, the costlier Tracked Packet does not prevent overseas buyers from purchasing from me. It does stop them from wondering, worried where their item might be sitting at any given time. 

[momcqueen]

(Knock on wood.)

[rose-dee]

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@patphotog wrote:

Here's my 2 cents on this matter;

Selling on ebay and offering Worldwide shipping is the way to go as long as you are willing to part with your item in a lost.

Do not sell overpriced collectable item...it is not the good platform for it...it used to be ...not anymore. 

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I do continue to sell internationally (I've never stopped in all the years I've been on eBay), although these days I no longer provide "subsidies" to my buyers on international shipping as I used to do.  I had to discontinue those subsidies when Canada Post raised International Small and Light Packet prices 25%.  And I rarely use tracking internationally because it's just not reasonable given the prices of my items. 

Now I charge what the actual shipping cost is, and anyone who wants the item enough will pay for the shipping.  Since my overseas buyers never accounted for more than about 5% of my sales (at least here on eBay), the loss isn't too significant.  

Much of what makes international selling possible has to do with item type and price as well.  I think sellers who have relatively high-priced but compact sized goods can still justify using international tracking.  However, for me, if Light Packet International really does disappear completely (as is rumoured), then I'll likely have to stop selling internationally completely, at least on eBay. 

I should add that, in all the years I've sold internationally on eBay, I've never yet had a parcel not arrive at its destination -- a couple have gone on walkabouts, but eventually appeared.  So not a single real loss.