eBay

musicyouneed · ‎03-07-2025

I sell CD's mostly to the US and Canada. I used to sell to Japan, Hong Kong and Europe but stopped selling to them when new rules re VAT and packaging came out. I was using Chit Chats for these shipments and it worked well. I didn't have a lot of sales over seas but a few each month.

I am just wondering if anyone is shipping internationally and what do you think? Isn't there something to do with packaging too?

flipistics · ‎03-07-2025

@musicyouneed wrote:
I sell CD's mostly to the US and Canada. I used to sell to Japan, Hong Kong and Europe but stopped selling to them when new rules re VAT and packaging came out. I was using Chit Chats for these shipments and it worked well. I didn't have a lot of sales over seas but a few each month.

I am just wondering if anyone is shipping internationally and what do you think? Isn't there something to do with packaging too?

I didn't know there were any packaging issues for Japan or Hong Kong. Are you sure there are? I know many people block Germany and I think France for those reasons though. I'm not sure if the new EU rules about support or whatever would apply to a CD or not. There shouldn't be any CE label issues.

recped · ‎03-07-2025

I ship Internationally and up until Covid with no restrictions, I'm still shipping internationally but I have blocked South America.

In general I've never had much in the way of issues, sure there has been more missing packages than within the USA & Canada but more is relative, loss rate was less than 1 in 500 whereas US & Canada runs less than 1 in 2000. During Covid I had a few losses, haven't had any in the last 3 years but my volume is way down from peak Covid.

At one time overseas (Non-US) was close to 50% of my sales, in 2024 it was 19.61% but this declining trend has gone on for a decade and the decline in US sales has followed a similar pattern just not as much of a decline. Canada on the other the other hand has gone from less than 5% 20 years ago to just over 50% in 2024.

When VAT collection started there was an instant dip and it took quite a long time for it to slowly recover. These days I'm getting more buyers from the UK and fewer buyer from continental Europe.

I'm shipping via Stallion, Post NL for most places with a few via APC.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

darak10 · ‎03-08-2025

prior to COVID / EU VAT implementation, my numbers were approx 30-30-40 (30% Canadian customers, 30% US customers, and 40% everywhere else in the world). I had regular customers all over the world, in some really unexpected places too - Nigeria, Oman, Malaysia. I had lots of customers in Chile and Brazil, and never any problems getting shipments there either. HK, Japan, Indonesia, Russia, no problems. I sold all over Europe no problem, boatload of customers in Germany especially.

COVID and the EU VAT nuked all this. I stopped shipping to virtually all international destinations outside of UK and Australia / NZ altogether, but still get folks from places like Argentina via parcel forwarders. Stopped shipping to France and Austria since they implemented their packaging laws as well. Seen a resurgence of UK customers in the last year or so, and same with the old pre-COVID delivery times there, 4 days from me to customer in UK. Aussies still come by infrequently, havent seen a kiwi in ages.

The EU packaging laws and VAT nuked my EU market completely. As for the packaging laws, I wont pay to play, their rationale is idiotic and I will not subsidize a foreign countries domestic recycling program because the polluter IS the customer; based on their rationale, without their purchase, there is no "pollution". I used to do strong business to pretty much all countries there except a few whereby postal services are and had been known to be unreliable (former Yugoslavian countries mostly - my wife's best friend is Croatian and she told me hands down years ago do not ship there lol).

Seen gently sloping decrease in US sales over last couple years as well as another commenter on this thread. Last year my Canadian sales was close to 90% of my business, almost three times since pre-COVID times.

for these reasons, ebay as an ecommerce model for selling these kinds of things has changed dramatically and isnt as effective as it used to be.

johnnyultimate · ‎03-08-2025

I sell cd's worldwide from Canada. Mostly classical music. I keep things pretty simple. I have a couple custom shipping profiles that I use based on package size/weight and location. I spent a bunch of time with the ebay shipping calculator testing out different size and weight combinations to different areas of the world.

So. One rate for a single cd in a cardboard cd mailer. One rate for 2 to 5 cd's in a cardboard cd mailer. I build in a couple extra bucks to cover the cost of the mailer and handling. So my custom rate is higher than the ebay calculated rate BUT I don't lose on the cost of the mailer or on the selling fees ascociated with the shipping portion of the fee.

It took a long time to get it right but now, when an international cd sale comes in, i grab the cd, package it in a cd mailer from uline, tape it up, print off the label using the ebay shipping program, slap it on the box and it's at the post office the next day. Thats it. I have no other invlovement. Fast and easy.

In terms of my prices, I aim for the low end of the price range, including shipping. But I really only base that pricing off of Canada comparison. I try to keep my items price plus shipping combination at the low end. So my listing might be:

cd $14.95

shipping in Canada $5.97 (my custom profile)

total $20.92

As long as my total price plus shipping is lower than everyone else, in Canada, I'm happy. So someone else might have cheaper shipping but a higher priced identical cd and come out at $21.49. I do take into consideration the USA prices as well but to a lesser extent. As for the rest of the world, I don't really care. I know for a fact I'm more expensive to go to Japan vs someone in Germany to Japan but I'm not making 40 different profiles and I'm not using calcutaed shipping because I don't like not knowing exactly what a cd is going to cost me. So I probably lose sales internationally but I don't care. I make the lost profit up in my shipping totals.

Anyway. That's my ramble. I'm not perfect but sales are brisk and I have repeat international buyers.

Cheers.

flipistics · ‎03-09-2025

@johnnyultimate wrote:

It took a long time to get it right but now, when an international cd sale comes in, i grab the cd, package it in a cd mailer from uline, tape it up, print off the label using the ebay shipping program, slap it on the box and it's at the post office the next day. Thats it. I have no other invlovement. Fast and easy.

I love those Uline mailers, but man have they ever shot up in price. It's now usually cheaper to use a 6x6x2 box, although a little less convenient.

@johnnyultimate wrote:
I know for a fact I'm more expensive to go to Japan vs someone in Germany to Japan but I'm not making 40 different profiles and I'm not using calcutaed shipping because I don't like not knowing exactly what a cd is going to cost me. So I probably lose sales internationally but I don't care. I make the lost profit up in my shipping totals.

You could always use calculated and add a handling fee. The eBay fees are supposed to be based off the lower of the domestic shipping price and international shipping price, so you can base the handling fee off of your domestic cost.