Worldwide shipping

[grsadk0]

Hello, Canadian seller here, I see a service called " Additional ship to locations - buyers contact for costs ", and then a dropdown menu where you can select " will ship worldwide ", I have this ticked off and when my friend from Italy tries to view an item I'm selling it doesn't appear for him, sometimes when I go on listings it says " contact seller for shipping ", so why can't my friend from Italy see my listings?

I figure it'd be much easier if I can just use that to list my item across the world instead of figuring out each cost to ship to each country/continent

The USA/Canada shipping is fine it's just international is expensive when using calculated shipping so I put a fixed fee on it but my shipper has different prices for different areas of the world.

Thanks

[reallynicestamps]

Will ship worldwide is fine, but to be seen on an eBay site you need to provide a shipping cost.

So if you had chosen Europe under Shipping Details-> International Shipping-> Choose Custom Location-> Europe , then the Calculated or Flat amount would show and your Italian customer would have no problem buying.

If your buyer was registered on dotCOM (not uncommon) but lived in Italy, he would see "Contact seller for cost of shipping". And then you could either refuse to sell and ship or give an appropriate cost for shipping there.

Many American sellers are very nervous about shipping outside the Lower 48 States and this is a way eBay allows them to consider whether they want to do such a dangerous thing. 🙄

(It's not dangerous, and most non-US sellers ship anywhere they believe buyers will pay the cost of tracked international shipping. Most people are honest. Even if they live in Ecuador. Americans are.... special.)

[msau4301]

I always had my international shipments "buyers to contact for costs" since rates were so varied. Over the years I've had many, many cost inquiries while doing so and though a pain each time to get the rate and respond back to buyer after a while I had a list going for the popular locations (and of course many memorized) and found that worked for me (back in the good old days).

I do have two shipping policies set up - one is for Canada and US only (I have this set up as my default shipping) and I also have a second one where I include international when I do want to offer it.

In my case I don't chose "Worldwide" - several years back I had several international packages lost so as an alternative to worldwide there is "Additional Ship to Locations - Buyers contact"....and there are boxes you can check off  (ie there is Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.) This way if you have higher priced or larger items you can chose the Canada and US only policy or international as well as chosing specific countries if you don't want to do them all. I've been restricting myself to Canada and US these last couple of years because of longer shipping times and delays when the VAT taxes were introduced. One of my biggest (long time) buyers is from Italy and I have made exceptions for her. Somehow she sees my listings even when I don't have International checked (but she follows me so it may be different if she clicks on me by seller name?).

I clicked your listings and they are showing Worldwide so your friend in Italy should be able to see them. While it may seem appealing to be able to sell worldwide there are definitely many drawbacks also. For now I'm sticking with Canada and the US only. I will take baby steps back into international (but not quite yet!)

[thebookcompany22]

We ship lots internationally and just have buyer pays shipping.  Click worldwide, add handling and eBay calculates the rest no issues. 

[grsadk0]

The problem is not setting it up but when all I'm selling is a trading card, paying $35 CAD shipping on a $30 CAD item is pretty bleh,

It's mostly why is it when I select the option so that buyers contact me for shipping quotes the items don't get listed when you search for them and the user would have to go into my shop manually to see my items, but what good is that if they have no lead to it?

Why are my listings "unlisted" for worldwide users outside of North America when the option for them to contact me about shipping is checked?

Although a Thailand resident did reach out to me as it apparently does list the item in Thailand but says " buyer has not specified shipping ", why can't it do this in Europe etc?

[msau4301]

Did you set it up for international shipping under your Business Policies Section?

I know that's where I set mine up and there is Domestic and International and right above the International they have this little blurb:

Offering international shipping may make your listing visible on other eBay sites and available to international buyers.

If you don't have it checked off there maybe it doesn't show everywhere. That's how I have mine set up anyways and has worked for me. I don't have "Worldwide" I have it set with "Domestic" and "International" and then hand pick my locations but you could have them all checked off which would then be worldwide?

Not sure which way you set it up. I do this from my desktop computer (doesn't have the option on the app).