on 02-25-2023 09:49 PM
Hi All.
A potential buyer who lives on the Isle of Wight on the south coast of Engalnd, contacted me via ebay inquiring about a couple of items I have listed with ebay.ca. He attempted to purchase 2 items, but was blocked apparently by ebay from purchasing them. I have checked my listings, I have offered world wide (except for some locations in the middle east placed on there presumably by ebay?), and the Isle of Wight is not one of the locations I have declined to ship to as far as I know. There is a reference to this same problem on ebay.co.uk, and also ebay.com from a couple of buyers living on the Isle of Wight who cannot purchase from buyers abroad (i.e. outside the U.K.). Post from abroad goes into the Royal Mail system to either Portsmouth or Southampton U.K. then by ferry to the I.o.W. The I.o.W is of course part of the U.K. and under the umbrella of Royal Mail for postal delivery. The potential buyers who questioned the problem on the respective ebay forums have apparently not received any advice regarding the problem. The U.S. forum was helpful with advice telling them to use the U.K. site. I tried this but was not permitted to ask a question and only one resident of the I.o.W inquired. How do I allow the Isle of Wight or any island in the U.K. for that matter to purchase from my listings? Advice please. WF
The Isle of Wight is part of the UK so if you ship to the UK they should be able to buy. The problem may be that only 1 of your listings has a shipping cost to the UK. If you enter a shipping cost on your listings that should help.
That being said, shipping to the UK has been problematic since the Royal Mail workers are trying to get a new contract and have been holding work stoppages for a couple of months.
Those announced for the near future are March 1 and March 16.
Hi. Thank you for your suggestions. As a casual lister of items, but mostly a buyer on ebay, I really appreciate your advice as I do find that some of my listings become somehow altered by ebay.ca, and require rechecking to ensure accuracy. It is not only me that has discovered this, as a long time business seller in my city with a 100% record, has contacted me, and found the same with his listings. He advised me to constantly keep checking mine. Again, thank you for advice on my shipping preferences, but I went to ebay.co.uk, looked at my listings, and the postal cost - in Pounds Sterling and Canadian Dollars - is accurately posted for both items, and all the details are correct. The buyer who was interested, is quite a long time buyer and seller (970 ebay transactions) and has a 100% rating. I did wonder if somehow he was not on the 'approved' list, but this is definitely not the case. I was able to add him to my 'preferred' list, but I have lost the sale to him as he became too frustrated with ebay.co.uk. and declined any alternatives - which is obviously his choice . I have a sports car web site, and I may end up listing all of my remaining items on there. I do feel that as ebay takes a not insignificant percentage from our buying and selling, assistance with problems should be more adequately addressed. I have found that phoning in to ebay leads to more frustration, as the telephone agents I have spoken to, do not know how to search for the problem, and end up providing no advice. It seems that we not only require more competition with our grocery stores in Canada, we need more competition in the online buying and selling market perhaps? Cheers WF
@williamf6194 Out of your 9 listings only one of them has a shipping cost to the UK so unless it was item 255091568067 that would explain why the buyer couldn't purchase it. When you looked at the item on the UK site it would have shown you a shipping cost to Canada unless you specified your location as being in the US.
Sorry that you lost the sale, that would be frustrating but it’s possible that it was just a problem with the shipping information. Although there are definitely problems on this platform I personally have never seen info disappear on my listings. The majority of the time when a buyer isn't blocked and can't make a purchase it was due to a problem with info entered by the user in the shopping field though of course that isn't the problem 100% of the time.