This may be a bit off topic, but its been bugging me for a while, and I just lost another kit to it.
Why is it that so many sellers on eBay actaully make an effort not to sell their goods to people outside their own coutry? I thought the whole point was to actually sell things, and this is hardly the way to do it. I realise postal charges will be more when shipping to foreign destinations, but so what? Post a clear warning of this, and leave it up to the buyer to decide whether or not he wants the item badly enough. Its not like it's any more difficult to put a foreign address on the box.
Reasons that usually are given for not selling abroad include 1. too much trouble 2. buyers send payment in non US currency (extra cost to cash) 3. too many complaints about length of time package is in transit.
Me? I sell on eBay and have no problems with international sales.
To those thinking about doing international sales - you do have to make out customs form, which takes a couple of minutes - tell people that payment, whatever mode, must be in US dollars (most seem to have no problem with this - quote shipping costs for surface & air mail (with estimated times) and let buyer pick method.
I can remember only one inquiry about transit time - 7 weeks after shipping ESCI battlefield scene surface mail to South America - and that arrived a couple of days later.
I feel cutting out international sales justs cuts extra sales (and higher sales due to fewer bidders).
I have sold a Ise to Japan and HO to Denmark. No problems.
I vote for ignorance, laziness and apathy myself. They don't know what they are complaining about, and aren't interested in educating themselves. Ditto for the rampant paypal paranoia going on.
Typical answer from europeans is that the US is full of theives, Americans are too dumb, etc, typical answer from US sellers is that sending stuff internationally is too difficult. (Check the safe harbor forums on
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and
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.dk, etc. to see what I mean.)
I can't agree with either opinion, sending stuff internationally is simple, and I've met stupid people from *every* continent. :)
I haven't sold to every continent but I'm impressed with the results I've gotten and the places my models have ended up. Most of my problems have been with people in the US.
I live in the UK and I have been active as both a seller and a buyer on EBay and my experiences differ depending on what I am doing.
There are huge numbers of sellers from the US of things like camera memory into the UK because of the pricing structures which allow them to sell new into this country and undercut the current prices here. these people are very efficient and things arrive in a couple of days without any issues - also without and US or UK sales tax or import duties.
There is a big list of people in the US who accept Paypal but won't ship abroad. Hence I use a friend in Connecticut to buy things for me when that happens. The issues seem to be that (and don't flame me here - I am speaking from personal experience) some who live 1,500 from the sea are somewhat daunted by dealing with a buyer 4,500 miles away. When selling my own software to the US, I have even had to explain to some in the US how to place a phone call to the UK as they have never had the need to do this before. EBay sellers in North Dakota (say) seem to be very reluctant to even look into the postage costs to Europe.
When selling to the US there is a competitive issue. I have recently been offering 15 UK Model Railway books for sale and also 16 US outline Model railrod books. All but one of the UK books sold. Only two of the US ones will because the postage I have to charge makes it uneconomic. To quote an example: A UK book will retail for £15.99 ($28.50). I will get £7 ($12.50) for this book and will cost £1 - $1.88 to post. The equvalent book in the US will retail from Amazon at $12.99. This book however will sell at a premium in the Uk because it has to be shipped here and there is a limited market so it probably costs £20 - $36.00. However, I have to charge $5.00 for postage so unless I sell for less than $8 I won't sell and on the ratio of the UK book I can expect to get $6.00. This limits what I can sell to the states.
Plastic kits are another example. A Tamiya Corsair with Moto tug retails over here for £24.99 - $44.50 and would cost about $8 to ship. It sells new in the US for $26.99. Imaging trying to shit a kit like that on EBay to the US. I couldn't even source it for your list price. This limits the usefulness of opening up your auctions to US buyers.
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