The MLP Arena
TCB => Trader & Shipping Support => Topic started by: Stiletto on November 09, 2017, 02:37:01 PM
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I know we have some major sellers in here that have been shipping for a long time, and I want to pick your brain. Hope you don't mind! In your years of experience are there any countries you will not ship too? And why? Did you have a bad experience, get scammed, problems with imports/duty fees anything like that I want to know. My experience shipping International from the US has been pleasant so far and I've shipped to about 15 different countries without trouble. I'd really appreciate your opinions and experiences.
On a side note: Several of my International buyers have been using agents to purchase from me instead of shipping to them directly, which is even better for everyone if you ask me. But I don't know how expensive that service tends to be for the buyer. Can someone who has used an agent to purchase something through eBay shed some light on this for me? Thank you!
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I will not ship to ITALY. Every single package I have sent there never made it to its destination and a few times I have gotten them back over a year later and the package looked like it was a war zone.
Canada, Germany and Netherlands have had delays in delivery.
China - no problems but they have to pay import fees. I have sent huge boxes of baby food to former co workers here.
UK - No problems
Singapore - No problems
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I second Italy. They have an old rule that you can only declare wooden toys. And I have heard of too many problems.
Also, many Asian countries may take months to arrive if you don't ship by expensive services and I prefer to ship via the cheapest method to save my buyers on shipping costs. So I just prefer to avoid it unless someone requests to buy and is OK with the length of time it may take.
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I've been told to only ship to Malaysia by tracked/signed, as parcels get 'lost' a lot (I have a friend who lives and is from there, and she warned me before sending parcels to her).
I've also heard horror stories for Italy. I'm very lucky that, to memory, all mine have gotten there. I think it was my Italian buyer who first warned me!
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I will not ship to ITALY. Every single package I have sent there never made it to its destination and a few times I have gotten them back over a year later and the package looked like it was a war zone.
Well, I never thought Italy would be someone's problem country!
I currently have packages in transit to Russia and Malaysia, so hope they make it. Other places I have successfully shipped are Canada, Australia, Reunion (French Island), Germany, Norway, Sweden, England, Poland, New Zealand, Denmark, and a couple others that I can't seem to remember right off the top of my head.
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The African continent in general is super expensive to ship to from here, so any enquirers from there are pretty swiftly let down, I'm talking $70AUD+ for a single pony tracked, and it's closer than Europe!
I've never had something not arrive, thankfully. I have had parcels opened/damaged locally, but no countries in particular have been put on my blacklist because of actual problems I've had shipping there. *fingers crossed* *touch wood*
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On a side note: Several of my International buyers have been using agents to purchase from me instead of shipping to them directly, which is even better for everyone if you ask me. But I don't know how expensive that service tends to be for the buyer. Can someone who has used an agent to purchase something through eBay shed some light on this for me? Thank you!
I don't know about 'agents', but I have used something similar to the GSP but run through my country's postal service instead. I usually do this with ebay buys since overseas shipping can be through the roof and by getting my parcels sent to my US shipping warehouse, I can get several parcels combined into one.
The downside (aside waiting for everything to arrive and then their processing time, and then the actual shipping to me, lol) is I am paying shipping within the US, and then to my country. Another occasional setback is the service charges by volumetric weight, so I have been stung there a couple of times, but both of those situations can and have been balanced out by saving money getting several parcels consolidated into one.
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Russia is the only country I won't post to as all my parcels have been lost! Any other country has be all good
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I don't know about 'agents', but I have used something similar to the GSP but run through my country's postal service instead. I usually do this with ebay buys since overseas shipping can be through the roof and by getting my parcels sent to my US shipping warehouse, I can get several parcels combined into one.
The downside (aside waiting for everything to arrive and then their processing time, and then the actual shipping to me, lol) is I am paying shipping within the US, and then to my country. Another occasional setback is the service charges by volumetric weight, so I have been stung there a couple of times, but both of those situations can and have been balanced out by saving money getting several parcels consolidated into one.
I'm curious exactly how this works through eBay. In one instance, I had an agent/warehouse/not sure what to call them actually make the purchase from me themselves, asked me to include a packing slip, and put item # on the box. Sure, np everything worked out fine, and off it went to their warehouse en route to their customer in Japan.
But I have had 2 other people, both Russian, purchase through what seemed to be their personal account and the shipping address was to a warehouse in Delaware. Where, like you said, I'm sure they had several packages sent, gathered up, and then shipped to them in Russia. So I guess my question is -- Which way is it supposed to work? And how can I research which countries have these services available?
I know I am way over thinking this but my brain has to know how the ins and outs of how things work.
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Mail forwarding companies work both ways - some just give you a different address to give to the seller, while others do the actual purchasing (more common when there's a language barrier as well as international borders.) Any major country that does exports will usually have forwarding businesses, they're independent 3rd parties usually. The eBay version forwards all packages to a central warehouse where they're made as small as possible (often to the detriment of the item) and then ships them out again to the final destination. I hate the GSP, it's almost always way overpriced versus shipping directly.
Mail into Canada is indeed slow. I've had stuff show up months late but rarely is anything ever lost. Most of us up here know and expect that already.
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I'm curious exactly how this works through eBay.
In my case, I buy through my ebay account. I just have a US shipping address (which is my shipping warehouse). The shipping warehouse knows it's my parcel via my ID number in my address. They notify me when parcels arrive and I direct them as to if I want items consolidated, and when I want them dispatched to me in my country, which they do after I've paid their shipping :)
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Italy, South America, Africa, Russia and Australia and China. I have had issues with these countries. Either they are way too slow like two months slow, they lose stuff, they don't scan my registered mail properly, they open stuff and damage it, the buyers are unreasonable about their own custom fees and the customs shipping rules drive me crazy. There are a lot of countries you can't ship certain items to. I don't have time to mess with all of that. Like no plastic toys and stuff like that. I am getting close to just dropping all international because of cost. A small item is costing me 20.00 to ship to the UK it is just insane what the US makes me pay for international packages. Most of the people that buy from me use an agent or a USA address and that person deals with the hassles which is so much better for me. I get to ship to a US address and then the third party whom ever it is ships to the buyer. So, international people still buy from me, I just don't have to ship to them directly. Typically they don't leave feedback either and that doesn't matter either.
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Also, many Asian countries may take months to arrive if you don't ship by expensive services and I prefer to ship via the cheapest method to save my buyers on shipping costs. So I just prefer to avoid it unless someone requests to buy and is OK with the length of time it may take.
Shipping to the USA is OK. I have never not received my stuff but shipping to China - it needs to go priority mail or via FEDEX or UPS. My packages were filled with baby food so it had to go priority die to its weight anyways.
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I don't have any countries I won't ship to. Italy isn't a problem if you are shipping within the EU (which right now we still are) because the custom rules are different and therefore items don't need to be declared. So everything I have ever sent to Italy (touch wood) has got there.
I don't like to judge a country by one bad experience with one resident. I have been on the receiving end enough times of people who won't ship anywhere outside of whatever country it is because of one bad experience with someone "somewhere in Europe" lumping us all together and assuming we're all going to be problem buyers based on geography. I find that so offensive that I would never do it to anyone else.
If I know the postal service in another area is somewhat unstable I would absolutely insist on tracking although I tend to use tracking now anyway because of paypal. I've been doing this 20 years and thus far most things have gone ok. I have had parcels be delayed or diverted to China (!) and sometimes get returned to me but most of the time it gets worked out. And that's a part of the risk of dealing overseas.
The worst experiences I have had as a seller or trader were with people in the US. I've only ever been scammed by people in the US but in both cases the incidents were literally years ago. I don't think that was because the US is full of scammers. I think it's because there are vastly more US people online than anywhere else and so by a matter of probabilities it's more likely. I was just unlucky on a couple of occasions, that's all. I love dealing with the US. US ponypeople are awesome. I'd never blame a whole country because of one or two people being unpleasant.
So yeah, I will ship anywhere. I prefer to judge by person. If everyone refused to ship to a particular location the ponypeople there would never get any ponies, and that would be sad. So I prefer to do my transaction by person, not location, and then try to figure out the best way once I know where I am shipping.
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All I can say is I never made decisions based on one problem. I make my decisions after numerous problems and hassles for me that cost me money. After several issues with the same kind of problems one must use intelligence and say, "enough." Especially now that ebay has changed the rules and you are responsible for everything that isn't your fault if a package doesn't show up. Nope not for me. I refuse to ship to places where it is the same thing over and over and then have Ebay make me pay the buyer for stuff that is beyond my control. If I was wealthy I guess I could take the chance, but I can't afford to give my stuff away free and pay to ship it free. My decision to not ship to a country has nothing to do with negative feelings about that country either. I love every place and all cultures. That doesn't mean however I can afford to deal with their postal system. I don't even like my own country's postal system. I am certain it is staffed by gorillas but that is another topic.
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I would like to say there's nothing wrong with our postal system, but bearing in mind I once had a package go to Holland via China, I maybe can't quite say that ;) I also of the four packages I sent this last week, the only one that has not arrived yet (maybe due to train strikes?) was one sent domestically within the UK. The international ones got there fine. Sigh.
Mind you, while most of the US International hubs seem ok, the one in Illinois is addicted to sending my mail to Canada first (presumably because of the postal code) even though the packages always have UK written on them. They always get to me, it's just the usual routine that if it's coming through IL then it's going to take longer because it's going sightseeing north of the border first.
You have to see the funny side or you go mad ;)
I still won't punish a person for their postal system issues though. I understand the frustration, Tulagirl, but it must be even more frustrating for the person on the other end. It's much harder being outside of the US and dealing with the no-international-shipping rules because our country is so much smaller and it's therefore a lot harder to find the things we want without looking outside our own borders. Having doors shut in our face because of where we live as opposed to who we are is discouraging and frustrating.
Postal services are all a bit bananas. But the people at the other end aren't necessarily. Mind you, there are a lot of people on ebay these days who want to play the system and that's another problem entirely. Ebay itself is another problem entirely :/ which is why these days I predominately do all pony related deals through here.
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I'll ship to anyone when I'm selling on a pony board, like this or the MLPTP.
But if I'm selling on eBay, I won't sell to Italy. Their laws say "no imported toys except wooden ones", and even if it's not always enforced . . . it's still the law. Meaning if they decide to yank a package I sent, neither I nor the buyer have any legal recourse to make the Italian PO deliver it, or even to get it sent back! Not worth the risk when I'm selling to strangers who might get angry / leave negative feedback.
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Ha yea that is the crazy US postal system. They like to take the packages on a tour. LOL LadyMoondancer, they enforce it a lot because, I have gotten calls from Italy customs. They are super nice and very easy to deal with but, the buyers were not. And, yes, they will yank the package. Many countries have very interesting rules that we should all be reading a lot more than we do about what can and can not be shipped into their area. Its not a basic list like people think. It is a rather detailed list and takes a lot of research sometimes to even find that. A lot of time to read it and decide if you can ship your items there or not. I finally had to stop shipping to Italy due to these issues.
The fact for me is that I sell very little for this to be a problem for me. Sure if you have a store or sell regularly then I can see it may cut into your business. I only sell maybe two or three things a year. It is not worth it for me. No one is upset with me either. I never get messages begging me to sell to their country. Just doesn't happen. My decision is not bothering a single soul. The people in Russia that have bought from me, have used a US postal box and I am fine with those types of things. It leaves me out of a lot of the stuff I have gone through in the past. So, if people really want stuff from sellers that do not ship to their country there are ways to get it anyway. When I want something from the UK and the sellers won't ship to me, I don't get upset. I just find a shipping buddy to help me. Its just not that big of a deal to me, and I doubt it is to the average person. I use to sell a lot, but not anymore. It is just too hard for me now with all the changes.
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I don't know why domestic postage is so much worse than international. It seems to be the case everywhere. Maybe they try to put the smarter people in the international depots? Maybe it's like a promotion to get to those centres? I know I have had packages going within my city end up 2 states away! I once ordered two items, one from the UK and one from my city, and despite being shipped on the same day, the UK one arrived first. Seriously. The Aussie one went bouncing around the country to all the state distribution centres, while the O/S one went straight to the customs centre and to me. It's worse living in the city, at rural PO's you have two boxes, local mail (anything in the district) and outside mail (anything else) and so local mail gets to you faster. Here, it's regular mail and express mail, so the whole country's mail goes in the same box, and it all gets sent to the nearest state distribution centre. And if that centre is full, it gets sent to the next state, and so on. It makes it take so much longer, when an extra box on the street for in-state or even in-city mail and a consequential section in the sorting centre would save so much time. But the AusPost CEO is a profit gobbling good-for-nothing, one of the highest paid CEOs in the country, so nothing will ever change, except for the worse.
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I don't sell, but I do buy internationally so perhaps I can add my thoughts. Shipping through the postal service to South Africa can take forever as they like to give themselves 21 working days just to scan the parcel into the country. Yes indeedy, that is correct. So it is not unknown for a parcel to take up to 3 months to arrive by which time eBay will not allow me to rate my seller. This I learnt the hard way the first time it happened and although I did try contacting eBay to find out how it could be done (the seller had been awesome) all they replied with was a generic "how to rate a seller" response. Not helpful.
It is because of these reasons that I now make use of a shipping agent from America. The cost is the same or less as sending the item via snail mail; they take a photograph of it when it arrives at their facility and the parcel arrives at my door (not in my post box) in a maximum of 2 weeks. There is really nothing not to like in this for me. And so I imagine it is for others who also make use of these services. It also opens up a wonderful host of buying opportunities as you can now bid on those items that are US shipping only.
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I've shipped ponies and other toys all over the world. I still will ship anywhere - but due to scammers being literally everywhere now (and that includes the UK where I am and the US , not just the countries some people think are more risky to ship to ;) ) I always use tracking/delivery confirmation (it's called various things depending on your country) . That way I'm covered if anything goes amiss. I have stuff on the way to Italy and Russia right now actually. I shipped some more to Italy last month. no issues , but I think genuine buyers are willing to pay the extra for secure shipping/tracing/protection, especially if the item is rare/expensive/their country is known to have issues with non tracked parcels going MIA etc :awake:
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Yea I agree with that idea. Once when I was shipping all over the place I had a buyer buy an item from me. It was an expensive doll. I sent it with tracking. The buyer tried to pull a fast one on me by waiting a month and saying they never got it. I did a quick track on the package and discovered it was delivered. I copy and pasted that information in my response message to them. I never heard from them again. I think they probably thought I would have no way to prove they got it. This was before the days when ebay held you responsible for a package that goes missing in the mail. It was before the days you could not leave feedback for a buyer. Once ebay changed everything the issues got worse with people trying to pull stuff only this time if the postal systems in other countries were not willing to scan my boxes I was just stuck. This had started happening a lot to me. I would pay for international tracking, but the country would not scan it and I had no proof of delivery. This is why even with tracking that is not always protection for a seller. It requires that everyone do their part and I am finding not only in the USA but everywhere postal systems are not scanning things on a consistent basis. If it happens to be a high dollar item and it is not scanned well there is no protection there and ebay would make us as sellers refund that buyer whether they got the item or not since there is no proof they got it. Just as I seem to have the worst luck with ebay sellers, I have the worst luck with the global shipping system too. Its that little gray cloud that tries to follow me around lol. So, its not until something like this happens and you lose a great deal of money because of the process that you feel you have to make a change. Especially if it happens over and over which it has to me enough that with ebays new rules I have just quit selling a lot for the most part. The weirdos seem to find me. A system that only protects buyers is not a good system. Paypal and Ebay have fixed it to where the small amount of bad buyers out there can just go right on stealing from sellers if there is any kind of glitch and they will catch it and use it to their advantage. For the good buyers out there it is sad because, the bad buyers have ruined ebay for me.
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eBay has become a less and less appealing option for individuals over the years - it's mainly all geared towards commercial enterprises now.
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If it's someone I personally know is trustworthy like from a collector community I'll be glad to ship anywhere but with randoms on ebay, I'm sorry but I have to use GSP.
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I'm slowly working on selling off my various collections and I've found headaches with these countries that make me choose to not ship to them unless the buyer understands the risks (facebook, board sales) or through the Global Shipping Program on eBay.
Russia - very long delivery times and scanning for tracking is hit or miss. I just had to refund a buyer $102 for a pony that is 'missing' because it was through eBay and despite the buyer saying they were fine (choosing to not pay for Priority Shipping) they opened a case and eBay made me refund it all despite showing I had indeed sent the parcel. So now I just have to hope that the person is honest if the pony every shows up. Other times (using After Ship, I can track packages on the Russian Post) it's taken between 3-5 months for delivery. My buyers, other than the eBay one have been OK - but I don't want to deal with the stress when selling through eBay so I will only send via Priority Mail off eBay and using the GSP on eBay.
Middle Eastern countries - Issues with customs and 'lost' mail. I will ship but only either priority international or GSP.
Italy - I choose not to ship toys. I'm too worried it will get confiscated by customs. I have shipped in the past with no issues, but again I'm very careful about my eBay sales.
South America (not-Mexico) - I've had items get lost, I once had an EMPTY box come back to me from Argentina with the item completely missing. Now I only ship via priority mail or the GSP.
eBay has just become a very unfriendly place to simple sellers honestly. I'm going to be very very glad when I'm finished with getting rid of most of collections just so I can go back to buying occasionally.
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Interesting, so an italian MLP collector would always need a proxy address in a european country from where shipping is rather inexpensive - like UK or Germany.
I myself am selling regularly, most of the time I send tracked/insured up to ~$35 as it's only an extra $3 or so... but even if I send without tracking (if Paypal buyer protection is not a matter) I have had no problems with mail being lost. A few months ago, I've had a package come back from the US because they could not deliver it, it had not been fetched from the post office or the like. I got no response in my attempt to contact the buyer either, so I refunded the item price and kept what I paid for shipping - lost the Ebay fees, sadly but it seemed to me like the best solution. The other way round, a package for me went back to the US because of German customs and postal strikes - the seller didn't contact me when he recieved it back, although I had asked him to keep me updated and I discovered him attempting to resell the ponies via the Arena six months later, contacted him and he sent them out a second time after I paid shipping again)... that time, everything worked well.
Anyway, up to now, I am still shipping anywhere in the world. I find it quite fun actually, hope my luck with overseas shipping stays the same in the future.
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I ship anywhere too!
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Just as a quick update to my previous post in this thread, the parcel I sent to a completely new ebayer in Russia arrived with no issues at all, within about a week too! and the person was lovely to deal with :)
To be fair , I have had no issues with ebay customer service helping me out if anything really has gone amiss or I've needed any advice concerning a parcel or a buyer (international or otherwise) , they've been really good with me - but I always recommend using an actual phone call or live chat , rather than just emailing them ;) :awake:
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I think that if you are worried about there being problems, then it's better not to ship to a particular place. I can understand people not shipping to a place because of fears about tracking and so on. It's better than not shipping to a place because of the people. The latter I have a problem with. The former, not so much. It happens.
USPS though has a situation whereby all packages have tracking I think? or most of them do. That doesn't happen in all countries so I suspect packages that don't get tracked out of the US don't get scanned entering other countries all of the time. All I can suggest is that it's better to use insurance for high level items. If it doesn't arrive, then the seller is protected as the postal service ought to reimburse the value and if you have an invoice for the sale, it's easy to prove.
But really, people should not ship where they're not comfortable shipping because to be blunt, it's a terrible experience for both buyer and seller and it means that if something goes wrong it will not benefit either party.
I have no problem shipping to Russia if someone in Russia wants to adopt my ponies ;) but I am not so keen on ebay these days. Too many charges, too many issues. As a buyer, it's fine. As a seller, I'd rather not.
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First Class International from the USPS can SOMETIMES have tracking, depending on the country it's going to. (It is supposed to have it to the UK.)
Back when I was selling really actively (a year or so ago) there was a period where First Class International had great tracking, followed by a period where the package would utterly disappear from the tracking system as soon as it left the US. No fun having packages "disappear" while eBay buyers breathe down your neck because it's been two weeks and there's no info on their package! All the packages eventually arrived, but it was stressful.
These days when I do eBay, I ship everything by Priority International. Unfortunately it costs the buyer an arm and a leg, but it's tracked, it's insured, and at least they are faster than the GSP and aren't going to damage items with a boxcutter. I did just sell an Optimus Prime toy to someone in France, so I guess people will still pay the crazy shipping if they want an item enough.
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What I meant was that it has a tracking number automatically. I know there is a similar uk option that tracks only till it leaves the UK but you have to ask for it so post offices usually tell you it is cheaper but not as reliable. I think because the number is automatically there in the US shipping there is an expectation that it will be tracked all the way but actually it probably isn't meant to be tracked out of the US. What happens when it arrives in the UK is that it is given a new UK tracking number and it is hit or miss whether that shows on the US tracking. I imagine that is the cause of the problem. It isn't the fault of the destination countries. It is just how the system works. I think if you want an item tracked you have to be willing to pay for it.
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On here I will ship almost any ware but eBay uk only. Mainly because I ship most parcels form work and they only do uk tracking.