What is it with Australia?

soolin

stevew8975 wrote: »

I've stopped international sales due to excessive postal losses, and the item value does not warrant signed for or tracked delivery.

Selling less, but making more profit. Sounds good to me.

You made me smile, it rather reminded me of some of the ferengi rules about profit:

13) Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.
18) A Ferengi without profit is no Ferengi at all.
22) A wise man can hear profit in the wind.
41) Profit is its own reward.
202 ) The justification for profit is profit.

Sorry, my name is Soolin and I am a sci fi nerd.

nat82

I've had enquiries from Australia this week too. SOmething I've never had before.

Nat

rockpeblar

Things here in Oz are better than in the UK at the moment although we seem to be about 6 months behind the rest of the world in terms of economic gloom. Personally I was made redundant 6 weeks ago but took a nice redundancy sum and started a new job for the same money 2 days later. Redundancy package is 3 weeks full pay for every year of service compared to 1 week capped at £350(?) in the UK.
We've been here nearly two years but still miss shopping in the UK. Clothes here are crap and expensive so still buy all clothes from UK. Coming back next month to fill up 3 suitcases to bring back again.
The $900 bonus starts to be paid from today so look out for an increase in business from Down Under.

chja

I've only just started ticking the ship to Australia box (following feedback on here) and have yet to make a sale there.

I seem to be sending loads to Spain (which is having a recession) and a few bits to the rest of Europe. No problems so far.

The stong Euro is making it attractive for European buyers to buy from the UK - not sure if the same is true of the Aus$.

Widelats

Actually Australia are just heading into recession now, some gold mines are clossed down and the towns people have packed up and left the area selling their houses for 10% of what they paid for them, i saw the local chemist on T.V. he had like 2 boxes of aspirin and some cough medicine on his shelf, he said its not worth re-stocking as everyone is leaving the area.

DirtPoorGuy

soolin wrote: »

Is Australia the only country without a recession or something All I seem to be doing at the moment is packing ebay items to go to Australia, I'm almost selling more to them than my UK and European sales all put together.

It is weird when you get an anomoly like this, I'm just pleased that my stuff appears to get there in record time, I think I managed one item in 4 days. They also seem to be paying top whack for it despite hight postage costs for some items.

Anyone else noticed an upturn in Australian buyers or has there been changes on the way ebay uk features on the Australian site or something.

Whilst I only sell in the UK I have also had people enquiring about sending to Australia, I suspect it might have something to do with the pound being currently worth less than half that of the Australian dollar.

sunnysea83

I am a private seller and just sell things like my clothes, shoes, games and car parts etc, i normally only put post to UK,do you think its worth me starting to sell abroad and how much for example would it cost to send a pair of jeans to australia signed for? Do you pay extra fees for saying you will post abroad and also does the paypal come through in £

chja

sunnysea83 wrote: »

I am a private seller and just sell things like my clothes, shoes, games and car parts etc, i normally only put post to UK,do you think its worth me starting to sell abroad and how much for example would it cost to send a pair of jeans to australia signed for? Do you pay extra fees for saying you will post abroad and also does the paypal come through in £

Deffo sell abroad - I've sold loads to Europe (Spain, Italy, Germany, France) and the US without a single problem.

The low value of the £ makes it attractive to buyers from those countries, so you are massivly expanding your pool of buyers.

There are no extra fees and you receive your listed price + postage in £.

You would need to weigh an item and check cost via the Royal Mail website. My stuff is fairly light so I just use "sellers standard international rate" and double my UK postage cost. There are some size restictions that if you exceed it would not be cost effective to post - again, check the RM website for sizes that fit the "small packet" tariff.