Selling items to over-seas bidders (postal charges)

virgil_tracy

I'm a private seller , mostly I sell using the quick sell option , so it's all been to buyers in UK .

but I recently was asked if I'd sell something abroad , so I changed the postal settings which I found very complicated .

anyway - obviously if I sell worldwide it's a bigger market but has anyone any advice on how to set the postal charges ? it seemed like I could only set one overseas postal charge , which doesn't make sense .

anyway - any basic advice would be good .

hermum

You can set Europe & rest of the World. Maybe you've only set up your account for European buyers.

no1wf

I always say UK bidders only at the bottom of my description and never bother listing as worldwide or anything.

But I've had people from Italy, Portugal, etc messaging me asking if I'll post to them and how much. If it's a small item then I will but if not I'd say no. I have a quick weigh of the item and check it against the Royal Mail website and look at the prices. Then I tell the person that I'm not 100% but it could cost anything around £xx and if they want they can pay £xx postage and if it's less I'll refund the difference once I've posted it.

Better to overestimate and give them a refund than underestimate and have to ask them for more money for postage costs and they might turn round and say no and you've already sent it by then.

theonlywayisup

no1wf wrote: »

I always say UK bidders only at the bottom of my description and never bother listing as worldwide or anything.

But I've had people from Italy, Portugal, etc messaging me asking if I'll post to them and how much. If it's a small item then I will but if not I'd say no. I have a quick weigh of the item and check it against the Royal Mail website and look at the prices. Then I tell the person that I'm not 100% but it could cost anything around £xx and if they want they can pay £xx postage and if it's less I'll refund the difference once I've posted it.

Better to overestimate and give them a refund than underestimate and have to ask them for more money for postage costs and they might turn round and say no and you've already sent it by then.

Better really to give the correct price. There are only two (standard) airmail prices, EU and RoW (rest of world). Posting to anywhere in the world by RM and retaining a Cop gives you £46 cover for loss/damage, same as Uk first or second class.

Crowqueen

There's not much point being vague. It takes about ten minutes to do it properly if you know the weight of what you're going to send. The way you're doing it will probably put off more people than it encourages, and every sale helps.

And you can't turn round and ask for more postage costs once you've set a price for them. You have to live with what you charge on eBay.

soolin

Another advantage in listing the correst overseas postage is that the invoice picks up the correct amount when buyer checks out, saves a lot of messing about.

no1wf

I've never had a problem yet, and the items have never been worth more than enough to need the postal insurance. On a more pricey item I would probably take a lot more care with it.

Obviously_the_best

DON'T POST TO ITALY!!! Unless it's courier the Italian postal system is !!!!!!, I've never had a successful sale to Italy unless it got sent via a courier!
Oh, and if you post to rest of world one thing I always do is offer surface/PF economy or airmail/PF global value, cos sometimes international buyers aren't worried about time and will be happier to spend more on the item if the save on shipping!

Edit: and remember to calculate it properly on a courier/RM/seajays postage calculator, or for parcelforce I use their own website then take it to the PO

Oliver14

Obviously_the_best wrote: »

Oh, and if you post to rest of world one thing I always do is offer surface/PF economy or airmail/PF global value, cos sometimes international buyers aren't worried about time and will be happier to spend more on the item if the save on shipping!

Never offer surface mail its a disaster waiting tobhappen. It can be so slow and leave you wide open to Paypal claims due to this.

Obviously_the_best

I've never had a problem, eBay do state how long it takes when you select it from the drop down, and I even send confirmation that they could wait that long and if they want to change etc

soolin

Obviously_the_best wrote: »

I've never had a problem, eBay do state how long it takes when you select it from the drop down, and I even send confirmation that they could wait that long and if they want to change etc

Really, NEVER use surface- it is a problem waiting to happen.

It doesn't matter how long you say it will take to arrive buyes still expect their goods quickly. After 7 days a buyer can open a dispute in paypal for INR, regardless of where you sent item and you only have 10 days then to get the item to them.