I love American buyers

soolin

I tend to keep my eye out for a certain sort of item, these are good sellers but never make a mint- just enough to keep me buying them and listing them

Bught one, paid £1 and had a UK buyer go for start price at £3.50 which is about the usual end price. Then 2 days before auction ends I get 3 American bidders in who eventually pushed the total up to £43.

God bless America.

lulu650

I've occasionally sold an item with 5/6 bidders not one from the UK. I often think sellers who restrict themselves to the UK are missing out.

PasturesNew

You forgot to add the last line to your posting .... "if anybody else wants to benefit from this, I'd be pleased to PM them what the item is..."

*grins*

Chopsie&Chelvis

I love US buyers ... except for the ones who get angry about not receiving the item the next day, and those who are furious about the cost of delivery ($/£ confusion). Most are lovely though!

GregtheHammer

Do not feel the love I'm afraid for American buyers, expecting 24 hour delivery & moaning they thought the price was in dollars.

Blocked list for me.

porto_bello

I share Greg's experiences.

Separate but connected, when an item goes beyond its market price on eBay, I'm usually a bit concerned. I've found there's usually a sting in the tail - i.e. the buyer finds out that they've paid over the odds and creatively tries all kinds of reasons to bring the price back down/get a refund.

Hope this one goes well for you Soolin... hopefully your buyer won't start looking up old sale prices!

soolin

Just to reassure people, the item I mentioned was a collectable item- some sellers sell them as rare or even 'very rare' , but they are not. I won't say exactly what it is, but it is something fairly common if you know where to look, and come in various designs (think along the lines of say a Wedgwood pin dish). So I know which sort sell well and just keep a big stock of them and drip them onto the market one or two a week at most.

So although I usually sell these at around £3 ish minimum, I do get the occasional one reaching higher amounts as the colour and condition makes it stand out more. However this style has been sold by two other sellers in the past 2 weeks, neither got more than £5 for theirs- but both of them had listed for UK buyers only.

I have 2 more that are similar (but not identical) to the one I sold, and a current stock of about 40+ so may have to increase the amount I list every week but make sure I target the US market.

RFW

soolin wrote: »

I have 2 more that are similar (but not identical) to the one I sold, and a current stock of about 40+ so may have to increase the amount I list every week but make sure I target the US market.

There's free listing on ebay.com I think.

As for problems with US buyers, proportionally there isn't any more than here. With a bigger population they have more idiots than we do, I doubt the percentages are different. Given that I'm currently trying to calm down a British nutter I'd happily settle for an extra few thousand miles between us!

My biggest problem with an American was one who had a problem with me using Xmas instead of Christmas and telling me I shouldn't substitute Christ for an X, she appeared to be just letting sellers who had Xmas in their titles that they shouldn't.

I did point out that it wasn't actually an x and was an abbreviation based on the Greek, I also thanked her for having so much time to spare to contact me.

soolin

RFW - good point about the .com listing. I have recently stopped listing on ebay.com but I may have to start again.

magic57

That's a good profit! I don't sell to USA but I do post to Europe.

Is there any special postage that is recommended for the USA. If I sell to USA should I send it signed for or would that put buyers off because it's more expensive.

My only previous experience of attempting to sell to USA was a noon-paying buyer and one who wanted his item instantly! Thought I could beam it across the Atlantic.
But I might have another go.

Thanks

soolin

magic57 wrote: »

That's a good profit! I don't sell to USA but I do post to Europe.

Is there any special postage that is recommended for the USA. If I sell to USA should I send it signed for or would that put buyers off because it's more expensive.

My only previous experience of attempting to sell to USA was a noon-paying buyer and one who wanted his item instantly! Thought I could beam it across the Atlantic.
But I might have another go.

Thanks

I do nothing special at all, all my goods go standard airmail (if over £46 though I restrict to UK only). Just remember customs labels and the fact that buyer may have to pay customs at other end.

I do really emphasise the day I send it though, I use paypal postage (when it works- which is less and less often recently) so they get the paypal despatch details and also email to say it is on its way and will take approx 10-14 days airmail.