International Postage/Global Shipping Program

shopbot

I was hoping to get some advice about selling items internationally on eBay.

I'm currently have all foreign locations excluded as postage locations. This has been a long term setting for me.

Since the Global Shipping Program has been launched I have been ticking Yes to the GSP option when listing.

Do my international postage settings mean that I also won't feature on GSP...or can I be opted out of 'traditional' international postage and still be in the GSP?

A second question..is it worth opening up my international settings anyway. Are there any areas I should still exclude?

Thanks

SB

soolin

shopbot wrote: »

I was hoping to get some advice about selling items internationally on eBay.

I'm currently have all foreign locations excluded as postage locations. This has been a long term setting for me.

Since the Global Shipping Program has been launched I have been ticking Yes to the GSP option when listing.

Do my international postage settings mean that I also won't feature on GSP...or can I be opted out of 'traditional' international postage and still be in the GSP?

A second question..is it worth opening up my international settings anyway. Are there any areas I should still exclude?

Thanks

SB

If you opt in to global shipping then it over rides your International settings as you are in effect still only shipping to the UK.

I have a high overseas buyer base so have most of my listings set up for international and charge 2 rates (I know there are three!) which is basically Europe and The Rest of the World. I exclude all of Africa plus Italy and Russia and occasionally block other countries for a while like the US if I get one too many issues with them.

shopbot

Soolin - thanks for your quick response.

I'm not a high volume seller so any defect on my account would have a proportionally bigger effect on my %. Is the rate of international parcels going missing any larger than the UK rate?

soolin

shopbot wrote: »

Soolin - thanks for your quick response.

I'm not a high volume seller so any defect on my account would have a proportionally bigger effect on my %. Is the rate of international parcels going missing any larger than the UK rate?

That's a hard question - it seems to wax and wane, I had some issues with buyers in the US just before Christmas. However, INRs no longer count as defects so that isn't an issue, standard airmail is covered for loss up to £20 just the same as UK mail and any late defects only count globally and not against your UK ratings.

EDIT: I should add that's why I occasionally add a country to my blocked list- as soon as I identify an issue, or someone on the community boards notices a problem with a certain country I block just in case.

shopbot

Thanks - I'll open up the regions you suggest and see how it goes. As you suggest if I start to get issues I can tighten my restrictions again.

soolin

shopbot wrote: »

Thanks - I'll open up the regions you suggest and see how it goes. As you suggest if I start to get issues I can tighten my restrictions again.

You can do it listing by listing, I am careful not to sell internationally on things that are cheap but heavy or too big to send via RM. RM restrict overseas parcels sent standard airmail to the small parcel size, anything larger has to go Parcelforce which can be costly.