Selling To Europe...Too Many Problems

goodfella66

After over 20 years selling on Ebay, I've finally had to stop selling to Europe. Since the Brexit customs rules came in there has been items being undelivered, items being returned by customs even though all paperwork is correct, and postage purchased through Ebay. I even include a copy of the order in a clear envelope on the back.

I hung on hoping it was teething troubles and thing will get better but, if anything, it seems to be getting worse. Anyone else having problems or gave up on Europe?

soolin

I actually gave up selling independently overseas a couple of years back, far too many issues. On eBay I now only ship via their GSP and they handle all the issues. 

goodfella66

soolin said:

I actually gave up selling independently overseas a couple of years back, far too many issues. On eBay I now only ship via their GSP and they handle all the issues. 

I've always been confused how GSP works. Do you have to weigh each item and enter on the listing? Also, do you have to send by a tracked method to the GSP centre?

KxMx

I personally don't weigh each item now as I sell near identical products and once when I forgot to add a weight, the rates shown for a particular country were the same as on a listing where I had entered the weight.

With regards to postage you treat the GSP address as you would any UK address. So for me that means anything under £20 goes standard post with my usual proof of postage. Anything over goes tracked. 
The GSP centre will confirm when they process the item regardless of whether it was sent with tracking or not. 

soolin

goodfella66 said:

soolin said:

I actually gave up selling independently overseas a couple of years back, far too many issues. On eBay I now only ship via their GSP and they handle all the issues. 

I've always been confused how GSP works. Do you have to weigh each item and enter on the listing? Also, do you have to send by a tracked method to the GSP centre?

As per KxMx I don't pack my item pre listing, so I add a weight within the rate band I think appropriate- so LL 95g or parcel 499g although I haven't noticed it makes any difference to what buyer is charged.

Also as above I use the postage method shown on the listing, I don't change it for GSP . I sell a lot via GSP some weeks the same number or even more than UK ones. The good thing is you just have to get it to the ebay hub, any delays from there is ebay's problem. I had a couple of Italian ones get lost this year, and ebay handled the refund with no impact on me at all.

goodfella66

I'll have to think hard about GSP. Thanks for the information. I have to weigh up the extra postage costs my US customers will incur via GSP, against keeping European sales. 

forgotmyname

Will the US pay more?  Ask them how much to post an item to you.  One seller quoted me $64 to post a $40 Leatherman multitool
they had on sale. And yes I double checked it was not $64 all in,  $104 which put it into the same price range as a UK shop selling it.

Stock was short in the UK though but Go Outdoors price matched with sellers I would not have trusted so a worthwhile discount.

Wonder how many refunds Ebay had from Italian sales?

soolin

forgotmyname said:

Will the US pay more?  Ask them how much to post an item to you.  One seller quoted me $64 to post a $40 Leatherman multitool
they had on sale. And yes I double checked it was not $64 all in,  $104 which put it into the same price range as a UK shop selling it.

Stock was short in the UK though but Go Outdoors price matched with sellers I would not have trusted so a worthwhile discount.

Wonder how many refunds Ebay had from Italian sales?

I suspect ebay have to make a lot of refunds to Italian buyers as I've noticed Italy often disappears from the list of available countries they will ship GSP to. 

fenwick458

problem with GSP is the buyer can say anything and win a SNAD claim, and then it's up to the seller to pay for return postage which will be more than the items worth probably (well they always are in my case).
It's so open to abuse that way. 

RFW

Yes. I gave up shortly after Brexit as it wasn't worthwhile.
Without going into detail my majority market is English language and the biggest market is the UK. I did have small seasonal sales from Germany, Spain, France and Italy which were steadily growing.
I sell on Amazon and there are ways of doing it there but both are far more costly than pre Brexit, where it was essentially the same as selling into the UK. I did try VAT registering in some EU countries but the cost/reward ratio seemed too high on the cost side. There's a lot of additional paperwork and now there are additional environmental rules in Germany and France that are excessively cumbersome.

RFW

goodfella66 said:

I'll have to think hard about GSP. Thanks for the information. I have to weigh up the extra postage costs my US customers will incur via GSP, against keeping European sales. 

I wouldn't worry about your customer costs for GSP. With the fluctuating pound against the dollar, and, to a lesser extent, the Euro they may end up with a pretty good deal.

I don't sell much on Ebay but now I think of it I may give that a try myself!