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International Shipping

Question:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Can you be more specific? I am on eBay since a few years, I am from eastern EU, and I always wanted to understand what are the real reasons many US sellers have objections shipping international? I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"? Is it really so much work to handwrite, that handwriting about 50 extra characters (about 10 for the country name and another 40 on the CN22 form) makes is not worth to process such sales? How much does writing one letter cost you? One dollar? :) )) Try this: US Shipment: Click a few times, print the shipping label, stick it on the box, put box on loading dock for FedEx pickup. Time: maybe 1 minute. International shipment: click a few times, print lable, stick on box, go to post office, get customs label, fill itout, wait in line, have the post office reject the package because: a) has clear tape, b) has printing on box, c)box color or style is wrong, or c) just because the postal clerk is unfriendly. Fix problem, wait in line again, ship box, (finally!), drive back to shop.  Time: perhaps an hour, plus the cost of gas and vehicle, plus the incredible inconvience of having to deal with the post office. Got it? We don’t like shipping international because: 1. It takes a lot more time. 2. We must deliver the package to teh postoffice 3. Packaging requirements are different from domestic shipments. 4. It adds to the cost. 5. Half the customers (especially those in Italy, it seems) don’t get the package–and it’s our fault!

No problem. I’ll ship to Italy. (Sorry, no Canadian shipments). http://auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Can you be more specific? I am on eBay since a few years, I am from eastern EU, and I always wanted to understand what are the real reasons many US sellers have objections shipping international? I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"? Is it really so much work to handwrite, that handwriting about 50 extra characters (about 10 for the country name and another 40 on the CN22 form) makes is not worth to process such sales? How much does writing one letter cost you? One dollar? :) )) Try this: US Shipment: Click a few times, print the shipping label, stick it on the box, put box on loading dock for FedEx pickup. Time: maybe 1 minute. International shipment: click a few times, print lable, stick on box, go to post office, get customs label, fill itout, wait in line, have the post office reject the package because: a) has clear tape, b) has printing on box, c)box color or style is wrong, or c) just because the postal clerk is unfriendly. Fix problem, wait in line again, ship box, (finally!), drive back to shop.  Time: perhaps an hour, plus the cost of gas and vehicle, plus the incredible inconvience of having to deal with the post office. Got it? We don’t like shipping international because: 1. It takes a lot more time. 2. We must deliver the package to teh postoffice 3. Packaging requirements are different from domestic shipments. 4. It adds to the cost. 5. Half the customers (especially those in Italy, it seems) don’t get the package–and it’s our fault!

New Mexico partially excepted. — Many thanks, Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073 Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552 Please visit my GURU’s LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Response:

Depends on what you are selling. Electronics, full computers, cameras, cell phones or large bulky items etc… I would avoid international shipping. However for other items, you would be stupid not to sell internationl. Items like antiques, collectables, books, clothing, shoes, bed sheets, computer parts, car/motorcycle parts should be okey. For example, vintage Levi jeans. Most of the collectors are Japanese who will pay huge prices for them. If you leave them out, you might get a final bid price of $100. If you allow international bidders, the price might be 4X that. Up to you. It’s your money at stake. Or should I say it’s your potential money to make. Some people like to make an all encompassing statement like all international bidders are bad, you will get cheated, you might be dealing with Osama etc… THat’s dumb. Most international bidders know what they are doing, their customs regulations and have imported items before. Check their feedback. If a 99.9% positive feedback with over 500 feedback international bidders asks, it’s very likely they know what they are doing! And they know the shipping will be much more. You don’t have to go to the USPS all the time if you have a scale. You can calculate from your computer with the use of USPS website to calculate postage. All you need to do is to fill out a customs form available free of charge at the post office. Form CN22 for small items. Form CP72 for larger packages. On form CN22 all you need to write down is contents of package, value, sign the form and date it. Can do it in 10 seconds. Form CP72 is a little longer and required sender and receiver’s addresses as well. When at the post office the next time, just get a few extra forms so you can fill it out at home before going to the post office the next time. Packing is not much differnet. If dealing with fragile items, pack it properly. If you don’t, even domestic shipment might damage the product. International shipping requires a little bit more work but could also increase your sales buy quite a bit. Again depending on what you sell.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping? Too much work when there is an unlimited amount of domestic customers to service.  I avoid international shipments at all cost since the aggravation level is akin to stopping the assembly line for complete retooling for one item. Can you be more specific? I am on eBay since a few years, I am from eastern EU, and I always wanted to understand what are the real reasons many US sellers have objections shipping international? I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"? Is it really so much work to handwrite, that handwriting about 50 extra characters (about 10 for the country name and another 40 on the CN22 form) makes is not worth to process such sales? How much does writing one letter cost you? One dollar? :) ))

The hard part isnt the shipping. Its getting the overseas buyers to pay for the item once they see the shipping cost. Or getting them to send the money since they sometimes have no idea how to get money from one country to another. Or getting the buyer to understand the shipping instructions since your buyer may have only a vague understanding of english. Once they pay, the shipping is easy. I’d say over half of my no-pays are overseas…and Canada too.

Response:

Can you be more specific? I am on eBay since a few years, I am from eastern EU, and I always wanted to understand what are the real reasons many US sellers have objections shipping international? I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"? Is it really so much work to handwrite, that handwriting about 50 extra characters (about 10 for the country name and another 40 on the CN22 form) makes is not worth to process such sales? How much does writing one letter cost you? One dollar? :) ))

If you want to buy USA merchandise, why don’t you come to the USA? Is it really so much work to step onto an airplane? Ed

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Depends on the country. Obviously, I wouldn’t ship to Pakistan, Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia. If I was the President these countries would no longer exist. Within weeks of 9/11 these countries would have been reduced to ashes. Total war. Total annihilation. Instead we have spineless, politically correct politicians, sacrificing the lives of our soldiers in a guerilla war we will not win. If I was President, just the idea of attacking the U.S. or american soldiers would make the mullahs piss their pants. The U.S. response would be swift and overwhelming. Mushroom shaped.

Spewing hot air from the mouth without much thought. Okey lets say you somehow have become president and reduced these nations to ashes in your holy crusade. He’s what’s gonna happen. No more Saudi Arabia means no more Saudi oil. Say hello to $15 per gallon gas and long lines due to acute shortages. Not to mention heating oil! Those poor folks that live up north! Having to decide to use their income to buy food or heating gas. Starve or freeze? Which is less painful? A head of lettuce now costs $8 due to the acute shortage of diesel to transport foodstuff across the nation. Prices of all commodoties have suddenly risen eight times the normal price! Forget the airline industry, you just killed them all with your mushroom cloud! The industry base starts to be effected. Factories lie silent as workers stay home as raw materials and products are not making it to and from the factories due to the crippled transportation network. Factory and business owners are strangled as capital to keep industries running become scarce. Banks close overnight as loans from borrowers are defaulted causing savings to be wiped out which causes more bankrupcies. Soon the farm industry will be effected due to the lack of fuel to power all the tractors. Acute food shortages now set in. Food riots hit all major cities and marshal law is imposed. You as president just made your self a dictator and give your ego a huge boost! The only industries still running are those related to the weapons and military network as new wars will be declared because new sources of energy are desperately needed. As stated earlier no more Saudi oil. No oil from Iraq or Iran as well as you have turned them to ashes. You can’t get to the oil even if you tried anyways since the ground around that area is a little radio active and not too good for one’s health. So who else has oil that you can take? Hey how did our oil get under that foreign country? Lets see… Russia has oil. And a somewhat big military. Would be a rather large cake walk! Canada? They have oil. Maybe. They are easy and near by but the outcry? Maybe later! Ah! Venezuala! Lots of oil. Somewhat smallish country with a smallish military and the’re nearby too. We can take them. It would be a cake walk! Declare Venezuala as being part of the axis of evil. Sponsers of terrorism. Plus they were responsible for 9/11!!!! Launch Operation Venezualan Freedom to kill or capture that evil God hating, Commie loving Leftist President Chavez! Bring freedom to the Venezualans! But what’s this? Two rising world powers India and China have strong interests in Venezuala and billions of dollars of their investments being destroyed due to your litte war game. They arn’t too happy. In fact they are down right pissed! So they start to flex their muscles. India does so by confiscating all the outsourcing of US manufacturing and service systems jobs in India. The fragile US economy starts to get strangled. China plays it’s card by strangling the US financial system because of the huge number of US debt owned by China by calling in the debts.The US starts to default on their debt because they can’t pay. The US dollar slides off the scale! Oil producing nations; in protest of US aggression, stops oil trading in US dollars and switch to the Euro. The US dollar slides further. Financial instuitions world wide are desperate to cut their losses from the free falling dollar and do so by dumping the dollar or switching to more stable currencies. In a month, the US dollar is not worth the paper it’s printed on. Soon, the US$100 note in Mrs. Smith’s hand can’t buy a half dozen apples that she saw in an almost empty supermarket on Main Street, Littletown, USA. By now the USA will be in dire straits. But our friends and allies will help us! Or will they? Your use of nukes against large populated areas have left you isolated and alone. The EU turn their backs. You caused this, you clean up your own mess they say! Traditional ally Britan tries to play the middle ground. Will they support the US and face a huge back lash by the rest of Europe and even their own citizens? The prime minister is tempted to back the US but the massive anti-US street protests in London and in major UK cities are strong reminders of what might happen if he sides with the US on this! Tough choice! After all, his head is at stake! Now comes more internal problems for Mr. President. The US is a country divided. He has strong support for his agressive stance on one side and the other sides screams bloody murder and calls for impeachment… or worse! More anti-government riots rages along the cities of the east and west coasts. Mr. President plays his hand as the dictator with an iron fist and crushes all. Critics are jailed or disappear altogether. Protesters are flattened by National Guard armor. But as all smart people know, such actions get people pissed and pissed people then will do something about it. Small scale guerilla attacks against governemnt forces start to spring up everywhere and grow in intensity. To counter this "foreign backed freedom hating guerillas", the US constuition is ratified; easy since the US has basically become a one party government by this time. Now the US military is used to supress it’s civilians. The heavy handed approach of the government fills the ranks of the rebels which grow in intensity making large cities resemble Kosovo. Glorious President ponders of a final solution to the annoying rebels and a guerilla war he can’t seem to supress. The solution is mushroom shaped. If you were the president of the United States, you would be the last president of the United States. Man… your comments make Glorious President George Dubya Bush look smart! And George Dubya ain’t that smart to begin with.

Response:

International shipment: click a few times, print lable, stick on box, go to post office, get customs label, fill itout, wait in line, have the post office reject the package because: a) has clear tape, b) has printing on box, c)box color or style is wrong, or c) just because the postal clerk is unfriendly. Fix problem, wait in line again, ship box, (finally!), drive back to shop.  Time: perhaps an hour, plus the cost of gas and vehicle, plus the incredible inconvience of having to deal with the post office.

Then repeat all of the above, substituting "customs agency in destination country" for US Post Office. Receive pkg BACK one month later for correction. Make correction, repeat above step AGAIN. Fight with foreign buyer who "hasn’t seen my package yet" and has to pay huge tax/surcharge/customs fee. Then wonder "don’t they have stores in your country?". Craig

Response:

I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"?

There’s a lot more to it than that, but I doubt you’d  understand. Ed

Response:

What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping?

I used to ship worldwide (except south of the border). Now I ship to Canada, Japan, Germany and Australia only. The rest are too much of a pain. Ed

Response:

I still ship to the Brits, Austraila, and Israelis. I don’t do business with the French or Germans. Why, what’s the difference? And what about the remaining 218 countries? — Miernik

Depends on the country. Obviously, I wouldn’t ship to Pakistan, Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia. If I was the President these countries would no longer exist. Within weeks of 9/11 these countries would have been reduced to ashes. Total war. Total annihilation. Instead we have spineless, politically correct politicians, sacrificing the lives of our soldiers in a guerilla war we will not win. If I was President, just the idea of attacking the U.S. or american soldiers would make the mullahs piss their pants. The U.S. response would be swift and overwhelming. Mushroom shaped.

Response:

I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"? Is it really so much work to handwrite, that handwriting about 50 extra characters (about 10 for the country name and another 40 on the CN22 form) makes is not worth to process such sales? How much does writing one letter cost you? One dollar? :) ))

Ask Sears. They have a lot more employees than we do and they won’t ship Internationally either.

Response:

I ship to the U.S., but a potential buyer recently asked me if I would ship to Canada. What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping?

Outside of increased cost to the buyer and the seller having to fill out a customs form, it’s no different that shipping inside the USA.

Response:

I ship to the U.S., but a potential buyer recently asked me if I would ship to Canada. What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping? Donna

Unless you can realize a significant increase in price, it’s not typically worth the added time / risk. Hint – added time for the extra emails & establishing the proper postage for each requesting country  doesn’t typically offset the likeliness of a premium price. Then again, if time is not a cost / concern for you (as it seems typical for most eBay sellers), then it may be worth your while. If your items sell for about the same price within the US vs. worldwide,  why bother?   Unless, perhaps you believe more bidders = higher price (hint, as Don often points point,  it’s most often the the second highest bidder that determines the final price, regardless of the number of bidders,).

Response:

Can you be more specific? I am on eBay since a few years, I am from eastern EU, and I always wanted to understand what are the real reasons many US sellers have objections shipping international? I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"? Is it really so much work to handwrite, that handwriting about 50 extra characters (about 10 for the country name and another 40 on the CN22 form) makes is not worth to process such sales? How much does writing one letter cost you? One dollar? :) ))

Try this: US Shipment: Click a few times, print the shipping label, stick it on the box, put box on loading dock for FedEx pickup. Time: maybe 1 minute. International shipment: click a few times, print lable, stick on box, go to post office, get customs label, fill itout, wait in line, have the post office reject the package because: a) has clear tape, b) has printing on box, c)box color or style is wrong, or c) just because the postal clerk is unfriendly. Fix problem, wait in line again, ship box, (finally!), drive back to shop.  Time: perhaps an hour, plus the cost of gas and vehicle, plus the incredible inconvience of having to deal with the post office. Got it? We don’t like shipping international because: 1. It takes a lot more time. 2. We must deliver the package to teh postoffice 3. Packaging requirements are different from domestic shipments. 4. It adds to the cost. 5. Half the customers (especially those in Italy, it seems) don’t get the package–and it’s our fault!

Response:

I still ship to the Brits, Austraila, and Israelis. I don’t do business with the French or Germans.

Why, what’s the difference? And what about the remaining 218 countries? — Why software shouldn’t be covered by patents http://bladeenc.mp3.no/articles/software_patents.html

Response:

I ship to the U.S., but a potential buyer recently asked me if I would ship to Canada. What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping? Donna

Extra form to fill out at the post office. Plus a higher rate of "lost" packages. I still ship to the Brits, Austraila, and Israelis. I don’t do business with the French or Germans. http://auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/

Response:

I ship to the U.S., but a potential buyer recently asked me if I would ship to Canada. What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping?

I do. Pros: people send me money. Cons: haven’t encountered any.

Response:

I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"?

If you ever filled out one of those green stickers, you would instantly realize that life is too short to ever do it again. — Many thanks, Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073 Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552 Please visit my GURU’s LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Response:

I ship to the U.S., but a potential buyer recently asked me if I would ship to Canada. What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping? Donna

NO Foreign biders/buyers/transshipments! http://www.tinaja.com/glib/ebaysell.pdf — Many thanks, Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073 Synergetics   3860 West First Street   Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552 Please visit my GURU’s LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Response:

I ship to the U.S., but a potential buyer recently asked me if I would ship to Canada. What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping? Donna

Response:

What are the pros & cons with international shipping?    Do most of you do international shipping? Too much work when there is an unlimited amount of domestic customers to service.  I avoid international shipments at all cost since the aggravation level is akin to stopping the assembly line for complete retooling for one item.

Can you be more specific? I am on eBay since a few years, I am from eastern EU, and I always wanted to understand what are the real reasons many US sellers have objections shipping international? I cannot understand how filling out a small 3×4 in. green CN22 sticker and writing one more line of address can be "too much work"? Is it really so much work to handwrite, that handwriting about 50 extra characters (about 10 for the country name and another 40 on the CN22 form) makes is not worth to process such sales? How much does writing one letter cost you? One dollar? :) )) — Why software shouldn’t be covered by patents http://bladeenc.mp3.no/articles/software_patents.html

Response:

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