selling on EBAY worldwide ?

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Posted By: joe

When selling on EBAY, do any or all of you sell worldwide or just USA?

Any problems shipping and insuring items to all parts of the World?

Thanks joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Dave

I have been selling on Ebay worldwide for many years with no real problems. I think I've only had a couple of packages "lost" by the French postal service. I just shipped a bunch of stuff to Norway with no hassles.

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Posted By: George Dreher

Nothing personal against Canadians, but have had some deadbeats and very slow payers (the kind where you have to prompt them a week later..."oh yeah, sorry I forgot to mail payment") from there on sportscard auctions in the past.

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Posted By: Steve M.

but when I have it is 'USA ONLY". Just too much of a hassle for me otherwise.

I have made exceptions for our neighbors to the north, Eliot and Brad, and will ship to them.

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Posted By: joe

Dave or anyone else. What is the simpliest way to determine postage to the other countries? I started looking up each country. Do most bidders from other countries know the shipping cost before bidding or do I have to list in the auction.


Thanks again

Joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Mike

I have never had any problem. I collect other things besides baseball memorabilia. I've had things arrive from the oddest places on the planet. Far east etc. never one problem. The biggest thieves and scum bags I have come across, are in our own 50 states. The biggest head ache in dealing with other contries is the currency issue, and of course some won't accept checks. For many reasons. I have even sent cold hard cash to England, canada, and a few others that escape me, but of course one has to be very careful. But theitems have always arrived. I live 150 miles from Iowa, and have been cheated out of money. I had an individual in the US, who didn't know what a cashiers check was, or maybe it was a money order. can't recall, but I found that rather odd. Currency exchanges are an issue, but people who live out side our borders are at least as honest as we are, and many times more so.

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Posted By: George Dreher

Check out this exchange after waiting three weeks for payment:

"This is just a reminder to let you know that payment has not yet been received for this lot. Please make sure that your payment is received by Monday, February 19. That is the date that I would have to initiate a fee refund from eBay."

Response: "ok ,,,,,please keep me advised,,,,,i want the card! meantime you can just go ahead and mail me the card coz i guarantee payment will be sent eventually"

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Posted By: Mike

I also love it when, after two or three days, the seller starts pressuring you for the money. "Where's the payment?" Geez, can they let the mail service do their job? I have been threatened after three or four days. These people bug me more than some guy in England.

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Posted By: George Dreher

That is pretty sad. Which is why I usually wait 3 weeks before taking action.

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Posted By: Steve M.

that is priceless.

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Sold a card to a fellow in Italy, went well. I've bought from England, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, Argentina, Gibraltar, South Africa... no problems at all.

For postage, I list what US domestic first class with tracking will be, and shipping other ways and other places will cost more. If they email and ask in advance, I go find out.

Some stuff I buy from England is bought from folks who want to mail to the United Kingdom only. I have friends over there who will hold packages for me. I go over every 2 or 3 years. They will remail something to me, if I ask them. And they've brought stuff over if they were visiting the States.

World wide money spends here just fine, sell world wide.

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Posted By: Rob Fouch

I sell overseas pretty regularly, though not baseball cards. I sell records that I find at estate sales (which is one way I fund my card collecting habit). There seem to be a lot of record collectors in Europe and Japan.

As for shipping, I've found it almost impossible to predict the cost because it varies so wildly. Basically, the way I handle it is to tell overseas sellers not to pay until I take the package to the post office and get the exact shipping charge. They've all been fine with that.

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Posted By: David

I stopped selling items worldwide. It's too much of a hassle and I hate to guess what the shipping charges will be. I mainly sell whiskey bottles (KY Bourbon) and I get a lot of oversea buyers that want to purchase. But with customs, I will not sell overseas any longer. I have been told by the Postal service that it will cost me the next time I do so. (I was busted) When I was selling cards, I sold a lot to a buyer in Germany and he paid for it with a international money order. My bank would not cash it because they told me it would cost as much to cash it than the MO was worth, so after that, no more international buyers! Hate to exclude them, but it’s not worth it in the long run. Just my opinion….

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Posted By: George Dreher

They are the way to go. Any other kind of foreign money order or check costs too much to process for US banks.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I've sold a lot of fashion photos and about 40-50 percent of the buyers were foreign-- including Germany, France, Italy, England, etc. One of the buyers turned out to be the founder of Sotheby's photography department. I've never had any troubles. Most of the buyers had good feedback and a fair amount of transactions. They all want to use PayPal and understand an extra shipping charge. Would I be nervous about sending a $5,000 baseball card to someone in Moscow? Sure. But my average sale was a $100 British photo to someone in England, or a $150 Italian photo to someone in Rome.

I once sold an England World Cup soccer uniform used in a movie. I would have been dumb to use USA only, and, as one could anticipate, the winner was in England. One Canadian hockey collector said the dumbest things American eBay sellers of hockey cards do is limit bidders to Americans, as many to most hockey buyers are Canadian.

If you're selling Bart Starr cards or Joe Sewell memorabilia, it's no big deal whether or not you allow international bidders. Whatever your setting, it's highly unlikely you be getting bids from Montevideo and Budapest.

I've also purchased world wide on eBay, but stick with sellers who are obviously experienced and have good feedback. I also am purchasing items that are native to their continent and I will be unlikely to find at Target. In other words, I don't purchase my 1987 Topps from Oslo.

One thing I highly recommend about selling internationally is that you give good competent service and be friendly and fair. After all, you are representing your county and how you act will be reflect upon your country.

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Posted By: S Gross

I list worldwide, but only list US postage/insurance rates. I figure if someone outside US emails me with interest, they are sincere and trustworthy. Only have dealt with a few (man that sounds prejudice ), with no problems.

Actually, one problem:
I sold a $10 T218 boxing card of Fighting Dick Nelson "The Fighting Dane" to someone in Denmark. They said they never got it, so I refunded the money, no big deal. About 6 months later I get my package returned to me in the mail. It looked like something out of a cartoon. It was stamped with a dozen different postage stamps in all type of languages. That package probabaly had a nice world tour ............

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Posted By: Dave

I like to use the U.S. postal services website to calculate shipping. If you know the weight, or a close estimate you can plug that nuimber in to their calculator and it tells you the cost of shipping an item several ways.
I also invested in a cheap scale a couple of years ago because I do ship a lot of packages worldwide

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Posted By: daryle

worldwide but add in my description---- "International shipping will be higher and will vary" I've never had a problem with mailing out.....recently mailed a hand full of 1950s Topps HOFers to Japan with no problems....now receiving mail from abroad I have had a couple of problems, only one was really major.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

And the UK. No problems thus far.

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Posted By: joe

Thanks everyone for the information, still not sure if it's worth it. I have shipped overseas before with no problem. Just wondered if I would get more bidders/buyers if I include Worldwide. Graded cards.

Thanks joe

Ty Cobb, Spikes flying!

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Posted By: Dave Hornish

I think worldwide auctions increase your sales on some items, especially records. Not sure about cards but I have to say I know at least 3 or 4 collectors overseas so there is a chance it could help you. I don't find shipping to be an issue, but it's hard to calculate properly without going to the PO. I think the plusses outweigh the minuses.

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Posted By: Max Weder

Despite the controversy and obvious difficulties, I have decided to continue selling to residents of the United States

Max
Vancouver, BC

Wondering when the next Fenian invasion is going to happen and wondering whatever happened to NAFTA

[Edited to correct "united" for "untied", but sometimes typos are there for a reason]

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Posted By: David Vargha

I refuse to sell anything to those sneaky Canadians. Am I supposed to accept their funny-colored money with the Spirograph thingies all over them as payment? Then the next step that they expect from me is to do currency conversions. If I start doing that, the next thing you know is that I'll be having to buy gas in "Imperial gallons" (whatever those are). Lastly, I refuse to deal with "Canadian customs". I couldn't care less about their customs, whether it's drinking hard cider, eating "fatback" bacon or saying "eh" and "aboot". I also refuse to ship to other foreign countries like Hawaii and New Mexico.

DavidVargha@hotmail.com

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Posted By: Rob Dewolf

Whatever your feelings on international relations, I'm just proud of you as a fellow American that you correctly used the "couldn't care less" reference rather than the incorrect "I could care less" that seems to find its way into just about every other post on this board. Bravo to you!

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Posted By: Dan

Well, Paypal has struck again! Sold a several hundred dollar item on Ebay that because the person is outside of the US, Paypal seems to be leaning their direction because of tracking issues outside the US. Delivery confirmation is near impossible in many overseas locations, this one happened to be in Australia. Even though it is insured, they do not care about that number, all they want is a tracking number that just does not exist due to how USPS is set up for overseas stuff. NEVER AGAIN!!!

Anyone have a single ounce of insite on this one? HELP!!!!!!!!!

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Posted By: George Dreher

Try to detach your checking account from the PayPal account if you can. Hope you didn't have a large PayPal balance. If you don't detach your checking account, they will go right into your bank account and pull the chargeback from it.

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Posted By: Dan

Paypal despite my proof of insurance for the item and the original USPS sales receipt TOOK THE MONEY! Oh, the kicker is, they never emailed me once. Yes, you read that correctly, not one email. I happened to go to pay for another item that was non-sports related and saw that my account had been nailed for the entire amount. This all took place in an extremely short period of time as well. I fear that I just may be completely done with them and will go back to taking only checks, money orders, bank checks, etc. Paypal is very hard to get anything corrected as well. So, basically, this guy has the item and now all his money back and the sad thing is, USPS wants the "receiver" to file the claims, not typically the sender.

Last thing, they will not allow me to remove "protect" my accounts while this amount is in dispute.

Frustrating to say the least!

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Posted By: Dave F

If you still have a large sum in your paypal account don't try to transfer it out to your checking account at this point. Before it even clears they will stop the transfer and take the amount in question with your dispute. Instead what I would do is immediately send whatever you have in there to someone's (trusted) paypal account. And of course move money out of whichever checking account you have linked to paypal. That way there is no money either direction..and once all is settled the person you sent the paypal money to can just send it back.