WTB: Somebody in the US to buy probe tips on eBay and international postage.

[pbarton]

A familiar problem, a California seller charging high prices for international shipping of items weighing a couple of grams.
Looking for a trustworthy person to buy a pair of Tektronix P6201 Probe Tips 206-0200-00 off eBay and to post them to me in the UK.
eBay item 173180950982.
The objective is to save on postal charges.
Please send a PM to make the necessary arrangements.
However, if anybody else has P6201 probe tips to sell???

[coromonadalix]

19$ for one tip  not the complete bag,  outch   he knows  its a rare item.  how many tip do you need ?

[Berni]

I use this place for US mail forwarding: https://www.shipito.com

I use it when the shipping price is absurd of the seller simply doesn't ship internationally at all. For small light things USPS is cheap but has no tracking. For medium sized items DPD seams to be the best. For heavy items forget about it, it costs too much.

[coromonadalix]

For Ebay  i use crossbordepickups, but i always get a minimum fee since they do customs paperwork .......

For Shipito they charge 2$ more and the shipping fee's ...  i'll keep this link, thks Berni

[pbarton]

Two probe tips now purchased, with an initial delivery to a US address, the postage cost is US $5.66.
To be forwarded to the UK later.
Many thanks for all the suggestions of help.

[Mechatrommer]

A familiar problem, a California seller charging high prices for international shipping of items weighing a couple of grams.

a familiar problem when we dont look at it deep enough. the seller uses Ebay Global Shipping Program. seller has no way to control the cost. they only need to send the item to some US address and then they will have no clue where its going, Ebay program will handle it all and rebound the item to you. i recently encountered this i got peculiar track number that ended in Erlanger, Kentucky, US status as delivered. afraid of being sent to the wrong address, so i asked seller to clarify with them to my surprise the seller is just as clueless like the blue sky. it turned out Erlanger is where their biggest warehouse before it rebounded out of the border (international shipping) the name of the courier is someone's name Pitney Bowes i think he's a millionaire by now through their ebay link, we call "cable" here. i thought maybe next time sellers who use this program will be on my last (less favorable) list. but seller is not to be blamed. but if you can afford $19 for a milligram of metal that possibly can be diy machined, why you complained about $16 shipping cost? (as is shown on my browser). fwiw..

[Mr. Scram]

Another issue with the Global Shipping Program is that they don't provide VAT invoices. If you're a business that means paying too much for no reason. I suspect eBay somehow gets to keep a cut.

[DaJMasta]

It's also true that the base USPS postal rate for First Class mail to international locations (includes tracking but does not guarantee tracking information at the destination country and does not offer insurance), is actually pretty expensive.  Typically around $15 to most destinations for a base price for a package of any weight, and scales up quickly around half a pound - if you go with priority which is faster, gives you point to point tracking, and is insured to $200, it starts at $32 or so.  Recently I've got some much better rates shipping small items internationally and paying for postage with paypal (still USPS), but it does not factor into ebay's shipping calculator, and if you purchase the postage through ebay instead (or at a retail location), it may actually be the calculator's price.

While some countries offer reasonable small parcel postage to international destinations, the US hasn't really been one for a while, though perhaps the rates you're seeing are still higher.

[Mechatrommer]

to add further, my paypal payment goes 2 separate ways, one goes to the seller (item price) and one goes to the pitney bowes (shipping + tax cost) i'm not sure if i can get refunded the pitney bowes payment if the item doesnt show up