Author Topic: Why is some ebay shipping so high?  (Read 6073 times)

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Offline Helix70Topic starter

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Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« on: January 12, 2020, 09:22:57 am »
Is the shipping for some items automatically calculated by eBay for certain items? I can't work it out.

I have had power supplies (Agilent 6612C) shipped for US$46.82 from the US to Australia, and then you see other items that are similar size/weight asking $470US for a $220 US buy price.

Is eBay Global Shipping harder for the seller? It seems that the Global Shipping offered by eBay is much cheaper than all other otions.
 

Offline PTR_1275

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2020, 11:22:27 am »
It all comes down to the dimensions the seller puts in.

They might put in a weight of 50kg to deliberately make ebay out the price of postage up. For some reason a lot of American sellers refuse to deal with international sales and this is their way of making it “worth their while”

Ebay algorithms elevate you in the search results for all sorts of reasons. International postage is one of them as is having a express option.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2020, 04:08:06 pm »
Yep... I've found US sellers to have increased international shipping fees to atrocious levels lately... it's pretty sad for us outside of the US, although I can understand.
 

Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2020, 08:31:20 pm »

Is eBay Global Shipping harder for the seller? It seems that the Global Shipping offered by eBay is much cheaper than all other otions.

    That's not my understanding. I talked to Ebay when they first started the GSP and it seems that they want to seller to ship the item to them (some place in Kentucky IIRC) and they will bundle it with all of the other items that are going to a particular country into a large shipping container and then ship that, at a cheap bulk rate, to the country. Once there everything is unpacked and then sent via the local postal service to the buyer. Even if E-bay gets a cheap bulk shipping rate, that's still three different shippers that are involved so I doubt that this would be cheaper than the seller just shipping it directly to the buyer.  Assuming that the seller or buyer doesn't insist on one of the over-priced shippers such as UPS., which they often do because of the problems with their national postal service.

   OTOH a lot of sellers in the US refuse to sell overseas.  Overseas can be a real pitfall with insane customs delays and charges and theft within the postal services in many countries.  Just for example, I once shipped a package to Germany. It took almost six months to arrive.  AFTER it got to Germany it was shuffled through at least three different customs' offices over a 4 month period and at each location, they cut the package open and inspected it. And each one cut the package open on a different side!  The package did finally arrive and everything was intact.  I shipped it to a friend of mine and he was patient enough to wait for it. However if that had been an Ebay sale, the buyer would have gone ballistic over the delay!  Another time I repaired a small piece of electronics for someone in Italy and I returned to them along with all of the original documentation to show that it had come from Italy.  However Italian customs held the package two months and eventually charged the over over $260 US to import it.  He was PISSED and he blamed me for all of it and he complained about it for MONTHS.  Since then I won't ship anything to Italy.

   One more thing. My understanding is that if you don't ship overseas using E-bay's GSP, that E-bay/Pay-Pal will refuse to refund the buyer's money if there is a problem with the shipment!  There have been several threads on this forum about that exact subject.

   As far as I'm concerned, Ebay's GSP is a racket!  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_%28crime%29 I used to sell a lot of stuff on E-bay and probably 60% of it went to Europe and other foreign countries but the shipping cost is so high and there's so many problems (with E-bay in general now) that I gave up selling anything on there.

   
 
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Offline Stray Electron

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2020, 08:39:51 pm »
Yep... I've found US sellers to have increased international shipping fees to atrocious levels lately... it's pretty sad for us outside of the US, although I can understand.

   My advice to any of you that are outside of the US is to contact the seller directly and talk to them. If they think that you're a reasonable person then they'll often try to work with you.  Also do your homework in advance, you can go the US Postal Service website (or FexEx, or UPS's or DHL's) and get an estimate of what the shipping will be to your country.  For most commercial items you can often go to the manufacturer's website and get the weight and dimensions of the item.

   One other thing to be aware of, if your packages weighs over about 40 pounds, the shipping rates do up astronomically!  I have broken items down into two packages of less than 40 pounds each and the shipping costs dropped by 2/3.
 
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Offline Chris56000

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #5 on: February 18, 2020, 09:00:04 pm »
Hi!

I have personally seen a normal bench (Solartron I think it was) DVM advertised on eBay for £110 b.i.n. then postage charges of £917.50 (!!!!) and THEN there was import charges on top of all that!

What possible justification is there for atrocious rip–off charges like this? I could have flown to the USA and back to pick up the meter personally for less!

Chris Williams
It's an enigma that's what it is!! This thing's not fixed because it doesn't want to be fixed!!
 

Offline langwadt

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #6 on: February 18, 2020, 09:16:59 pm »
Hi!

I have personally seen a normal bench (Solartron I think it was) DVM advertised on eBay for £110 b.i.n. then postage charges of £917.50 (!!!!) and THEN there was import charges on top of all that!

What possible justification is there for atrocious rip–off charges like this? I could have flown to the USA and back to pick up the meter personally for less!

Chris Williams

that they don't want the hassle of international buyers unless you really make it worth their while

 

Offline edpalmer42

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #7 on: February 18, 2020, 09:24:39 pm »
I live in Canada.  American shippers could literally ship a longer distance and still be in the States than to ship to me.  In spite of that, even USPS shipping is very high.  My cynical assumption is that the USPS thinks they can charge whatever they want and are using those rates to subsidize the cheap rates for shipping within the States.

Couriers are following the USPS rates since they can, and adding their own fees on top.  I almost never purchase anything that involves courier shipping from outside Canada.  It's just not economical.  Sometimes they insist on stupid things like 2 or 3 day international shipping.  That's going to cost hundreds of dollars.  Sometimes they will change if you ask them, but I rarely bother.

I've had good luck with ebay's Global Shipping Program.  It's typically significantly cheaper than the alternatives and their fees are very reasonable.  It's important to talk to the shipper to make sure that he's specified the size and weight correctly.  One shipper worked with me to adjust the size he entered into the system.  The shipping went from ~$150 down to ~$44 for a 2U rackmount unit.  I bought it!  Recently, I asked another shipper to check the size because his shipping cost was $99.  I never even got a reply from him.  I didn't buy it!

Ed
 
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Offline jfiresto

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2020, 09:54:59 pm »
I live in Canada.  American shippers could literally ship a longer distance and still be in the States than to ship to me.  In spite of that, even USPS shipping is very high.  My cynical assumption is that the USPS thinks they can charge whatever they want and are using those rates to subsidize the cheap rates for shipping within the States....

You can thank the U.S. Congress for that. They allowed the USPS to stop charging close to cost and instead charge whatever the market will bear and oligopoly can achieve. This was the euphemism-laden announcement:

Quote
First-Class Package International Service

Effective January 27, 2013, the Postal Service is transferring First-Class Mail International packages and rolls from the market dominant (Mailing Services) product list to the competitive (Shipping Services) product list and renaming it First-Class Package International Service™ (FCPIS).
-John
 

Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #9 on: February 19, 2020, 03:06:23 am »
Yeah it's nuts.  I find it's not worth buying anything big on ebay.  Not uncommon to see over $600 to ship an older server or similar item.  Better off paying a bit more and building a new server from new parts from an online retailer.

What infuriates me is the high cost of shipping from the states or even within Canada yet its always free from China.  The government really needs to stop those subsidies. It's crazy they encourage people to buy overseas.
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #10 on: February 19, 2020, 10:16:29 am »
Yes ebay automatically calculates fees based on pricing it gets directly from the postal services, however it relies on the details put in by the seller of the equipment.

There is also an additional field the seller can enter a fixed dollar amount which is added to the calculated price to cover things like packaging and handling costs.
 

Offline jeremy

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2020, 10:34:33 am »
Perhaps someone from the US can chime in, but it seems to me that everyone in the US is used to FedEx/UPS and near overnight delivery, and so those are the services they offer to their predominantly US customer based. Obviously “as fast as possible” shipping is going to be more expensive over an international route. Those shipping companies also don’t really seem to care (in my opinion) about the Australian market. But even that isn’t the whole story, because I often order things from China via UPS and FedEx and the price isn’t too bad (it’s more than I want to pay, but can’t argue with the speed). Only when it comes from the US.

Global shipping program is ok, but they don’t specifically notarise what is GST and what isn’t, so it’s not possible to claim it back for a business expense. It’s just “import duties and fees” as one lump sum if I remember correctly.

I’ve regularly order items with DHL from China and postage seems to be quite reasonable given that it can sometimes come in 2 days!

As for the obscene shipping charges, ebay charges sellers a fee for each listing. So to save money, if the seller runs out of stock and expects more to come (or just want to appear like they have lots of interesting items) they will boost the shipping price to some crazy amount so nobody will buy it.
 

Offline TK

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2020, 11:54:38 am »
No, test equipment is shipped mostly UPS/Fedex Ground in the US, way too expensive to ship express.  You cannot compare shipping charges from China to the world as they are dirty cheap compared even to local US to US shipments using the same carriers.
 

Offline jeremy

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2020, 12:36:46 pm »
You cannot compare shipping charges from China to the world as they are dirty cheap compared even to local US to US shipments using the same carriers.

Does anyone know why this is the case? I understand there are some issues with the postal service and international subsidies, but I assumed that couriers (DHL, UPS and FedEx) didn’t have anything to do with that?
 

Offline Cerebus

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #14 on: February 19, 2020, 01:48:54 pm »
I'm currently sitting in London, England, waiting for UPS to arrive with a package that ~36 hours ago was in Thief River Falls in the frozen north of Minnesota (-17ºC yesterday, a balmy day by Minnesota standards). It's coming from Digikey who charge a flat £12 GBP shipping for orders less than £33 GBP and offer free shipping for orders over that value (this by the way is with all duty and tax prepaid so there's no hassle with customs at this end).

If Digikey (annual revenue $2.3bn) can manage to get rates from UPS that make that affordable for them then surely eBay (annual revenue $10.8bn) ought to be able to cobble together a shipping programme that offered competitive rates to US sellers for getting stuff hassle free to the rest of the world?

I suspect that a lot of US eBay sellers just think that the rest of the world is too much hassle and think that the US already provides them with a big enough market. However, you can definitely get higher prices for used test gear in the UK and Europe than you can in the US. With the US balance of payments currently sitting at around minus half a trillion dollars you'd think that US ebay sellers might realise that a getting a bit of exporting going would be a good idea, the patriotic thing to do. Ironically I'd bet that the US eBay sellers who think themselves most patriotic are probably the ones who put the most barriers in front of potential overseas customers. I base that guess on the fact that whenever I see something interesting looking there tends to be a high correlation between conspicuous US flag usage on a vendor's pages and prohibitively high export costs.
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Offline rrinker

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #15 on: February 19, 2020, 04:48:40 pm »
 In the US, I typically pick USPS Priority got my things, I generally am not shipping heavy equipment. I also chose this option if available when buying things - it's USUALLY the cheapest option, especially in trade off of cost vs time. The same 3 day from UPS or FedEx is often twice as much.

 I will almost never pick UPS any more. I just refinanced my mortgage and had a significant sum coming back. The escrow company sent the check UPS express. Some 6 days later, I was wondering how long it was going to take to get my money (I was not aware they sent it out 2 day express, 6 days previously). We happened to order pizza delivery that night, and when I opened the door to get the pizza, I noticed a UPS envelope on the porch. Yup, there it was, a bit soggy, while the porch kept it from being directly rained on, the damp certainly was in the cardboard of the express packet. UPS just casually tossed it on the porch and took off. We do not normally use the front door for anything - we always come in via the garage. Had we not ordered in that night, it could have been there another week. Luckily as a flat envelope it wasn't visible from the street, not that it would be easy for someone else to cash a check made out to me.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #16 on: February 19, 2020, 05:40:04 pm »
They might put in a weight of 50kg to deliberately make ebay out the price of postage up. For some reason a lot of American sellers refuse to deal with international sales and this is their way of making it “worth their while”

It's because international shipping is a big pain in the ass, and it's very expensive so it cuts significantly into any profit, none of that is our fault.

For domestic shipping you can purchase the postage online and schedule a pickup, print a label and set the parcel out on the porch near the scheduled time, it is picked up and you're done.

International postage means take time off work to drive to the post office while they're open, wait in line anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to get to the one counter out of six that is actually open, find the correct customs forms and take time to fill those out, listing the contents in detail and answering questions from the rude clerk who usually barely speaks English, then hope the item survives its ordeal and makes it to the buyer intact, and hope the buyer is not a scammer. Ultimately it means taking at least an hour out of the day that could be spent working or doing other things vs just a few minutes for domestic shipping.

Then there is the cost issue, shipping international from the USA has become exorbitantly expensive, even a small box sent next door to Canada is at least double what it costs to ship within the US and it goes up from there when sending elsewhere. The longer journey means bulkier and heavier packaging which is more expensive still. Because ebay is crooked and charges fees on not only the final bid price but the postage price too, and then greedy paypal charges their own fees, and additional fees on international transactions means that selling to foreign customers can easily result in a negative profit while selling the same price item locally can be worthwhile.

This all conspires to create a situation where offering international sales is simply not worth it. I have sold things a few times where after all the fees I actually lost money on the transaction and it would have been cheaper to simply throw the thing away. Between the risk of that and the far greater hassle of international shipping it's just not worth dealing with. I would gladly sell to anyone anywhere on a level playing field but with ebay I am strictly domestic only unless the seller can arrange for a forwarding service so that I'm only paying fees on domestic shipping and someone else is doing all the tedious customs paperwork. Don't blame the sellers, blame the system that stacks the deck heavily against us.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #17 on: February 19, 2020, 06:16:06 pm »
Perhaps someone from the US can chime in, but it seems to me that everyone in the US is used to FedEx/UPS and near overnight delivery, and so those are the services they offer to their predominantly US customer based. Obviously “as fast as possible” shipping is going to be more expensive over an international route. Those shipping companies also don’t really seem to care (in my opinion) about the Australian market. But even that isn’t the whole story, because I often order things from China via UPS and FedEx and the price isn’t too bad (it’s more than I want to pay, but can’t argue with the speed). Only when it comes from the US.

USPS used to offer an economical surface option for international shipping, it was slow but reasonably priced and I used to send a lot of stuff overseas. At some point about a decade ago this was dropped completely and the only international options became their premium (expensive) priority mail services. International postage for parcels doubled or tripled almost overnight. There is nothing we peons can do, the postage costs what it costs and other international options cost even more. We can choose how severely we are going to get gouged but the only way to not get gouged is to not ship international.
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #18 on: February 19, 2020, 06:28:38 pm »
I will almost never pick UPS any more. I just refinanced my mortgage and had a significant sum coming back. The escrow company sent the check UPS express. Some 6 days later, I was wondering how long it was going to take to get my money (I was not aware they sent it out 2 day express, 6 days previously). We happened to order pizza delivery that night, and when I opened the door to get the pizza, I noticed a UPS envelope on the porch. Yup, there it was, a bit soggy, while the porch kept it from being directly rained on, the damp certainly was in the cardboard of the express packet. UPS just casually tossed it on the porch and took off. We do not normally use the front door for anything - we always come in via the garage. Had we not ordered in that night, it could have been there another week. Luckily as a flat envelope it wasn't visible from the street, not that it would be easy for someone else to cash a check made out to me.


I've had similar experiences with almost every service.

The one and only time I had mail stolen, the postman delivered a package of priority boxes I ordered and leaned them up against my front door which makes them about as visible from the street as is possible to do. Then he "helpfully" left the rest of my mail on the doormat where it was all stolen from, despite the fact that I have a secure locking mailbox on the street for precisely this reason.   :palm:

Shortly before Christmas FedEx delivered a box containing gifts I had ordered, I was at work downtown but saw on my security camera that they had set the package right on the edge of my porch, again in plain view from the street, right in the middle of the one patch that was already damp and just minutes before a torrential downpour was forecast. There was a nice dry corner just a few feet away. Even if I had left work right then and caught a bus home it would have taken me over an hour to get there. |O  Thankfully I was eventually able to reach my mom and she drove over and retrieved the already soaked box, took it home and set it by the heat vent to dry out. If it sat there any longer it would have been completely destroyed. 

Multiple times I had UPS deliver packages to my house number on the next street over, I would call them and they would insist it was delivered and cite the driver signing off as "proof" and ask me to look around my house for other spots it might have been left.  :wtf:  This finally improved after I called to complain multiple times and told them the neighbor had just dropped by with my expensive package *yet again* and they said they would flag my address.

DHL delivered a computer to my next door neighbor. I was home and eagerly watching the delivery progress and then got a notification that it had been delivered, checked the porch to make sure it wasn't one of those silent ninja deliveries Amazon is known for but nope, not there. Finally called them and they sent a picture of the delivered package which I just happened to recognize as my neighbor's porch. I went over there and they weren't home so I just grabbed my package.

This all strikes me as extreme incompetence but what can you do? I can't think of a carrier that has not made one of these bone-headed errors.
 

Offline rrinker

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #19 on: February 19, 2020, 08:22:12 pm »
 I've been pretty lucky with all but UPS. At my old house, I was often working from home. The UPS truck would pull up, I'd hear the doorbell ring, run downstairs, and the truck was already pulling away. OK for signature not required things, but man, they don't even leave enough time even if I was standing right behind the door when they rang.
 My neighborhood so far has not had much issue with porch pirates. Which is good because most deliveries are left at my lower entry, readily visible from the street unless one of the cars is in the driveway, which totally blocks the view of anything sitting in front of that door.
 I thought Amazon's delivery was going to be a nightmare the very first time (in my area - not that long ago, just before the Christmas holidays did they start delivering in my area). Tracking said my package was delivered. I came home - didn't see it by the downstairs door. Checked the front porch - nope, not there either. Logged in to Amazon - still says delivered. The picture hadn't been uploaded yet. Strange. Check again an hour later, now the picture was there and I realized where they had put it. Actually a good place, except as stated, we never use the front door. My front stairs go up in two flights to the porch(see also, why we don't use the front door...), and the first flight up from the driveway is completely hidden from the street and sidewalk, you have to walk all the way up and look. That's where they left it - so well hidden I didn't even see it when I stood by the door packages usually get left at and looked around.
 When I was actively selling things on eBay - I never had an item shipped and not received by the buyer.
 

Offline Helix70Topic starter

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #20 on: February 19, 2020, 11:40:30 pm »
They might put in a weight of 50kg to deliberately make ebay out the price of postage up. For some reason a lot of American sellers refuse to deal with international sales and this is their way of making it “worth their while”

It's because international shipping is a big pain in the ass, and it's very expensive so it cuts significantly into any profit, none of that is our fault.

For domestic shipping you can purchase the postage online and schedule a pickup, print a label and set the parcel out on the porch near the scheduled time, it is picked up and you're done.

International postage means take time off work to drive to the post office while they're open, wait in line anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to get to the one counter out of six that is actually open, find the correct customs forms and take time to fill those out, listing the contents in detail and answering questions from the rude clerk who usually barely speaks English, then hope the item survives its ordeal and makes it to the buyer intact, and hope the buyer is not a scammer. Ultimately it means taking at least an hour out of the day that could be spent working or doing other things vs just a few minutes for domestic shipping.

Then there is the cost issue, shipping international from the USA has become exorbitantly expensive, even a small box sent next door to Canada is at least double what it costs to ship within the US and it goes up from there when sending elsewhere. The longer journey means bulkier and heavier packaging which is more expensive still. Because ebay is crooked and charges fees on not only the final bid price but the postage price too, and then greedy paypal charges their own fees, and additional fees on international transactions means that selling to foreign customers can easily result in a negative profit while selling the same price item locally can be worthwhile.

This all conspires to create a situation where offering international sales is simply not worth it. I have sold things a few times where after all the fees I actually lost money on the transaction and it would have been cheaper to simply throw the thing away. Between the risk of that and the far greater hassle of international shipping it's just not worth dealing with. I would gladly sell to anyone anywhere on a level playing field but with ebay I am strictly domestic only unless the seller can arrange for a forwarding service so that I'm only paying fees on domestic shipping and someone else is doing all the tedious customs paperwork. Don't blame the sellers, blame the system that stacks the deck heavily against us.

Now that eBay offers the global shipping program, why not offer it? You get all of those local shipping benefits you mentioned, as you send it to eBay's shipping depot in the US. I assume they use the same postal system for that, that you offer your local customers? Then you are done and eBay use a bulk transport carrier to get it overseas.

All we want is options, ones that you guys make your money the same, and are compensated for any extra time if the user chooses the PITA method anyway. Some stuff if bought on a whim, I don't care if it takes an extra 2 weeks.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #21 on: February 20, 2020, 02:01:48 am »
I'm not opposed to doing so, I have just never really explored it. I'm not a high volume seller by any means, I'm just a hobbyist who occasionally decides to part with something to make room for something else.

I suspect it's largely a case of not knowing about it, or concern that the already high paypal fees will be higher. I suppose there's also an element of fear, it's a lot easier for someone in a far off land to claim the item is not as described, damaged, didn't arrive, etc and a lot harder for us to do anything about it. There are some countries I'd be a lot more comfortable shipping to than others. I know several people who got scammed selling high value items to certain parts of the world. There are also a few notorious broker type companies that purchase items for foreign buyers and part of their normal business practice is to select the cheapest postage option submit a not received or damaged claim on anything that is not shipped with airtight signature confirmation and insurance.

Also as someone else said, contact the seller, I know that personally if someone contacts me and sounds genuinely interested and doesn't seem scammy I'm typically willing to work with them. Just because I've listed it as US only doesn't mean I'm completely unwilling to send it abroad, I just don't want added hassle every time and have been burned by a few past incidents that I don't want to repeat.
 

Online notsob

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #22 on: February 20, 2020, 02:54:57 am »
you could also try a US pack and send company, (especially is whoever you are ordering from will not ship outside of the US), they will order within the US from multiple suppliers, repack your orders and ship them to you

google this

overseas pack and send in usa to "your country"
 

Offline Helix70Topic starter

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Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #23 on: February 20, 2020, 09:49:34 am »
I'm not opposed to doing so, I have just never really explored it. I'm not a high volume seller by any means, I'm just a hobbyist who occasionally decides to part with something to make room for something else.

I suspect it's largely a case of not knowing about it, or concern that the already high paypal fees will be higher. I suppose there's also an element of fear, it's a lot easier for someone in a far off land to claim the item is not as described, damaged, didn't arrive, etc and a lot harder for us to do anything about it. There are some countries I'd be a lot more comfortable shipping to than others. I know several people who got scammed selling high value items to certain parts of the world. There are also a few notorious broker type companies that purchase items for foreign buyers and part of their normal business practice is to select the cheapest postage option submit a not received or damaged claim on anything that is not shipped with airtight signature confirmation and insurance.

Also as someone else said, contact the seller, I know that personally if someone contacts me and sounds genuinely interested and doesn't seem scammy I'm typically willing to work with them. Just because I've listed it as US only doesn't mean I'm completely unwilling to send it abroad, I just don't want added hassle every time and have been burned by a few past incidents that I don't want to repeat.

I didn't mean that specifically towards you, us Aussies get frustrated not being able to share in the bounty that is the US salvaged test gear market. Trying to understand so I can get better gear in the future without giving it to eBay or the government. 😀
 

Offline mjs

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  • Posts: 120
  • Country: fi
Re: Why is some ebay shipping so high?
« Reply #24 on: February 20, 2020, 11:05:02 am »
I'm selling some stuff from Finland and our local post is ridiculously expensive for international (and domestic..) shipments. That reflects directly on the eBay shipping price.

Also, USPS has fcked up a few of my shipments (late and refuneded, other destroyed+returned).

Well, I guess they need to cover the costs of delivering state sponsored shipments of small items from east.
 


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