Is Ebay's Global shipping an avantage or not to ship numismatic items out of the USA
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This is a loaded question and can lead to many arguments. I have seen coins valued at less than 5 $ with $17 GS charges.
There are a lot of snobby sellers who take the position that they are entitled NOT to take even the smallest risk.
Fact is that a seller does NOT see on his listing what GS charges and the so called import fees are assessed if the seller is located within the USA. All a seller has to do is to unmark the Feebay default setting in shipping preferences and indicate their own shipping methods.
Today is the first day of the rest of my life
Is Ebay's Global shipping an avantage or not to ship numismatic items out of the USA
This is a public poll: others will see what you voted for.
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so we are answering a question with a question? I guess I just did that too
Yes, I should have asked the questions in the poll in another way. sorry, but the post can not be deleted.
you can always make your feelings known by sending an answer instead of using the poll.
sorry
Its like you are asking me if I walked to work or brought a lunch . How about this ?
Do you think the GSP is horrible ? : Yes
That's not quite a fair statement. Shy of blanketly refusing bids from bidders from certain or all international locations, I have no control over where an item of mine is going to be sent when it's won. Depending on the location of the buyer, the PayPal fee could be 1-2% higher than if the buyer were located in the USA. In addition, many of the seller protections (specifically tracking options) are less consistent or nonexistent in other countries. Granted some countries are worse than others, but even among the best countries, I think it's fair to say that it's safer, particularly given eBay and PayPal's rules, to sell domestically than internationally.
This is where it's a case of both sides needing to understand what's going on. Sellers need to decide if the higher bids due to allowing international buyers makes up for whatever annoyance and risk they take on when an international bidder wins, and international bidders need to realize that if they want to buy something from the USA within the eBay sphere, there may be additional costs to doing that.
To counter your claim, I can tell you that there are tons of international buyers--it's a rare week that I don't have at least one or two--who think sellers should bend over backwards to accommodate them. This week I had a buyer complain multiple times about the invoiced shipping charge; he placed his bids only a few hours earlier, and only after I told him exactly what those charges would be.
There are costs to taking (or mitigating) risks, and while sellers may accept some of them to bring in more business, I don't think it's unfair that the other beneficiary pay them, as well.
In my non USA sales my shipping is to the US processing center.
It is the responsibility of the non USA buyers to assess whether the deal is good for them. Once the item leaves the USA processing center it’s out of my hands, not my problem.
Most of my items I block from Global sales but others under $100 cos, high margin at least cost x2 will roll dice with this.
I am a business man not Santa. Could care less if somebody thinks me snobby lol. Intl buyers Sb responsible for extra shipx, insurance to them.
Shipping out of the USA is a risk period. I have used Fed Ex to Canada with no problems but that's it for me. I wont ship to any other country.
I had to move an item from ebay to my site to sell it because the global shipping charges were $500 using ebay. I told the buyer they may still have duties that are applicable. Like Gluggo says : "it's a risk going outside the U.S.".
Yet, I've been getting items and sending items all over the world for years. If Steve Bezos can do it, why not you ?
A buyer will have to beg me to ship out of the country. Even then I don't. Most Canadians have friends in the USA and I just ask them to have their friend bid......
bob
I have not used it yet. If I was going to ship overseas I would consider using it, but not for Canada I would do that at PO myself. do you get special protection for fraud or is it just a convence you pay extra for?
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I will not ship outside of the US. Period.
In case someone is interested, you can see the estimated charges for the Global Shipping Program. In the section with the description, switch over to the shipping tab, and select your desired country. I chose Spain and see that a Spaniard would pay $16.81 in shipping and $61.00 in import charges (for this particular listing).
In my experience, many countries have large import fees via this program. However, some places, like Australia, have been cheaper to ship to via the Global Shipping Program (especially if the coin was made in that particular country).
For Australia, that very same item has $27.08 in shipping charges and $0 import fees.
I don't know any country that taxes or puts duties on their own coins coming back into the country. Canadian coins shipped to Canada are duty free. Just post them if you must ship outside the USA
Just so you know...the only foreign shipments I have lost in the last few years have been to Canada...and there are several! I have shipped to quite a few counties as well. I will not mention ethnics....but it does follow a pattern. If you do not get delivery confirmation through the USPS most of the times you will receive an item not received claim.
On a funny note I had one to Italy that did not show delivery confirmation. I told the buyer no offense...but if your item is lost I will report it to a growing number of ebay sellers who collaborate and block buyers with insecure shipping addresses. Guess what! He magically received it the next day after around 30 days!
Some countries tax any coin (locally produced or foreign made, regardless of where it was bought) if it doesn’t meet some standard (like 0.999 investment grade gold, etc).
And the example I provided in my prior post was a US coin.
Tis is fair trade...right!
I’d say the different shipping rates are ok (it does cost different amounts to deliver something to Spain vs Australia). As for the import charges, that is another story....
I was referring to the import charges. The USPS shipping costs out of the country have become outrageous as of late! Those are unfortunately non negotiable.
On eBay I will only use the global shipping program for international sales. I would not ship internationally at all before it began. Probably lose out on some sales but I don’t miss out on any more than I did before I started using it.
Even with the global shipping I have had buyers try and claim non receipt. eBay deals with those for me. Win win in my book.
I don’t sell many coins to Nevada either because I am required to charge sales tax, but now that I’m not required to collect sales tax in Ca. my CA sales have gone up. Go figure.
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I've shipped hundreds of items overseas without this global shipping nonsense or any form of insurance. I've lost maybe 6 total and 4 of those were to russian federation addresses. I just refund and move on if I get a complaint. Just add a 2 dollar handling fee and use that as a self insurance fund.
Granted I'm not shipping $1000 items but plenty of them were worth several hundred. If I have concerns about a particular item I exclude countries from that item alone.
I still ship to Russia , I don't ship to Italy anymore but thats more due to how long the items sit in customs , which generates complaints from buyers.
I ship coins and stamps worth under $100 in stamped envelopes with no tracking all the time and that much more reliable than packages with ebay stamped on the preprinted labels.
I've only shipped outside the US a few times, and there was a problem with every one of them. I no longer sell internationally, and do just fine without it.
As I said in another post, it is not so much the actual shipping cost.
It is the rip=off import fees! which in many cases would not be payable if shipped via the post office.
I have used the GS program a few times and has worked well. Once it arrives at the USA processing center my job is done - additional costs / risk assumed by buyer. Before would not ship internationally.
I have found it allows me get retail money on world material prolly not available from US buyers won’t pay the money. Generally my world material has higher markup. As in any business one has to anticipate costs / risks and markup accordingly.