Buying in the States was Re: HP analyzer probes

From: Rob O'Donnell <classiccmp.org_at_irrelevant.fsnet.co.uk>
Date: Wed Jun 30 04:52:53 2004

At 07:21 30/06/2004, Hans B PUFAL wrote:

>The eBay "will ship to <insert your country of choice> only" is something
>I do not understand. Why reduce your potential
>market? An international buyer knows they will have to pay for shipping
>and that might put them off but why shut them out
>completely? The extra hassle of an international shipment cannot be that
>great, at least it isn't in my experience here in Europe.

I find exactly the same thing. So many times I get desperate to find
something, make no hits on ebay UK, search ebay.com and find loads. Will
you consider shipping internationally? Nope...

Wheras we sell on ebay UK, (mostly off-topic glass animals and suchlike)
and ship worldwide. I've posted packets all across Europe, Australasia,
South America, etc., but by far the majority of international sales are to
the US.

Apart from the postage, outside Europe there's only a customs sticker to
do, and a bit more care needed over packaging, but it's not a lot of work..

Of course we then hit the "just click pay-now-with-paypal" on ebay problem
where eBay just adds in local UK postage and not the extra for
international shipping, and more than one person a week cannot read... Oh
and the "what's that in real money?" questions .. Or we receive money
orders in USD for the figure we billed in GBP..


Mind you ... the most amusing thing was one sale - we import porcelain
figures from Hagen-Renaker in California, put some on eBay Uk, and sold
them ... to a buyer in California.. A long round-trip for those particular
horses!

>So this leads me to propose that we set up staging addresses in the States
>(and any other country for that matter). For
>a small fee participants would agree to receive and transship packages for
>other members on the opposite side of the world.
>I would be happy to offer my services in that regard.

We ended up using my sister-in-law's fiance's parents (who are in the US)
to relay one item we wanted. Had to send the seller USD 11 in CASH because
they didn't accept anything electronic. (But we had it, as we ourselves
accept cash payments in foreign money, and keep it for this eventuality.)

Rob
Received on Wed Jun 30 2004 - 04:52:53 BST