International shipping on ebay

Does anyone have experience shipping items internationally? If so, what kind of issues have you encountered?



I have a product I am selling on ebay and a couple of potential buyers asked me to list the item for international shipping. I am nervous about shipping internationally. More specifically about buyers claiming not receiving the item. Or claiming 'item not as described' although I have in the description sold untested and "As Is". How does ebay resolve these problems. Thanks in advance.

ebay will decide any issue in favor of the buyer. Doesn't matter if it is your next door neighbor.

I don't ship outside the country because it just makes the shipping cost go through the roof.

I rarely ship internationally and when I do, I always put the shipping on the buyer. Most times, they will say, "ThxbutnoThx." I find that weeds out a lot of timewasters.

If you ship Priority, you can still track it. It will even insure so make sure you are thinking of that, too. Just be watchful that your mailing addressee and PayPal match up in every case. I found a number of buyers use some kind of air bulk shipping so that the recipient is actually whomever is working the desk at Trans-Continent-Or-Whatever in NJ or Delaware. If the buyer entered that as their PayPal address, as long as it gets to that location, eBay will say it arrived and fulfilled the buyer's obligation, and an unscrupulous buyer can rip you off by saying they never received. The sort-of workaround for that is if you add Signature Confirmation to the box. Then, when it gets to this hypothetical desk, they will have to say it arrived where PayPal says it was going, which in turn fulfills your obligation. If they never get it, you say, "I sent it to your PayPal address--see, it was even signed for when it arrived." The fact that it wasn't them who signed is not your problem. But as you will hear, eBay almost always sides with the buyer, unless they have been incredibly stupid (threatened your feedback score inside eBay's messaging service, for example).

To date, I have had more unpleasant transactions with domestic buyers than with people out-of-country.

I've sold a few items internationally, mainly to Canada. If your item can fit into an international flat rate envelope or small flat rate box the price is quite affordable. I typically charge $20 shipping for Canada and absorb the rest of the shipping costs into my profits.

I looked at the Global Shipping and I didn't see an option for buyer to pay shipping? This question pertains to the selling of my highest value item of this year, which is why I am leery about shipping international.

I have had 3 out-of-country buyers in 2017 use freight-forwarding services.
I usually do not sell outside of the US due to the cost of shipping. A $6 domestic package can easily turn into a $35 international shipment.

I have only sold a few items to Canada, so I don't have a great answer. I have sold a lot through ebay over the years. It is not the same animal anymore. Every time I sell something now I get a knot in my stomach, just waiting to get screwed over by buyer and more so by ebay/paypal. I have moved away from scrap/re-selling for this reason. Now I play electrician after day job and on weekends... which generates some copper/aluminum/shred, but mostly $$.