Annoying buyers

Have had so many annoying buyers asking for g&s and spamming me to do international shipping when I have it turned off.

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You can set site preferences to block messages from blocked buyers FYI

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Unfortunately all they have to do is select an item and they can still contact the seller. The best is just to ignore. It’s tough at times, but ultimately not worth engaging.

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The box on the buyer requirements page says:

“Don’t allow blocked buyers to contact me. (Buyer won’t see the “Contact Seller” button on your Q&A page.) Note: Buyers can still contact you about existing transactions, unless you add them to your blocked list.”

So it sounds like if they are blocked due to you having preferences setup to prevent buyers from purchasing who are from places you don’t ship to, they can’t contact via your seller page, but can contact you through an item.

My understanding though is if you specifically add them to your blocked list by name, they can’t message you at all. I’ve never really monitored this in practice though.

@teraz, Unfortunately they can subvert the block by just select an item, select a drop down option and still contact the seller.

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Why don’t people wanna send international now? Really hard being a Norwegian collector now a days with the cheapest shipping option being 17$ 99% of the time and sellers that don’t wanna send out of US…

We still sell international and have had 0 issues sending over seas even during covid

Edit: And what do they mean by goods and Service? I have never gotten that question

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I can see some sellers scared of shipping delay due to Covid.

Mentioning G&S in eBay messages is just stupid, even if seller wants to do G&S they can’t because mentioning it will trigger eBay alarms automatically.

I understand that some sellers may not want to ship internationally, but from our perspective this is annoying for non-US buyers as well. You have GSP, FedEx, UPS, DHL if you’re worried of covid delays. What’s the issue when the buyer is willing to pay for express services?

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shipping international is a huge bitch right now. for low end items it’s not worth the time and effort, and for high end items the worry of something going wrong is too high. I had a high end item come in recently from across seas that was delayed by 2 weeks and the box was completely water damaged. Thank goodness the seller double boxed, and plastic sealed the item or it would have been an absolute disaster for both of us

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I still don’t understand why its a ”huge bitch" to send overseas? One item getting water damage does not really have anything to do with the internation part does it? That can happen no matter where you send a card.

I have still to lose a single card both in sale or in a purchase international, I might not be as big as a lot of people but with thousands of purchases and soon 500+ sales oversea one would think I atleast knew something.

Just two weeks ago I sent cards to Italy, and no problem at all with them either even tho he was located in a lockdown zone

I prefer shipping overseas. In fact, I market to them. Most the time I list something like on Instagram I start them in the middle of the USA night so international see them first.

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I live in a little country in EU and I have had little problems with international shipping (3 times but I have had more than 210 trades last 6 months.) 1-2% probability of lost package is very low, and I take the risk quite easily…
edit: Today I did a package with China as destination country (my first time). I have wrote the English address and below the chinese address (I copied and paste using computer), I admit that I’m curious to see if it works (I have fully insured it) :stuck_out_tongue:

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If you do not want to ship internationally, that is totally up to you. However, I do not understand the rationale behind it. What is the risk? As long as you purchase insurance for the shipment, there is no monetary risk. Moreover, since you are selling through eBay, you are guaranteed the funds if the buyer has paid.

Also, since the buyer had a U.S. address for you to ship to, why would you not sell it to them?

Another option is to use the eBay global shipping program where they take care of the international shipping, customs fees, etc. I have used it quite a lot and it has always worked well.

Which costs money, especially if you are insuring the entire cost of the item (and if you only choose to insure part of it, then yes; there is monetary risk).

It’s obviously much easier for an item to get lost in international shipping than domestic shipping.

There are clear reasons why some sellers choose not to sell internationally. Like you said in your first sentence: totally up to the seller.

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Thank you for chiming in. I guess I have never considered shipping a card without insurance. Do other sellers typically not insure their shipments, especially the more expensive ones?

While not insuring a shipment is definitely a reason to not ship overseas, I am still unclear as to what other reasons there are that a seller would choose not to sell internationally. Could you please elaborate?

Maybe 5% of the time I insure. Especially internationally I don’t insure, I get paid friends/family, and I put 16.00 declare on customs. I feel it’s more important to save the buyer as much money as possible.
Lastly, I’ve found international traders waaay more understanding, honest, and reliable than my homies here in the states;)

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Does this mean even for 5 & 6 figure transactions sometime you take the plunge?

That might be smart idea, so the package isn’t targeted.

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I completely understand what you mean. I’m from Finland myself and many US sellers won’t sell outside US and if they do, they often use GSP which is even more expensive. That being said, I’ve personally stopped messaging sellers that don’t ship outside US or use GSP. It’s rare to get them make a shift. It’s unfortunate, but I don’t want to be those “annoying buyers”. But at the same time I keep thinking why are Americans so scared to ship overseas. Especially Europe when Europe is like one of the most unproblematic places you could ship to.

Also another thing that I’m noticing is that US people are quick to complain about shipping costs if it’s high for their standards. I can’t ship anything to the US tracked for less than $15. Any PSA card I buy from the US has that $15 shipping cost and it just is what it is. I had couple PSA cards for sale on eBay and only offered tracked shipping to the US due to the delays there were couple months ago. I can’t ship a PSA card tracked for less than $23 because of the weight. I soon had people on messages complaining about the shipping cost or dropping offers where shipping cost were counted off the offer price… I can’t sell a card for $25 including shipping when the shipping costs $23 lol… But now I’ve noticed that shipping delays between the US and Europe aren’t really happening anymore and the delivery times seem to be back to decent time range and I’ve received the last delayed package that I had. Things are getting back to normal.

The weirdest thing to me though is when UK sellers only ship to the UK or use GSP to other European countries… It’s just wild.

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Unfortunately eBay GSP will only take items up to a certain amount. A £4000 card is not insured when sent through GSP and technically shouldn’t be sent.