Why do US collectors not like shipping to other countries?

General
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This thread divided in:

  • Sellers only using GSP and give a rats ass about figuring out how to ship to EU/AU
  • Sellers that are happy to use GSP to sell 3$ cards
  • Sellers that just refuse to ship to EU/AU because they ignorant on how to do it
  • Sellers in Europe/Australia that know US sellers can ship to them for less than 5$ but never get the option offered
  • Buyers in Europe/Australia being frustrated with sellers only using GSP or not offering service at all.

Gary offers free shipping
Rusty offers flat rate for like 3-5$ for cards under 50$

It’s about OPTIONS OPTIONS OPTIONS!
It’s not like you’re gonna earn less per card to slam on a stamp to EU/AU, you just value your time to much to be a decent enough seller to give the option.

Ok. A seller with like 50-100 Feedback on eBay, that never dealt with it before I can understand he blocks outside US. But a seller with more than 200 feedback should really check into it.

I’ve bought cards on eBay from people with 20 feedback, offering no shipping to EU, but when I asked for it their first answer was “yes sure, that will be about 6$ give or take”. Even those low volume sellers know how to do it. Shipping to France, Germany, Italy or Australia is nothing different than shipping to Canada or Hawaii.

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I love @pokemonrevolution who ships psa cards to me trqcked from usa to aus for $4 :grin:

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@1by1collector how… there’s no tracked option I’ve ever seen that cheap that goes outside the US.

I let the eBay global shipping program handle overseas shipping for me so I am not responsible for whatever happens once the item leaves the US. I think a lot depends on the price of the items you’re selling as well. If your average item price is $10 or $150 plays a big part. I sell a lot of lower dollar cards and am not going to post directly overseas but I will combine listings for buyers.

If the buyer handled any of the risk for purchases it’d be a different story. But through eBay and PayPal buyers carry 0 risk. If I could offer global tracked shipping with an option for regular mail ($2-4) not tracked and the buyer took the risk if the item got lost or eaten by customs I’d offer that.

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But there is that option.

It’s through PayPal, if the buyer pays goods, you can print a label for even sub $4.

I bought a card off @funmonkey54 for $6.04AU postage which included a bubble mailer. That’s tracked shipping btw.

Edit: just checked the tracking of my card.

Shipped (VA, USA) 7th August. Arrived in my city (Perth, Australia) 11th of August. Should deliver in the next few days.

$4.60US for Express tracked. Amazing.

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I took a closer look. Appears that he used USPS First Class International Large Envelope (Flat) option. I was unaware there was tracking on items sent that method and their stupid website is of no help as usual. This is part of the problem that we (US sellers) have is all the confusion and general lack of information or educated individuals in the marketplace to provide guidance. We’ve seen a number of discussions on similar matters and all the information is unclear at best.

I still can’t find confirmation on USPS’ website that First Class Flats can be tracked. The closest I can find is this and it basically says they are excluded from tracking services:
about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2013/fs-free-online-tracking.htm

Service outlined here, again, no mention of tracking services:
www.usps.com/international/first-class-mail-international.htm

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I have checked the USPS website before, and as a foreigner, it’s almost impossible to figure out if you’re over-paying for your shipping or not. You just have to hope the seller, and GPS, is not scamming you on the shipping price.

The statement about Rusty I made earlier; I have to clear up the shipping he used was tracked with my latest received package from him. So it’s possible to ship tracked across the Atlantic or Pacific for less than 10$.

Isn’t the GPS going the cover the sellers ass when something goes wrong? And the GPS is just printing out a package label after the listing and drop off the package at the post office. Not offering is even a worse offence than the GPS awful rip-off pricing.

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In all my time of selling and buying (I’m from The Netherlands btw) I’ve only had four lost packages. One I send myself to France, one I bought from Germany and two I bought from the US. This includes over 1,000 packages and letters over a course of around five years (mainly twisty puzzles, Yu-Gi-Oh cards and Pokémon cards). And The Netherlands to/from France and Germany is only a couple hundred kilometers…
BUT, lost packages happen sometimes. It sucks, but it happens. I’ve been a mailman myself for two years, so I know mistakes are made and corrected sometimes. Can be during sorting, can be during delivery, can be during transit, can be somewhere else. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes… EVERYWHERE in the world.

Just like some others here, like @xzini , @ivindicatei , @pokemontrader, etc. I’ve had to see some amazing deals fly by in the past due to sellers not shipping from the US to me. Or - in my opinion even worse - they do offer shipping, but it costs 50-120 USD for a package that weights less than 100 grams… Had this happen to me before I started collecting Pikachus and was mainly focusing on my twisty puzzles. I had seen an amazing puzzle from 1991 in a video that I really wanted, and had been looking for one for a long time. About halve a year after I first started looking one popped up for bid. Shipping costs from the US to me: 105 USD… Like wtf, I could almost hop on a plain and pick it up myself for that price… :unamused: :angry: So I contacted the seller to ask why it was this high. He said it was what eBay charged to ship internationally. He was able to lower it to 60 USD however… So, I bid on the item, and since it’s a rare item and I obviously wasn’t the only one looking for it, it ended above my max bid of 140 USD. However: My max bid was 80 USD due to that goddamn 60 USD shipping costs I had to add. In the end the auction itself ended at 110 USD, most likely to someone living in the US. So I lost, even though I was willing to pay more than the winner, only due to the outrageous shipping fee… (I do have two copies of that puzzle now however, bought it another halve year later. :slightly_smiling_face: )

Anyway, this was the first time I had ever bid on eBay, and I was pretty disappointed and pissed at the time (especially since I was looking for that puzzle for more than halve a year). So I posted on eBay’s forum. Some were like “Well, that’s just too bad. If you wanted it, you just had to offer more than the winner…” :neutral_face: But other sellers from the US stated they ship internationally sometimes and it would only cost like 5-10 USD, and 60-100 USD was indeed outrageous.

Also one other thing: I sometimes have the feeling Americans are raised with the mentality that they are the superior country and the center of the world. I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way, but that is just how your culture is. Sometimes when I see some comments of kids from the US on YouTube videos I see they don’t even know where countries like the UK or France are located… They’ve lived inside a bubble in the US. (On the other hand, I also don’t know where each of the States are located, so maybe it’s not that weird I guess. :wink: ) And I could name a few other examples.

But this mentality also contributed to this shipping fiasco. Retail sellers might think along the lines of: “I don’t know how to ship (cheap) outside the US, and I honestly don’t really care nor want to figure it out. You’re not from the US anyway. I also don’t want to deal with the possibility of my package getting lost, because I don’t know your country.” Some may think it slightly different, but tbh, I can see their point. When I first started selling I also only shipped domestic, just to save me the hassle to go to the post office every time. Everyone has their own reasons to do/don’t do certain things.
Of course the majority of the people from US don’t think this way fortunately, like Danny, Rusty, Gary, Scott, etc. And I can also see some of the points mentioned by those from the US who aren’t really selling internationally, like you Nate / @scratchdesk (and I appreciate you trust me enough to have shipped multiple times to me :grin: Thanks).

Big US sellers will most likely ship internationally for a very reasonable price, but retail sellers putting something up for the first time on eBay might not.

Unfortunately however, this entire discussion is kinda pointless. If they don’t want to ship internationally, we can response with some shipping options that are available and which arrived without a problem from fellow US sellers to educate and convince them. If they then still refuse, then that’s their choice and bad luck for us international buyers. They loose a potential customer, we loose a potential deal, but it’s still their choose and we can’t force them. We just have to deal with it and look elsewhere.

Greetz,
Quuador

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I just find it is a double standard for them to say they don’t want to ship because of “security” and fears of losing packages, yet they want us to ship to them cheaply??

When people ask for tracking, my response is that is around $10-15. People are gobsmacked half of the time, but if you think about it… That’s generally the price we international buyers need to pay to get stuff tracked to us?

US shipping is extremely cheap for intracontinental. Tracking between states is what $2? Lol. I just don’t see why we can’t purchase cards and ship in lettermail or pay for tracking if we want?? People just go up with their noses and don’t want to learn something new.

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Thanks @ozenigma for clarifying things for @scratchdesk. I and so many other aussies buy cards all the time from pokemonrevolutions. Hats off to him for providing a cost effective solution with tracking available. I grit my teeth when im buying a $50 card from someone and gotta pay $20 postage, if only they educated themselves.

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Where are you shipping from?

Here in Portugal, tracked signed on delivery, worldwide is 6€ until 250g. 250 grams is a lot of weight to work with. Of course the tracking doesn’t always work because the national postal service of the receiving country has to do the tracking “if they want”. Never had problems in Europe or USA and the only tracked item that didn’t receive any updates during transit was to Australia (buyer never said anything, so I assume it got there safe and sound).

I can understand the view of the US seller, since they can have the confirmation of every step of the way until the destination, hence keeping potential problems at bay. Sometimes it is really frustrating to see a good deal slip away. I use middleman in those cases (in this case family which is better on the fees XD )

I am not aware of Fedex or DHL type of services to post internationally from EU. With those you can get the full tracking history on point. Have anyone use it before?

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Nothings been clarified for me. Not to start an argument but there is nothing online I can find that states any method of shipping short of USPS First Class International Package services include tracking. That means it starts at $12 or so, not $4. There’s a customs #… perhaps that is used to track once it enters some countries? I don’t get it…

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Keep in mind exchange rates and locations.
I’m Canadian, so 6 EUR is $9 CAD. Slightly less than my post above, but I still need to pay around there for tracking.

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Lol

I have explained it. It’s printed through PayPal if the item has been paid via PayPal goods and services.

@funmonkey54 can confirm the seller requirements though.

As I’ve said, I paid $4.60US including bubble mailer and it’s taken 5 business days so far.

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I ship to the United States for free on all my items in my store. For international I ship to the GSP center for free, you just pay whatever fees they decide to add on. Overall, I have a “defect rate” of less than 1%. With that I mean mostly buyers of sub $10 items claiming that they didn’t receive it, but there is also other defects like return to sender from people not knowing their address or something similarly dumb. :rage: My defect rate for the GSP is exactly 0% with hundreds of shipments to date, may even be nearing 1,000 at this point. The few short times I have shipped directly internationally I have had in excess of 10% and even likely nearer to 20% defect rate. Claims of non receipt on items that were supposed to be tracked, but then never scanned in the destination country. Buyer protection nails you every time. Or returned packages from the buyer not knowing their address costing me $20+ now instead of $3 or something. I have lost hundreds over a few transactions in the short times I have shipped internationally. On top of all that, I can drop U.S. destination packages in any blue box across the country or even in my mailbox. Many international packages need to be physically handed over to the clerk during business hours (when I work), so I would have to take personal time to ship them out. On top of that again, tons of international buyers want me to break the law in under-reporting the value of the items for tax fraud.

It is so annoying when entitled international folk come along and complain about my shipping costs on my listings. If you don’t like it then don’t buy it. I don’t walk down to the local card store and b*tch about all of his boxes being $100 when I can easily go online and buy any of those boxes for $90 or so. It is great to have the option to buy things at the local shop and if I don’t like the prices then I just don’t buy. Same goes for my store. I give international buyers the option to buy all my stuff, if you don’t like the price then move along. Most times I am sure the frustration stems from the fact that they “need” the card that I am selling and I am the only one offering it. Forum members I have always had good luck with and I will always find a way to ship directly, and I have also built up a decent contact list of some other international buyers but overall I just can’t sell to the general international public on eBay. I am bound to get stupid and try it again in the next year or so, but hopefully I will avoid repeating that same mistake again.

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I agree with you, but I think you are a bit out of line saying foreign buyers are entitled.

The reality is the US is probably the most free trade friendly country is the world. Let’s be honest, if it was the reverse it would be the US sellers asking the Euro sellers to do the same thing. All the cards are in Europe and you paid duty/taxes on $25 US, everyone would be asking for their packages to be declared undervalued when shipped to the US. It’s not entitled they just don’t want their governments to give it to them.

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@kanagawacards It is 100% entitlement when they think they have the right to tell me how to ship my items or complain about me using the GSP. Or complain when I won’t break the law for them. I am not speaking about all international buyers, just the ones who do those things. It is 100% nonsense as well when they get frustrated in paying $XX shipping on a $XX card. Who the hell cares what part of it is shipping and what part is the item. All it matters is the all in cost to the door. If you like it then pay it if not then move on. I have had hundreds of successful GSP sales with no complaints and exactly 0 issues on my end. In some of those cases it was a buyer paying $18 shipping/customs on a card that was $2 in my store. Seems crazy to you and me likely, but in that case I am sure I was selling some obscure card or variant that they were unable to find anywhere else. The card was worth $20 to them so they paid it. They didn’t cry about paying $18 shipping on a $2 card.

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I’m a buyer and I find this frustrating at times. I hate when I go on ebay and find the item that I want only to find out that they won’t ship it to me. Sometimes the items sits there for a very long time or doesn’t get sold and I’m like if only you would ship to me then you would have sold it ages ago. I now see it as their loss because I’ve learned I just have to be patient and eventually the same item I want will come up and I’ll buy it then. I’ve not had a package go missing and I’ve been using Ebay now for 5 years. (From Canada) I for one like to make sure the seller is content with me because I want the seller to have good expiernces selling internationaly. It benefits everyone in the long run (of course that’s if things were described right in the listing, they did a good job packaging the item etc… which for me there has been no issues knock on wood). I buy on a monthly basis.

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This is one thing that I do not understand… when you login on ebay.ca or whatever it is, why does eBay even show you listings that you are unable to buy? I can see how that would be annoying, but that shouldn’t be the case in my store ever. I sell everywhere just with GSP. I assume eBay would also have a sort by GSP/not GSP? Again I could understand frustration a bit if not, and I think if either of those things are the case then eBay should look into changing them.

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Because they don’t need to, they’re already in the biggest market.

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Which American are you?

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I think they don’t know how to write a country other than USA on a package…
And just stuck into their own world and scared of shipping overseas as they are scared for things to go missing or wrong.
Same thing goes for any country in the world. People are scared to post overseas as its so far and dangerous…

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