New EBay conditions

[Cornelius]

Interestingly, I purchased a nice Rodenstock from Singapore last year. Got it dirt cheap, and in excellent condition. I admit I was a bit sketchy about the purchase, but Paypal is pretty good about covering buyers.

As a seller I understand the concern's, there seem to be more ways to get scammed.

[IanG]

Just remember that Ebay uses only one Dtabase.

So the Login details (user name & password) for Ebay.com are the same as .de .it .fr .uk etc and the watched items, user history are the same as well.

If in Australia just log in to the US Ebay, I do this regularly with US & German versions as searches don't always map well across all Interfaces.

Ian

[612tom]

Ebay has changed for me - an Australian. A very reliable buyer too I might add.

It used to be the case that I could still contact a seller who listed their stuff as 'US only'. Now I cant even contact them. I think the new policy is that when a seller says, 'US only' it also means you have to be in the US to be able to contact them.

What this means is I can't "encourage" someone who is a bit frail on the issue of overseas buyers.

What it also means is that the product will sell for less than it should've if left to an open market. Sometimes the difference can be more than 50% on a lot of LF gear. The decision to sell to the US only is amost invariably a financial decision. "Should I get half the money I could?"

Needless to say there are some who like it that way !! (You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink...)

Hi Steve, Tom from Melbourne here. I have a US freight forwarder who handles all my purchases from the US. I have their address as my ship-to in Ebay and therefore have never had any trouble contacting sellers listing US only auctions.

Everything I buy from BH, Adorama, Badger, Freestyle, eBay and not to mention the girlfriend's online credit-card-melting activity (!) all goes to my forwarder, who consolidates it all into nice neat parcels, ships via Fedex, and arrives safely on my desk 3 days later. Keeping each shipment under our $1000 tax free limit is the key.

Drop me a PM if you want to discuss - being able to buy and import easily from the US is a total must for us here in Oz. Not just for price, but sheer lack of availability locally...

Cheers

Tom

[Two23]

There are many times when I found an item listed as US sales only, but if I asked the seller to ship to Canada, it was usually answered with an enthusiastic "yes".
.

Since I live relatively close to Canada, I've been there a number of times. Nice people, and it was almost like being in a foreign country.


Kent in SD

[photobymike]

Interestingly, I purchased a nice Rodenstock from Singapore last year. Got it dirt cheap, and in excellent condition. I admit I was a bit sketchy about the purchase, but Paypal is pretty good about covering buyers.

As a seller I understand the concern's, there seem to be more ways to get scammed.

Credit cards in Singapore can be verified and confirmed.. have bought and sold a number of items with a good ending.

[swmcl]

Hi Andrew,

Yes its the same Toowoomba where the floods happened and loss of life.

I'm a West Australian though and arrived a week or 10 days after the Great Events so I wasn't affected in the slightest fortunately. We were delayed in our overland arrival by another flood event in western NSW which forced us into Victoria but that's it.

The loss of life down the hill was the worst. Down there they were innocent victims of a huge wall of water.

Rgds,

[jloen]

Is delivery confirmation available on US Mail packages sent outside the US?

I don't think so.

I sold some books to people in Europe and the PO told me they could not confirm delivery. Potentially, an unscrupulous buyer could say it did not arrive, and ask for a refund (free product), or a replacement product (2 for price of 1).

Not so good for the seller, although in my case I had no problems.

[swmcl]

I'm not sure whether the information gets back to the original sender but I've sure signed for a heap of packages from the US. Insured mail is signed for all the way I understand. Tracking is a bit different but I certainly don't get the package until I sign. If an insurance company 'guarantees' a delivery by insuring it they are sure interested in whether it arrives!! They'd be losing a tonne of money due to false claims otherwise.

As a seller, just make sure you insure everything for more than it costs you. (Even if you're sending it around the block or to the next city!)

[toolbox]

Is delivery confirmation available on US Mail packages sent outside the US?

I don't think so.

If you send it Priority Mail it is. Parcel post, it's not... When I ship internationally, most people opt for just regular airmail because it's so much cheaper than PM. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've never a problem...my day is probably coming though. I've mailed things all over Europe, Asia, and South America...biggest problems I've had were with Italy of all places.
I also buy from overseas sellers sometimes, and haven't had any problems. Recently bought a Pentacon 6 from a guy in Russia that took a month to get here. Wasn't his fault though...it was stuck in customs forever. Remarkably, when I called the USPS to get the status on it, it went into the mail for delivery...coincidence?

[Ivan J. Eberle]

I'll ship Int'l priority to someone overseas via the LFF For Sale forum. But it's understood they're going to pay the PayPal fees upfront.

Problem I've got with selling International via ebay & Paypal is they seem to have gotten greedy enough to want to collect a percentage of the shipping, and their shipping calculator sucks (It always reverts to paying for shipping online at their discounted rate-- and doesn't add insurance).

For LF gear, shipping Int'l often runs 1/3 or more the cost of a piece, and 14% of that skimmed by eBay quickly adds up. Only way to recoup it is to pad the shipping, and that can make you look bad as a seller. Then too, I don't want to be eating shipping on frivolous returns...

PayPal also charges a higher % for Int'l transactions, last sale I had it was ~4.5%.