i ship worldwide... if you will pay the shipping i dont mind the time... my first trade on this board was with mark and i had no problem sending him stuff to japan it was easy... and i sent records to australlia last week
not sure what you are implying, that the US post office regularly victimizes its customers or foreign government employees are less likely to help themselves to the contents of your package ? if you are just trolling for sport I'll move on.
I think he means that corruption is found easily everywhere, including the US (for example, politicians) and that your statement can come across as racist
I can't see how you could read what I wrote and interpret it as anything other than what you said. my point was obviously that you can exclude international buyers and still get ripped off domestically here in the states. If my statement came across as insulting it was certainly unintentional, and the are an infinite number of ways to express that without purposely being a drippy dickhole.
That statement can easily come off as xenophobic. With that being said, I do understand the point you were trying to make.
Let's not turn this in to a I FART A LOT fight, over one ignorent dump ass coment! May I come up with a suggestion, too all of those living outside the US, in our little third world mud huts Let's try too make things easyer, for US sellers, by posting step by step guides on international shipping. Perhaps if we made a post that could either confirm or reject that a internationel transaction went smooth, it could at least haunt those false roumors down, that seem too be around. We need too know more about this subject, let's share our knoledge, in order too help each other out. Please!
have you not been reading? It has little to do with not understanding how to ship internationally but more to do with the extra steps involved, time spent, and a conflict in cost for insured/tracked packages. How many times does it need to be said that this is the individuals choice. I have always been willing to ship internationally but after reading this ridiculous thread I'm thinking of changing my policy.
If its an individual choice why is it always Americans choosing to do this? Ive never seen individuals from any other country on this board doing this. Rune was being ironic by the way.
the only problems ive ever had, and got scammed on was shipping overseas... i never have said i wont ship overseas, but i do make sure that the customer will pay the exspense... u can always ship first class, and register the package... to register i cant remember but its somewhere around $10 on top of the shipping... some folks clearly dont want to pay the additional fees though... ive ran into a few boardies that wanted me to ship overseas at my selling price, and i wouldnt do it because id be out of pocket more $, when i was already selling the items at a discount.
doesn't hurt to ask as it's always a negotiation, but they must not really want that toy at that price.
There in lies the problem. Most sales here from what I can see are already priced at a discounted 'skullbrainer rate', also trending towards shipping included for North American delivery. I don't think US sellers are trying to purposely exclude shipping overseas as really the customs form is a snap to fill out (I do this 2-3 times a week). I think what people overseas don't realize is the exorbitant cost of shipping a package tracked out of the US. The USPS are a bunch of con artists because they're completely in debt, about to go under and for the most part have become obsolete (except for domestically shipping packages cheaply). If they can get you for anything above an beyond delivering stateside they rake you over the coals. Like I said before anything over 4 pounds is $53.50 minimum tracked.
The next time anyone goes to the PO, ask the clerk for customs forms or EMS forms. This extra time spent trying to fill out forms is bull. The only thing extra you are adding to what you already need is the description of contents area. Does that really take another 5-10mins of your time? That extra time you spend adding tracking and insurance is not just for the person getting the package but for your sake as well. Oh wait, that's about the same amount of time as adding tracking and insurance to a conus package... (I know some are thinking) "But I just print everything out on the computer..." (my answer) Yeah...cause it's so hard to pick up a pen and write something. I cannot form letters using such an archaic tool. Shipping price too high for the buyer? Well, there's nothing we can do about that. You can send the buyer the shipping price quoted on the USPS website and if they don't go for it...oh well, move on. Here's another thing, everyone complaining that they've been ripped off...for as long as I've been collecting, a lot of the people doing the ripping off are mostly in the US. Maybe when I do another sale it will be International sales only or pick up. No US sales. I've never gotten ripped off by an International buyer/seller...even those in a third world country (and I'm from a third world country so don't tell me about how the politics are in a third world country if you've never spent a good amount of time in one). As a matter of fact, someone even mentioned that the worst places to send a package are France and Italy. Are those 3rd world? The point andy is trying to make is this...and I will use andy as an example and myself: Let's say I buy a toy from andy. Transaction goes smooth, toy arrives, no problems. Then I put a toy up for sale and andy wants to buy it but I tell him, sorry I don't ship overseas. Tell me that's not fucked up.
I thought I just answered this. There are a few personal answers I can think of off the top of my head but I cannot speak for all Americans. Here is one reason, to expand on Lixx's answer, say I sell a $15 rxh(wish I could) and someone from France wants it. In order to protect myself from a paypal claim I have to be able to show tracking which means I have to ship Priority Mail which will cost about $30. I cannot ship the cheaper route, unless you are friends and can completely trust each other, because the cheaper first class mail option has no tracking. If the buyer is a scammer and claims he never got the package and you can't show tracking you will lose your toy AND your money. So who wants to spend more on shipping than the item itself? Sometimes it might just be easier to deny an overseas shipment than to have to explain this over and over again. I get the feeling a lot of people outside the US don't realize just how expensive it is to ship and what all is involved. Besides the high price, if you aren't set up at home with a printer, scale, and packaging materials, you might even have to waste time and gas driving to the post office to fill out forms and stand in line. It's not as cheap and easy as some may think. Nobody wants to lose the opportunity to make a sale so you should give the seller the benefit of the doubt and allow them to make the decision weather or not to ship internationally.
Yes...and I'd bet not just to andy but to a lot of others that live outside the US. I've had to have stuff sent to me to ship out to China and the Philippines because people won't ship overseas...even to someone that has a good reputation on the board. It's not about extra time, or shipping costs. It's about denying someone that you know is not out to scam you, just because they live overseas.
it is about extra time. it's a pain in the ass. overseas= i have to go to the post office and wait in line... and it fucking sucks domestic= i can do this in the comfort of my office that being said, I do ship overseas because I'm a nice guy. when I offer a good deal... & get several PM's, sometimes I tell myself "dammit" if it is someone is overseas... but I'm fair. So I can see why some people don't want to do int'l... you don't have to buy from them & they don't have to sell. However, this is a community... it would be in someone's best interest to sell overseas
wait, now I'm confused, did I miss something because I don't see Andy saying this I see you saying it Bert. Andy's first post in this thread was pretty clear and that's what I was trying to explain. I do agree with your comment though.
This! I always forget to recycle shipping boxes (because I don't sell often). I don't own a printer nor a postal scale and I'm quite horrible about guessing actual weight. The USPS website will often give you completely different information than if you go to an actual branch. I once had to make three trips to the PO because I had to get shipping quotes for a buyer (records) and still the postal employees told me misinformation twice. I have no problems shipping abroad as I do 2-3 times a week, but I just wanted people overseas to get an idea of how inefficient our postal system is, how expensive it can be, how daft our postal employees are, and like Slack said you really need to cover your ass with tracking for paypal. The only postal system I think is worse is the Canadian postal system. I'd like to know how easy is it in Japan with EMS? Not trying to be a smart ass either. They seem to have their shit together.
Don't know about the US, but over here you can simply take home a small pamphlet from the PO that lists all services (and can come in very handy when you need to school incompetent employees). And behold, there are actually ways of sending stuff overseas from Germany for less than the $20-$50 they would charge you for a regular parcel by simply sending it as a certified letter (incl. - albeit shitty - tracking) which, when shipping internationally, can have the measurements of a regular parcel and weigh up to four lbs. Go figure. The only catch is that I believe these aren't insured as highly as a $50 parcel would be; but then I guess hardly any postal employee will recognize the actual value of some weird Japanese toy that I labeled as being worth $15 even if they took a peek inside the package with intent to steal...
in the uk,,,the only difference between sending an inland package & an overseas package is filling out the customs form (fill-in value,,contents,,gift or merch & sign) and writing "small packet" on the box... it maybe takes 30seconds longer at most....not really a big deal.... if i limited sales to uk only...i'd only have a buying audience of 6 maybe 7 people...
