Date   : Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:48:13 +0100
From   : robert@... (Rob)
Subject: Overseas posting

On 10/08/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...> wrote:
> Sprow wrote:
> > I find a lot of isolationist Americans on eBay who wont ship to the UK, and
> > I struggle to understand why since they'd need to go to the post office to
> > post it inland - what's so hard about putting a blue airmail sticker on it
> > too?

There's the customs declaration stocker/form, too, which can be a bit
of a nightmare if you've never done them before. But if you sell
regularly, then they are no more a problem than writing  the address
label.


>
> Risk of damage / risk of buyer claiming it never turned up (and having to go
> through an insurance claim to get their money back), I suspect. I believe that
> ebay's policies favour the buyer when there are disputes about shipping,
> unless that's changed these days.
>
I think they still do, unless you have traceable proof of posting -
which means, for the UK, "International Signed For" as this gives you
a receipt number you can enter on the Royal Mail website to proove it
was accepted at the post office, plus tracking on it's journey.  As
it's not an insignificant extra cost, most people don't other, and
then that's where the problems begin.



> Personally I'm always a bit wary of selling to people abroad that I've never
> heard of - but I'm happy to do it if I've had any kind of dealing with the
> person before (which includes messages from mailing list regulars on public
> lists :-)
>

We used to send, maybe 20 packets a week, around the world (mainly to
the US) without any issues.  But they were mostly low-value items
(typically ?5/$10 item value) so there was little incentive for people
to mess us about..  But occasionally things did get lost or broken,
and the time to get it sorted out through the post office was
interminable, and it's usually deemed the senders responsibility to do
it, as it's the sender who made the contract with the postal
service(s).

Rob