Selling outside the UK FleaBay

[62Countryman]

Anyone have an idea on why some UK Fleabay sellers refuse to sell to bidders outside the UK?

[UHR850]

Yes please, I realy want to know too !!!

[Canuk]

I have purchased a lot of parts from the UK, mostly via Ebay...I have only had one refusal to post to Canada, not sure why, so I used my brothers address and he forwarded for me. I assume its people afraid of the item not arriving, although if sent via tracking number no problem.

[66S]

US sellers are quite bad at refusing, some won't even ship to Alaska or Hawaii. The reason given is usally because of previous problems with overseas buyers. I have negotiated with some prior to bidding but others blankly refuse. I get around it by having it posted to US friends.

Regards
Al

[contour51]

Anyone have an idea on why some UK Fleabay sellers refuse to sell to bidders outside the UK?

Firstly ,I feel it is a bit unjust, to point the finger at UK sellers ,as it is quite evident that there are sellers all over the world unprepared to sell out of their own countries.
I personally do not sell abroad through EBAY ,any more.Due to 2 unpleasant instances.'PayPal',being the root cause of both .
1st.Was to Japan ,where I had already told the bidder the "shipping" costs and that because of the amounts of money involved, that I would only accept payment by Bank Transfer or International Money Order.Not 'PayPal' ,due to their "handling" charges and time it takes to hand over monies.I do not know (or care)what the hand over limits are now,but at the time £500.00GBP was the max you could withdraw per month,(once they had their grubby little hands on it)therefore it would have took 2 months to receive full payment.You guessed it,he paid by 'PalPal' To cut a long story short ,in a dispute Evilbal/Paypal are a "closed shop" so I lost out to the buyer.
2nd.Was to the Netherlands.I always used to state the price UK postage and ask overseas bidders to request a quote.For some unknown reason when he had won I was unable to add the "shipping " cost to the invoice.After a few emails trying to explain and few more attempts to add to the invoice with no success.I finally suggested that he paid the invoice (PayPal)and send the postage payment separate(Paypal) ,this only only infuriated him(too much "space cake" I think ).He refused,would not end the transaction,so after appeal Ebay took £26.00GBP 'Final Value Fee's' from my bank account for something I had not sold(robbing B#&+*^DS ).
Other factors for not now selling abroad through Ebay are.(In fact I now only use Ebay to sell anything,if I have to.)
1.You can waste an awful lot of time on the internet getting shipping quotes,for "time wasters".
2.Sometimes there are definitely translation issues.
3.If there are any problems,you can't send a "Geezer" round

Having said all that ,I am quite happy to send /deal overseas with anyone, via Forums or personal recommendation .

Cheers Gareth

[mk1]

I agree with Gareth,

It is certainly not fair to pick on UK ebay sellers as being particularly bad for not selling abroad. It is VERY common everywhere.

IMHO, The main reasons are as has already been stated that people have had bad experiences, usually to do with shipping in the past & the easiest way to avoid this is to simply not sell to nationals other than your own. Of course it looks bonkers to a potential buyer who is excluded, but I am sure each seller does have a valid reason.

In my experience if you contact these sellers, & explain the situation they will usually accept your bid, or often I just bid anyway & send payment before its a problem. Both methods work fine.

At the end of the day its only the seller who looses out excluding potential bidders from bidding.

In my ebay auctions I usually accept bids from anywhere, but on some stuff, usually heavy items of minimal value I exclude non UK bidders as I can't see the point in selling something worth a fiver then slapping £40 postage on it.

[814CWE]

my views exactly mark
not worth getting grief and aggro as well as snotty feedback for a 4.99 swan neck wiper arm sent to "outer dagralia on the suez"

[JC T ONE]

I can see, and fully understand the problems some of you guys had,
and can truly acknowledge, why anyone would give up after such treatment

This is why I pay, as soon as the auction is ended, or incase seller need to check postage? just after invoice has been recived.
I am very protective about my 100% feedback, as it do make a difference, incase seller wont ship outside UK.

I must also add, that we are a lot of people outside UK, who are very proud of our British cars,
and it can be VERY hard, to find the "elusive" part, you need to finish your project.

If no one shipped outside their own country, then we could return to carboot sales, and no one would cash in on their goodies
I would love to see the person, who would have paid 438 pounds, for a set of PH grillbuttons, at a carbootsale

[UHR850]

I you are right about the not selling UK sellers but those where the only one I ever had to deal with. Some time when I did ask they let me bid on there items, so not every one did Please let us stop now this discussion it is just the way it is for the seller to disside what to do. Comunication is the word!

[scott6058]

I certainly entertain bidders outside of my country US but I did get burned when I sent a NOS set of Britax belts to the far east. The winner said he never received the item bad me never tracked it. I was out the belts and the monies. Paypal zapped the funds returned the money and the buyer may or might have not got the item . Some areas you just can't trust customs I believe to be the heart of the problem. But I agree I never pinpoint UK sellers for without the source and knowledge of the UK I could never find some of the scarce bits I found for my 1071 .

[JC T ONE]

Well all trouble is not related to buyer / seller issues, here are 2 stories, from my experience with Danish curiers / postmen.

First was back in 1998, when my Special was 20 years old.

I wanted to treat it to a new interior, so I called UK, and bought a complete set of Cooper Black Lightning interior, (bucket type) paid with creditcard.
5 days later it all arrived So far so good, the problem was, that I was not at home when the pallet arrived

The paperwork, which I was suppose to sign (agreed with seller) was just left, unsigned in my mailbox.
Worst thing, was the almost new Cooper interior, who was left in the parking lot, wrapped in transparent plastic, but only around it, not covered on top,
so incase it had rained it all would have been soaked, and the door cards probably not so nice & flat anymore.
Any one could have taken it, I checked with my nighbours, they said it had been their since before lunch.
The thought to call the courier and say "where are my goods?" did strike me but no harm was done, so I left it,
but the chauffour should have had a slap over the wrist.

Many years later, I recived a couple of parcels from my postman, these were wrapped in a plastic bag, from the Danish customs service.
Inside were a parcel, which were suppose to have been send to Norway
I went to my postoffice, and they were very surpriced and imbarresed about it.
The postoffice could see from the paperwork, that the parcel had been bought through Ebay.
Not only that, it contained expensive jevelry

Jens Christian