eBay International Shipping Program

[Fballguy]

I was surprised to receive an offer from outside the U.S. this morning and soon realized I had been automatically "opted in" to eBay's international shipping program on all of my listings. Read a little about it and it seems seller friendly, but curious about anyone experiences with it. What are the actual upsides and downsides of it?

I assume others have been "opted in" as well. If so, have you stayed in?

[rc4157]

I am curious as well. Like you, automatically opted in and haven't changed it as of yet. I don't sell much but am trying to downsize a variety of items at this time. On the surface it appears to not be a huge potential problem but would like to hear from more experienced sellers on this issue.

[skelly423]

I'm on the Canadian side of the border. To be frank it's a pain in the ass. If I buy multiple cards from the same seller, they must be shipped individually rather than in a single package. Rather than send the card directly to the buyer, you are asked to send it to a sorting depot in Illinois. Once it reaches that depot, the seller is off the hook for any losses in transit on the second leg of the trip.

The card seemingly goes into a black hole for roughly a week or more with no tracking updates, and re-emerges on the Canadian side. It probably adds two weeks to the shipping time vs a straight delivery directly to the buyer, but that's apparently what eBay wants.

From the US point of view, it's great. You just ship it domestically, and as soon as it reaches the sorting hub, your end of the deal is done (unless you have a return from the buyer). Shipping in multiple packages is annoying, but that cost is all covered by the buyer

[toppcat]

It's worth it for expensive items and all you have to do is mail it to the eBay distro center. After that, it's all on them. I sold a box of unopened vintage die cast cars a few years ago that were only sold in Australia and New Zealand in the early 50's. If I had limited the audience to the US it would have sold for a pittance, instead it did quite unexpectedly well and ended up with an Australian buyer. It then got hung up in customs for 6 weeks after eBay shipped it and the dispute filed by the buyer was immediately rejected.

[dbrown]

As a seller, I love the program. Never fill out a customs form again, never worry about the ridiculous int'l rates, just ship it to ebay's shipping center.

It doesn't seem super-speedy, I'll grant that. It's mostly trackable, too, so the buyer can see what's going on.

[Tabe]

As a seller, it's great. For buyers, it can be rough. They are often charged very high additional shipping fees as well as all the customs fees, etc.