I Can No Longer Afford To Ship Stamps To India Or China

Of course, bad buyers exist everywhere, and sellers here may have encountered them.

However, it may very well be the postal system that's at fault. I regularly send to and receive from India, and I've yet to lose a single item in the mail. One obvious trick is to make your letter look as unappealing and commercial as possible. I always use my company (non-philatelic) envelopes, and use as few and unattractive stamps as possible. This seems to work.

In China, there's another possible problem with the postal service. In the big cities, the post office may be able to handle Roman script, but in the smaller cities and towns, an envelope not addressed in Chinese may simply be tossed into the too hard basket. One simple solution is to ask your Chinese buyers to send their address in Chinese, not in Roman letters. And then, make your letter look as commercial and unappetising as possible.

How about it! I know that the U.S. is having some serious problems with the mail system right now so that very well could be a lot of it but what I think is the main issue isn't so much China's mail system but the exorbitant fees involved and no seller protection. to eat that amount of loss to a small-time seller isn't something that goes over lightly. It can be devastating in fact. Seller loses all moneys AND the items, buyer loses out on receiving said items and a lot of harsh feelings (and a lot of harsh words)are usually involved and, of course, that usually results in negative feedback. That's what I'm trying to say.

That's a good point. I live in a small town about an hour out of Shanghai but since I work at the only Canadian school in the area, the post office knows exactly where to send packages. Everything I get in the mail has Chinese writing on it in pen though so the post office writes something to help delivery. There are so many people learning English now though in China (pretty much everyone) that this soon will not be an issue. I t really depends on where you are sending something.

As well, I get my mail sent to my school, which is more secure. I think there is home delivery but I don't have a key to my home mail box and nobody seems to know how to get one. This can be a crazy country sometimes.

I live in a village about 90 minutes from Muscat. It's a bit more disorganized than that. Our admin takes staff mail and puts it on a cabinet in the staff canteen. Not too cool with that route. I've never had anything go missing but I dont want to tempt fate sometimes. I've got a freight forwarding service account through ARAMEX which gives me 4 freight forwarding address. I've got one in the US, UK, China, and the Emirates. All my important things to that route (usually urgently needed stamp supplies, or soemtimes an order from Amazon).
I think I may rent my own postbox next year. If anything is more important or too risky to be sent from one venu or the other, I just have it sent to my wife in the US.

i would love to sell and exchange with stamp collectors everywhere in the universe...i just can not stand the messages from paypal and ebay when I have done my part and shipped the item and then lose the stamps and the shipping !!

Let's assume for sake of argument that the "a guy in Shanghai" really didn't receive the item you sent him. Should he be made to suffer the financial loss? I don't think so.

This is the main reason why I have limited my recently begun ebay sales to U.S. buyers only. Regardless of its faults, the USPS delivery track record is pretty good and for high-value items, tracking and/or insurance is available at a reasonable cost.

Whatever we say about our postal system in the United States,in 40 years of stamp swapping I have never had an item lost.either coming or going. Its a shame if I have to limit listings to the United States and the British Commonwealth..but thats where people have been straight with me ! And thats the facts son !

Limit your sales to only Shrub Oak

but Shrub Oak does not pay !! Well I just picked up my mail and there was the letter I sent to Shanghai 48 days ago..even though I used the exact address the guy sent in paypal and I asked him to make sure I had the right address..it was returned for "insuffcient address" I responded to the resolution center that I would send him the stamps and the envelope that was returned to me..lets see what happens !

Philb: Well that's better news than having no news at all. Ask the seller to provide you with the address in Chinese. Print it out along with the English version and paste/tape it to the shipping envelope. Send the buyer a scan of the original shipping cover to show you honored you end of the deal, but the postal system is out of whack.

Sidenote, I received an open case against my via ebay for a missing 99 cent cover to Cyprus. Only my second for the year. I mailed it April 20th so it's probably just slow. I've mailed to that country before and it's as slow as mailing an item to Russia. I went ahead and sent a refund to close the case and to show I'm an honest seller, but also added a note to please resend payment when it does arrive. We'll see if that buyer is honest, but I'm not going to block Cyrpus. I don't know if you can block anything that particular anyway, but I find 99.99% of people honest now matter where they live. However there are inefficent postal systems and mistakes happen.

Will, I made the offer to resend..but as we know...its in the hands of the seller..he can always say he wants his money back..some of his address is covered by the stickers !

Is there a postal code as part of the address?

Was the address for Hongkong Lu (street)? I actually know that street very well in Shanghai. Was there a postal code added to the address? If there was, I am surprised it didn't go through, since the area around HongKong Lu is popular for foreigners. Mainly Koreans but other groups as well. It might have needed the apartment complex name as well, since #10 lane is not very helpful. Usually the address will give the name of the apartment complex, the building and the apartment number.

Thinking more about it, I can see why they had problems finding this place. It would need a street address, which would be a number.

To the OP: You need to do more than just put a message in the listings. You need to change your default settings to block bids from buyers in countries you don't ship to. Then they *can't* bid or buy.

Otherwise you run the risk of someone buying without reading the listing and it could end up being a drawn out pain the get the transaction nullified and your fees back, not to mention the possibility of negative feedback.