Big Trouble

I feel like I am in big trouble because I am suddenly getting a lot of emails from people that have bought things from me overseas claiming that they never received anything after over a month of waiting. I have receipts proving that I paid for mailing the items at the post office but they did not pay extra for any trace for them. Because of this, I am planning to have a new policy where I don't sell and ship to anyone overseas anything unless they pay extra for the post tracing. It looks like paypal does not side with the buyer unless there is a trace number used. I am just surprised at the sudden claims for non-receipt from foreign buyers which could potentially bankrupt my small business. Is it unusual for small packets to take over a month to get to Europe or Asia? I have bought things from China that took between one and two months to get to me. Help.

Are you sending the lots air mail? That's essential. But even air mail from North America to Europe can take a fair amount of time to deliver now and then. When I get a non delivery complaint (most often to USA) I tell people to just wait. Hold ups at customs are frequent.

Yes, they are by air. However, in some cases airmail is taking as long these days as surface mail used to take. It would appear that an increase in the volume of parcels having to go through customs is what is the slowdown problem since this is seen by following traced parcels. Things can disappear in customs sometimes taking very long with the trace being stalled there. For overseas destinations, getting a trace from Canada Post can cost around several times what it costs without one for a parcel costing around $10.00 to ship non- trace air.

JOGIL------Sorry to heard that ,all you can do is black list those countries in all future sell offers .Also please post here the countries, this will help other collectors to decide where they want to do business. Maybe wait as suggested by Canada Stamps and see if customs is holding it .

In ebay you can block countries you don't ship to and you can block buyers you don't want to do business with. I have done both simply because of losses to certain people in certain locations.

I have found that even with tracking once the package leaves the US for overseas destinations the tracking stops. Don't know if that's common.

I don't ship a lot overseas but those who do buy from me usually will let me know they accept responsibility if the package is lost even without tracking.

Sadly, Paypal puts 100% of the onus on you to get the package to the buyer. Even if a buyer says they accept responsibility, as soon as they put in an item not received claim, they win.

ABSOULTELY 100% CORRECT!!

You can also get private insurance on most of your shipments - http://www.shipsurance.com/ I haven't used it, but I know of some other dealer who use it and swear by it.

I ship overseas all the time since most of my buyers are no longer in the U.S. I find my loss rate is still less than 1% and I ship to Russia, Italy, Brazil, India, China, Vietnam, Egypt and even places like Haiti, Ukraine and Ethiopia. And 99%+ of the time it makes it. "Losses" are most likely flukes in the system. If I were to ban every country where I "lost" a shipment then I would have to even ban U.S. and Canada, but I don't as to do so would be cutting off the nose to spite the face - lose even more sales to good people.

Now there are some tips to help insure safe travel - make your shipment as inconspicuous as possible. Don't slather the cover with discount postage. A few modern stamps would be fine. You want to make it as less philatelic looking as possible. Use a meter if you have to. Don't mark it with a return address that labels it as from a stamp business - no "BillyBob's Philatelic Emporium Hut", but just "BillyBob". Items from the U.S. mailed at letter rates do not need custom forms and if you do need one for a parcel - mark the items as "used stationery" instead of "philatelic cover". I've used "labels" instead of "stamps" too. Either way it's still technically correct. Most thieves want new merchandise and things they can fence fast - not used items and your average thief wouldn't know what to do with most stamps. Of course if the shipment is really expensive and/or irreplaceable then use registered mail or something like the private insurance listed above. I just don't see why there's a real need to punish a country or region when precautions can be taken and the rate of loss is really low. It might seem high if you sell at low volume or it's the first time you've dealt with this particular country. Also remember, if you decide to block ALL international shipments on ebay - ebay will pick an international shipment for you - the Global Shipping Program and that just ticks most buyers off.

How is Auctiva shipping insurance in this regard? It's been around for quite some time but I haven't seen any sellers using it when shipping items to me.

Shipsurance is very interesting. The list of countries for whom they won't provide coverage is not very long:

Afghanistan
Angola
Bolivia
Burma
Congo
Cuba
Iran
Iraq
Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire)
Liberia
Nigeria
North Korea
Paraguay
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Syria
Venezuela

No Russia, China, India, Italy, or Brazil. Hmm....

From that list I've only shipped to Bolivia, Paraguay and Venezuela. No issues and quite a few of the Latin American folks have post office boxes in Miami. The rest on that list - I doubt they have much access to the Internet, philately is not real a thing for most people or basic survival is more important. If we open trade completely with Cuba, they should be taken off the list. Russia, China, India, Italy, and Brazil are big buyers. I've only had problems with mail to Moscow - the rest of Russia is fine. China is fine and same with India and Brazil. India has some of the craziest addresses so misaddressing envelopes could be an issue there. Never had a problem with Brazil and even shipped two global priority mail boxes there safely not long ago.

I feel your pain. I use "Shipsaver" insurance which is provided as an ebay application. You just go to the "Applications" tab on your My ebay page. I have used this for several years and have always been satisfied. It is integrated right into ebay and it shows each of your sales and you just check off the ones you want to insure. The cost is low, about 1/2 USPS insurance the last time I checked. Shipsaver excludes coverage for some countries and I set my ebay preferences to match their list. I use ebay shipping labels exclusively and this makes it very easy to work with Shipsaver. For my business I insure foreign shipments over $50 and domestic over $200.

My average travel time to China is 6-7 weeks.

Battlestamps offers excellent advice: inconspicuous, plain return address, etc.

Cheers,

Since you are getting "a lot of emails from people that have bought things from me overseas", I wonder if the problem isn't somewhere in your local post office? It's most unusual to have losses from different countries all at once. And yes, shipping to China is very slow.

If I may ask- where are these buyers you are hearing from located? Is there a pattern?