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Originally posted by hammer:
To be fair to my seller he has said that $5 was for overseas and will refund $3 - But I had to ask!!

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Originally posted by MrBlueofnyc:

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Originally posted by Andy28:
I have wanted to buy a few sketches from a big ebay seller, but the shipping to Australia is $33!

Could be the cost to ship them with tracking, priority mail is the way to ship international with tracking other than express. Those prices are expensive.

I know a lot of seller who stopped shipping over seas because of all the money they were losing due to people saying they were not getting their stuff and Ebay/Paypal refunding the money. So they lost out on the money and the product.

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Originally posted by DeathStorm:

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Originally posted by hammer:
To be fair to my seller he has said that $5 was for overseas and will refund $3 - But I had to ask!!

It can be tricky to get all the shipping options right when you're listing a lot of items in several regions and even if you do take the time sometimes you just have to guess what the weight is going to be with packaging.

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Originally posted by Klepsis:
One of the factors in increased postage costs for e-bay purchases is the fact that starting sometime earlier this year the e-bay folks began taking a 9% cut of the shipping fee as well as 9% of the final transaction cost. Most all of the e-bay store owners immediately jacked up shipping costs by 10% (and sometimes more) to offset things.

I've only mailed things to Canada, but that became more expensive earlier this year as well. The postal service in America is on the edge of bankruptcy and raising domestic rates is really unpopular, so it would seem that they raised the international rates instead under the impression that it would help the cash flow with minimum bad publicity. (my opinion, anyway).

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Originally posted by hammer:
I know that e-bay have increased the fees and now take a cut from postage, which I think is totally wrong. I know it is only Psychological but I would rather pay the extra for the card than in the over inflated postage price.

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Originally posted by Graham:
Card and postage anomolies...

$200 card bought - $6.95 p&p
$74.99 card being watched - $37.00 p&p

Ebay should be watching this. I believe there is a section to complain about extortionate postage rates, but I don't think it covers overseas.

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Originally posted by BILLZEE:
Heres the newest example of gouging at the PO counter here in TX.

Brought a flat greeting card size envelope to be mailed to the UK. It was less than 2 oz and innocuous looking, marked AIRMAIL. Inside I placed two semi-rigids, and each one contained a couple cards.

The PO clerk I usually go to wasn't there so I get this PO lady I see there alot. She tells me that since the envelope is rigid, it must be mailed as a parcel, & jacks up my cost to almost $4.

What did I learn? Next time I will use a white envelope (not manila colored) and if my regular PO dude is not there, I'll come back later.

Probably more info than you needed to know but I'm venting...

quote:

Originally posted by BILLZEE:
Heres the newest example of gouging at the PO counter here in TX.

Brought a flat greeting card size envelope to be mailed to the UK. It was less than 2 oz and innocuous looking, marked AIRMAIL. Inside I placed two semi-rigids, and each one contained a couple cards.

The PO clerk I usually go to wasn't there so I get this PO lady I see there alot. She tells me that since the envelope is rigid, it must be mailed as a parcel, & jacks up my cost to almost $4.

I demonstrate that the envelope is pliable and not rigid, then ask for the large envelope rate. She retorts that there is a rigid item inside so its a parcel. Felt like knocking her with something rigid for a moment, but then I relinquished & paid.

What did I learn? Next time I will use a white envelope (not manila colored) and if my regular PO dude is not there, I'll come back later.

I do a lot of repeat trades with overseas folks that I know. Some are small value trades so I'm not happy with spending $3-4-5 on shipping for a couple of cards.

Probably more info than you needed to know but I'm venting...

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Originally posted by btlfannz:
Frankly, for my 2 cents worth I would settle for some kind of continuity from US sellers.
I've started collecting envelopes that I have received here in New Zealand (usually bubble lined) to show the disparity. Since all I buy from America these days is 1,2 or 3 cards at a time, I now have envelopes ranging from $2.80 through to $11.50. Someone's tripping me off!

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Originally posted by allender:
As a buyer I keep track of both what a seller charges and what the actual mailing costs were.

Some overseas shippers wish to have full Seller Protection, which requires package tracking, which in turn gets you up to the $11 range via the Postal Service and most other locations to the U.S. Others are willing to ship at the 'uninsured' rate like the $2.80 example and take a bit of a risk. It can depend on the buyer's experience with overseas shipments, as there are good and bad buyers, and some types of sales have been reported as "not arrived" a lot more often than you'd expect from past reliability on the delivery end.

Some sellers avoid the hassle and possible bad feelings from shipping charges that are higher than the item prices by refusing to ship out-of-country. Some buyers would like to have the option of specifying lowest-cost shipping and agreeing not to hold the shipper responsible if they have a proof of mailing, without the extra cost of the tracked methods. I'd at least like the option of an intermediate form, like how U.K. offers International Signed For at a bit lower fee than Recorded Mail. Technically it's not "tracked", but I think that any form of proof of delivery should be good enough for most purposes.
.

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Originally posted by btlfannz:
Frankly, for my 2 cents worth I would settle for some kind of continuity from US sellers.
I've started collecting envelopes that I have received here in New Zealand (usually bubble lined) to show the disparity. Since all I buy from America these days is 1,2 or 3 cards at a time, I now have envelopes ranging from $2.80 through to $11.50. Someone's tripping me off!