Selling abroad on ebay

I've just received a bid on an item I'm selling on ebay, no problem there.

The bid is from Poland, despite stating UK only, that's the problem.

Advice please.

email the bidder? maybe its someone with a home in england and in poland so they arent actually doing anything wrong

You could cancel the bid if you like (see eBay's Help), but why not post to Poland?

In future, you can setup your listings to automatically exclude non-UK bidders.

If you exclude overseas sales, then you are missing where most of the money seems to be these days.

I now send most of my stuff to EU countries, the USA and the Far East.

That's interesting John, how do you cost for the postage and insurance side?

I just sold my first 2 items on Ebay to UK buyers and I'm very happy, however I made mistakes in my listing, they were setup for UK only, I discovered the mistake on one item and I was able to correct it, the other item had 3 bids from other countries but I could not change it once bidding had started , my next listing and all others will have an EU listing, as I live in Spain the postage costs are the same for most EU countries, and as John says if you exclude them then you ARE missing out.
Jack

You can calculate all postage costs on the post office website and I calculate on the Spanish Correos in English herelinkand for an extra 2 euros I give a tracking number,
Jack

There is a Postage ready reckoner in the postage section when you list. You enter the weight of your package and can get a price for UK, Europe and North America. Those cover my three rates. To the actual postage I aim to add 50p for packaging (a Jiffy bag can cost that much).

I made a list of weights and prices in 100g steps from 100g to 2kg (the small packet limit) and I use this list.

As for insurance if the item is less than £30 or £39 (depending on destination) then I don't bother as compensation is available. Higher value items get sent Signed For, very high value ones are insured as well, but generally it's in my interests to do this and I carry the cost.

After all, if I sell a camera for £200 in the UK I can afford to spend £6.50 on Special Delivery, partially offset by the £5.00 I might have charged for shipping.

I just sold my K200D to a UK buyer the postage cost was 31 euros tracked and signed for, I posted on Monday it arrived yesterday afternoon not bad for Spain, the postage was included in the price of the sale.

I posted some kit to a forum member in Canada last Monday, he's PM'd me to say it's arrived (Friday).

That was a private sale but I've shipped ebay sales all over the world including China, Singapore, Australia, Portugal, Malaysia, USA, and most of the EU. Never a problem . . . yet.

Thanks guys that's helpfull.

I'm not so worried now about selling abroad.

Royal Mail Airmail price list:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content1?catId=400036&mediaId=400347

Add Airsure or International Signed For if the value is more than you could bear to loose.

See also https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/shipping-ebay-items-from-UK-to-abroad-115...

Compensation with standard Airmail is only payable if the item "is lost or damaged and it's our fault". The Royal Mail may argue that it's not their fault if it's lost overseas.

Pete, I'd just replied to this and before I could press "Add Comment" we had a power cut.

So here goes again! You're right of course, but the twice I've claimed in the past several years they have paid up. They say exactly what you said, but still pay - how could they prove it wasn't their fault? The items are not tracked...

I think for low value items (individuals will need to decide what they think of as low value) the risk is worth takung. If I'd charged for insurance all this time I think my auctions would have been less attractive and sales would have been lower.

The only issue I've ever had was a SMCP-M 50mm 1:1.4 lens I sold a couple of years ago. I shipped it from Spain but didn't know how to ask for a tracking number.

The recipient claimed he never received it, complained to Ebay, and the result was I lost the money and the lens even though I could provide proof of posting.

It's always worth paying for insurance I think and since that day, I always have.

I always keep proof of posting until I've received feedback. A buyer has 45 days I think to complain.