Hiya,

"I accept what you are saying, but I do see a downside to it and that is if we try to cover every eventuality in the listing then it bores the pants off the reader and might even seem suspicious in itself. I tend to look very very carefully at sellers who list lots of whys and wherefores and make it seem like they have "rules of engagement".

Personally I keep it as simple as possible (just like the competition rules here!) and so far have not really had many problems"

John..I have always tried very hard with all things 'photographic' to keep them as simple as poss and when I first started selling on ebay about 8 years ago, I had very simple listings.

However, I found I was getting high numbers of potential bidders from known states with 'dubious' postal systems, due to the specialist/rare nature of the majority of the items I was listing. I took the decision to ammend my listings to give much more info, especially for overseas bidders. I have found in the 5-6 years that I have had these listings, my sales have been even better and I consistently get higher prices for my items than other sellers with the same or similar items.

So my personal experience has been the opposite of your suggestion. It does matter how you go about these listings. I may have fairly long ones, but they are very clear and I keep the listings in a fairly light hearted manner...other sellers listings as you say, come across as 'no go' zones. Clearly, mine do not.

cheers Steve

Hi,

I have sold over 600 items overseas (mainly on ebay but some direct sales too), my rules and observations are:

1. Pretend the paypal so-called 'protection' does not exist, because quite often it does not. DO NOT RELY on any protection from paypal. Ever... this applies whether you are seller OR buyer.

2. So, after you have done 1. above, always make sure the item (if any great value at all) is FULLY INSURED for its full value if lost. So...use a 'signed for' or tracked service.

3. If the overseas buyer askes for no insurance, or a low value on the customs slip...say NO...always.

4. Make sure you listings show CLEARLY the overseas p+p cost...and make sure this includes full insurance cover.

5. Overseas bidders (not English speaking) often cannot read your english listing properly or often mis-understand it...be prepared to be far more patient with overseas bidders than UK/US/OZ ones.

6. DO NOT SHIP TO...I put the following on my listings:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overseas/ International Bidders:

Bids welcome from: USA, Canada, Ireland, EU ( but NOT exceptions below), Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea.

I CANNOT ACCEPT BIDS from, or SHIP TO: China, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, former Russian states, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria or anywhere in Africa.

***Overseas/International customs may charge you import fees...you are totally responsible for paying these.

NEW ZEALAND bidders: IMPORTANT.. for some bizarre reason ebay now places NZ within Asia, so if a seller (like me) does not accept Asia bidders (China, Russia etc), then NZ bidders are also blocked by ebay...crazy. So if you are from New Zealand and you want to bid, you must email me via ebay very quickly so I can make sure your bids are not blocked by the ebay system.
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7. The one overseas place I have had issues with the poor postal service is France...and often French bidders agree with me. They sometimes request even low value items sent via a 'signed for' service as they themselves do not trust the French post system. I have also heard the Belgian post service is not too good, from a Royal mail worker who lived there for some time.

I have not (yet) had any issues with Italy, but quite a few sellers have...the Italian post service is notorious for losses/theft.

The other place I have had most problems with is not overseas, but in fact the London area. I was later told, that many London sorting offices have much higher loss/theft rates than other UK offices due to their high number of temp and overseas student workers.

8. NEVER ship to an alternative address..or some 'friend' or 'relative' of the bidder. ALWAYS say NO. Only ship to the bidders paypal registered address.

9. Make it clear that the bidder is fully responsible for any customs/import, taxes/fees charged by their own countries customs service...many bidders are clueless about importing items (this includes many UK ebayers)

cheers Steve...

If this is correct, what happened to K1D, K2D, K3D, K4D, K5D & K6D?

as it says....

cheers Steve.M.

Sack the guru...

"Ah, a very good point but Zeiss doesn't offer a whole camera system whereas Pentax (or Nikon, etc.) does. So I'm afraid that one may be ruled offside"

...they did with the lovely Contax system... ....and we did seem to be speaking historically....no offside here...it is a confusing rule.

"The SMC coating for lenses? Often imitated, never bettered"

nope (IMO)....Carl Zeiss T* coatings.....

...oops, forgot this...

This threads been like the ones you used to get every day on photo net before they cracked down a bit...

When the new lens appears there will be a lot of the older ones on ebay, and this will depress prices..although I doubt by too much. Since Sigma are advertising the current lens at the mo, I suggest they are attempting to clear stocks...suggesting the old one will be discontinued, which is what I would expect.

cheers Steve.