How to list items for international shipping on eBay

[bassileid5]

Hey Sellers, 

I have been working a lot of you to enable your export business and a common theme I have found is that many do not know how to use our platform to list international shipping to specific countries outside of the usual listing flow for example Poland or Malaysia. Below is a step by step guide on how to list your items using rate tables and shipping policies to countries not outlined in the listing flow: 

Note: You need to list your item before adding international shipping with the steps below

1. Go to Sell.
2. Under settings click Business Policies.
• Note: If you do not have a business account, you will not be able to turn on Business Policies.
• To enable a business account, go to Account Settings at the top left hand side where your user ID is listed. Click on Personal Information. Find Account Type and click Edit. Change the account from Personal to Business.
3. Click Create Policy and select Shipping
4. Name Your Policy and describe it to help differentiate and give it context.
5. In the U.S Shipping Section, insert your domestic shipping details not international
6. Under International Shipping, deselect the box “Send it to the US shipping centre, and rest will be taken care of for you”. This will disable eBay’s Global Shipping Program and allow you to list your items for self-shipping.
• Note: If you do have a shipping solutions to all countries, you can keep this box ticked. This will allow you to ship using GSP to all eligible countries for which you have not enabled self-shipping and excluded from your shipping country list.
• I.e if I have a shipping solution to Denmark, Japan, and Australia but not Italy, Mexico and Russia, by keeping this box ticked, I can ship GSP to Italy, Mexico and Russia and ship my own solution to Denmark, Japan and Australia. You also have to be sure to not exclude Italy, Mexico and Russia from your country exclusion list.
7. Under Alternative International Shipping Options, click the drop down and choose Flat: Same cost to all buyers.
8. Under Ship to, click the drop down and choose Custom Location. This will show you the region and countries to ship to.
9. Select the countries/regions you want to ship to.
10. Under Services, click the drop down and choose your shipping service to the countries or region you have selected prior. i.e USPS Priority International Mail or FedEx International Economy.
    • Note: At the moment, DHL is not listed as option therefore please choose a generic option like Standard International Shipping or Expedited International Shipping if DHL is your carrier.
11. If you have different costs for different countries and region, please select the Offer additional service link underneath the countries listed. You will be able to add in a new shipping location and shipping service to different locations.
12. If you want enable shipping to a set of countries or country that is not listed in the shipping policy workflow, please view our “Apply International Shipping Rate Table” below.
13. If you do not want to specify your costs for a specific country but want to advise buyers that you ship there, you can select these countries under the field Additional ship to locations – buyers contact for costs.
14. In that section, select your countries and region you want to ship to but do not want to list a cost. This will notify buyers that they can reach out to you in order to gather shipping costs detail to the countries you have ticked.
15. Scroll down to the section Exclude shipping locations. Click Edit exclusion list and select the countries you want to exclude from your shipping policy. Click Apply once finished.
    • Note: If you still have the GSP box ticked above, countries excluded in this section will not be eligible for GSP either
16. When you have completed all the details in your shipping policy hit Save.
17. Your new policy will now appear in the Business Policy Page. Go find the policy you just created and tick the box on the left. Click the Reassign listings button at the top
    • Note: You will notice that all your listings are already assigned to one or another policy.
18. A drop down will appear asking you to choose the policy for which you want to transfer listings from and into your newly created policy. Choose the policy that you will transfer the listings from click Change. This will transfer all listings in that policy into your newly created policy.
19. Once finished, be sure to check some of the listings attached to your new policy.  You can do this by click the arrow on the right of your newly created policy. This will show you how many listings are attached to that policy. Click on the number of listings in the drop down arrow.
20. Go the listings and choose the various countries you have enabled shipping to confirm that the rates you have inputted are correct on that listing. If this is correct, all other listings under this policy will also be correct.

Apply International Shipping Rate Table

1. In the Shipping Policy flow, scroll down to Shipping rate tables where you will see an option to Apply international shipping rate table.
2.  In order to use this, you will need to create an international shipping rate table. You can do this by clicking the Create rate tables underneath the Apply international shipping rate table
3.  A new window will open, select the + icon on the shipping service you are offering. You can choose between Expedited, Standard or Economy.
4.  Select the Region your shipping service will deliver to. It will drop down and allow you to select the Countries.
5.  It will display the region/countries you have chosen. In the same box under cost, please add the per item cost to ship to the countries/region you have chosen.
   • Note: if you want to list a per pound rate, go back to the top and next to Set shipping rates by select the drop down and choose
   • Go back down and repeat steps 3 & 4 above. When reaching step 5, insert your per pound rate. In the cost box, you also have the option to insert a starting shipping costs for which will be added on top of the per pound rate. i.e. if your per pound rate is 5 USD on a 5 pound shipment and you have inserted a cost of 20 USD in the cost box, your total costs will be 45 USD for that item.
   • If you do not wish to add a starting shipping costs, you can simply input a zero in the cost box. i.e. for the example above your shipping costs would be 25 USD.
6. Once all rates for all countries/regions have been listed, name your table in the field Table Name above and click
7. Back in your shipping policy, under Shipping rate tables, tick the box Apply international rate table. If you only have one international rate table created, it will automatically choose this table. You can view the rate table clicking
   • Note: If you have more than one rate table, when clicking the box for Apply international rate table it will prompt a drop down for which you can select the international rate table of your choice.
8. Once rate table is added, continue the process in step 13 above in “How to list items for international shipping on eBay”

[rolenboy01]

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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@bassileid5 wrote:
It is unfortunate we do not have these settings on our platform but I think these would be great topics for additional posts in the community. Perhaps a post about choosing the right tracking services according to country or one about where customs can be an issue and which port of entries to avoid delays.

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@bassileid5 - How can an Ebay seller actually choose a port of entry?

Have you done much selling internationally yourself? Please tell us about your selling experience.

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Perhaps they have special protections to tell scammers to beep off without consequence since they are eBay employees?

[dtexley3]

@bassileid5 as others have asked how long have you been selling internationally, and how many transactions.  You don't seem to be very aware of the issues, and if you haven't actually had real world experience it becomes *very* difficult to build effective solutions.

I sold a few item internationally and all but one were headaches.  I don't and won't anymore.  I do get orders through re-shippers on occasion and don't have a problem fullfilling those.

The biggest issue (right now) is the INR problem.  eBay refuses to recognize that the seller has almost NO CONTROL over the shipper other than chosing the right service from a "eBay recommended" carrier.  Even domestically there are constant issues where eBay refunds on an INR dispute and then the customer gets the items a couple days later.  There are multiple scams a buyer can use to string the delivery out until after the delivery date.  No fair to the seller at all.

If eBay really wants to help sellers sell internationally they need to ramp up some *effective* seller support representatives that are experienced in how to deal with delays in customs processing, tracking "issues", false INR claims, fraudulant buyers, sellers and so forth.  

[mrv71]

It's amazing to see that eBay empoyees don't have a clue about how their company really works to such degree that they literally speak a different language! It's like they are living in a total fantasy bubble and never venture into a real world!

[mr_lincoln]

@mrv71  I am not sure how many are employed at the Big House but to your point, most of them clock in and clock out, its just a job whereas for the eBay Support Team and the rest of us ... its NOT just a Job, its an ADVENTURE!

[jun-harte]

I am overwhelmed!  My PO informed me it is an easy task, just fill out the customs form and done.  Obviously not.  Back to the old way, in general my store takes a lot of my time, not complaining, I love what I am doing, small store, not getting rich by any means but do make sales and it keeps me busy, BUT would love to offer the international shipping as it obviously is cheaper for the customer, but until I get that second cup of coffee in me, this will have to wait..

[jun-harte]

I am overwhelmed.  My PO informed me it is an easy task, just fill out the customs form and done.  Obviously not.  Back to the old way, in general my store takes a lot of my time, not complaining, I love what I am doing, small store, not getting rich by any means but do make sales and it keeps me busy, BUT would love to offer the international shipping as it obviously is cheaper for the customer, but until I get that second cup of coffee in me, this will have to wait..

[everything-from-trinkets-to-treasures]

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@jun-harte wrote:

I am overwhelmed.  My PO informed me it is an easy task, just fill out the customs form and done.  Obviously not.  Back to the old way, in general my store takes a lot of my time, not complaining, I love what I am doing, small store, not getting rich by any means but do make sales and it keeps me busy, BUT would love to offer the international shipping as it obviously is cheaper for the customer, but until I get that second cup of coffee in me, this will have to wait..

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It all depends how you are going to ship. Ebay labels provides the customs form that is also your postage...all filled out.
GSP is just domestic shipping for you to Kentuky..no customs forms on your end. That is all on Pitney Bowes end...and offers a bit more protections.

For both there are restictions based on items and countries....so you need to do some research for the items you are selling and how you want to ship and which will work best for you.

[jun-harte]

Thank you for that.  I really want to do this and will investigate this further.  I spoke with ebay yesterday and they were very helpful to set me up for shipping a certain to Canada at a customers request. It was actually so easy, hence the custom form printing right out with my label that I figured if all were that quick and painless, I really did want to offer that service.

But thanks for the encourgement, it's all a learning experience as I look at it.