eBay

heppsusedtools · ‎05-16-2017

I had an auction end today and the winning bidder immediately requested an invoice. Nothing new, until I went to do so and there was no cost in the shipping field. I had set a flat shipping fee for all USA bidders and activated the global shipping option for international bidders. Turns out the winning bidder is in Brazil. So why didn't the buyer get sent through the GSP? The buyer is now offering to let me ship it to a friend in the states. I'm leery about not sending it to the registered eBay/PayPal address, just in case there is some issue in delivery.

So, should I just cancel the sale, stating there's a problem with the buyers address?

a_c_green · ‎05-16-2017

@heppsusedtools wrote:
The buyer is now offering to let me ship it to a friend in the states. I'm leery about not sending it to the registered eBay/PayPal address, just in case there is some issue in delivery.

As long as he provides his U.S. friend's address with his PayPal payment, you can ship there, and you're done as soon as the package shows a Delivered status in that City and ZIP.

What he cannot do is pay with his existing Brazil address and then have you manually redirect the package to some other location. Don't do that.

heppsusedtools · ‎05-16-2017

Thanks! He did just pay with his friend's address as the PayPal address and it included the flat rate I charged for shipping in the USA. So hopefully all will turn out ok and both the buyer and I will be happy when all is said and done.

lacemaker3 · ‎05-16-2017

@heppsusedtools wrote:
...
Turns out the winning bidder is in Brazil. So why didn't the buyer get sent through the GSP?
...

You had a lot of tools that sold today. No way to know which one, but I checked several of them. They did have GSP shipping on them, but none of the ones I checked included Brazil as an eligible country. That's why the listing isn't going through GSP.

@heppsusedtools wrote:
...
The buyer is now offering to let me ship it to a friend in the states. I'm leery about not sending it to the registered eBay/PayPal address, just in case there is some issue in delivery.
...

This would be safe, but ONLY if the buyer changes the address on the eBay Checkout page before they pay. If they change the address to an address you ship to (in the USA) then it will automatically calculate the shipping for them, and they will be able to pay. You don't need to send an invoice. Just tell the buyer to change the address to a USA address, and then pay. (If you send an invoice with USA shipping costs, then they could pay for USA shipping but still give you the address in Brazil.)

There's no need to cancel the sale, it is perfectly safe to ship to a USA address on the eBay & PayPal transaction.

International deliveries to South America can be extremely risky. Some countries are putting severe restrictions on how many and how much (value) their people are allowed to import. If GSP thinks its too risky to ship to Brazil, I would do it either. But you would be safe shipping it to the USA as long as the buyer changes the address on the eBay Checkout page.

The address from the eBay Checkout page is passed to PayPal and becomes the address on the PayPal transaction. There's actually no way to enter a foreign address in PayPal. The only way to get a foreign address into PayPal is through eBay (or the merchant if it isn't an eBay purchase).

heppsusedtools · ‎05-16-2017

The item in question was actually the microphone mixer.

The shipping was a flat $20 because it was to be shipped in a large Priority Mail flat rate box. I was under the impression that if I only activated the GSP and didn't offer any other international shipping options, that anyone outside the USA would have to go through the GSP in order to bid. Maybe that's not true. But hopefully all is well, because when eBay notified me that the item had been paid for and I went to print the label, it had his friend's name/address in Colorado. Checked PayPal and his payment included the winning bid and the $20 for shipping.

lacemaker3 · ‎05-16-2017

@heppsusedtoolswrote:

... I was under the impression that if I only activated the GSP and didn't offer any other international shipping options, that anyone outside the USA would have to go through the GSP in order to bid. Maybe that's not true. ...

No, unfortunately. I wish that were the default setting. It's easy to set it that way, though.

You can set up your Buyer Requirements ← click the link to go to the page, then choose these settings for maximum seller protection. The settings shown below are recommended, the one shown in red will block bidders from countries/regions that you don't have shipping set up for. So, this will allow shipping to the USA AND Countries that qualify for GSP shipping if that's what you have on the listing.

Buyers without a PayPal account

☑ Block buyers who don't have a PayPal account. (Note: This block only applies to future listings and can be disabled per item on the Sell Your Item form.)

Buyers with Unpaid Item strikes

☑ Block bidders and buyers who have received [ 2 ] Unpaid Item strike(s) within [ 12 ] month(s)

Buyers in locations to which I don't ship

☑ Block buyers whose primary shipping address is in a location I don't ship to.

Buyers with policy violation reports

☑ Block buyers who have [ 4 ] Policy violation report(s) within [ 6 ] month(s)

Buyers with a negative feedback score

☑ Block buyers who have a feedback score of [ -1 ] or lower.

Buyers who may bid on several of my items and not pay for them

☑ Block buyers who are currently winning or have bought [ 10 ] of my items in the last 10 days ☑ Only apply this block to buyers who have a feedback score of [ 5 ] or lower.

☑ Apply above settings to active and future listings.

☑ Don't allow blocked buyers to contact me. (Buyer won't see the "Contact Seller" button on your Q&A page.) Note: Buyers can still contact you about existing transactions, unless you add them to your blocked list.

@heppsusedtools wrote:

...But hopefully all is well, because when eBay notified me that the item had been paid for and I went to print the label, it had his friend's name/address in Colorado. Checked PayPal and his payment included the winning bid and the $20 for shipping.

It sounds like everything should be fine!

heppsusedtools · ‎05-16-2017

Thanks!

lacemaker3 · ‎05-16-2017

You are very welcome!

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-17-2017

The gsp doesn't deliver to all countries. As the other poster suggested you should block buyers with a primary address in a country you don't ship to do that non gsp international buyers will be blocking key.

As far as blocking people without PayPal accounts, I wouldn't reccomend that as you would be blocking people who don't have PP accounts but do pay with a credit card through PP. You would also block anyone who doesn't have their eBay and pp accounts linked. I've never used this block and don't see any purpose in using it although not everyone will agree with that.

lacemaker3 · ‎05-17-2017

Whatever the purpose was, for providing a block against buyers without a linked PayPal account, it is useful because most scammers can't or don't have a PayPal account to link to.

If a seller is having trouble with scammers who send fake emails that appear to be from PayPal, often saying that the payment will go into the seller's PayPal account once they have provided a tracking number, this block can be very useful. It also helps against non-paying bidders in general.

The settings recommended were for maximum seller protection. Every seller can choose to set their own. And, if you want to make an exception for a particular buyer, you can their user ID to the buyer block exemption list.

lacemaker3 · ‎05-17-2017

The ↑last line↑ above should have said:

... And, if you want to make an exception for a particular buyer, you can add their user ID to the buyer block exemption list.

pjcdn2005 · ‎05-18-2017

That's fine if a seller wishes to do that but I would personally rather not block someone just because they don't want to sign up for paypal or their account isn't linked. In the 1o years that I've been selling I have never had anyone send me a fake paypal letter saying payment has been made so although I know it happens, I don't want to block legitimate buyers just in case I forget to check paypal for payment. In my experience there are other problems that are more common that cannot be prevented by blocking non pp users.

My main point though is that when someone suggests that a seller block buyers without a linked paypal account they should be told that they will also be blocking other buyers. I don't think that all sellers are aware of this or aware that there is a buyer exemption list.