Someone from Germany bid
Someone from Germany bid on my Item. I only ship domestically and they are expecting shipping. I offered free shipping on this item thinking domestically and customer is requesting an invoice. Shipping will be more than the cost of the item. My page says I only ship to the U.S. I’m confused and don’t know what to do.
29 comments
monster-deals
·3 years agoThey pay, you ship. You won't be shipping to Germany but a domestic ebay hub.
That is how this all works.
reallynicestamps
·3 years agoShipping will be more than the cost of the item.
Send an invoice with the corrected cost for shipping.
Add a note that if they do not have a US address (because the buyer may use a freight forwarder), you are quite willing to cancel the purchase with no penalty.
Keep it friendly.
You could even use a translation program to repeat the offer in German.
Politely.- Captain Malcolm Reynolds
chethor32
OP3 years agoThank you so much for your helpful input
ckimodog
·3 years ago@chethor32
I'm wondering if this is another seller who perhaps didn't know that they were enrolled in Ebay's new international shipping feature. A few have posted today that they normally don't ship outside the US, but were opted into it without their knowledge.
@chethor32
Make sure you have not been enrolled into the new international shipping feature. Check your listings when you revise and if you have been enrolled unknowingly, turn it off or disable it. You will see "see all options" on the right of the page. The toggles should be gray, not blue. And make a point to watch it when you add a listing. Since you don't ship overseas, I would cancel the sale citing there's a problem with the buyers address. I would also keep an eye on it as well for future issues if any.
Happy Selling.
slippinjimmy
·3 years agoThat is not the issue, if the OP was using eBay International the German buyer would not see the messages @dbfolks166mt posted. It would show the shipping charge to Germany as calculated by eBay International Shipping.
The issue here is the same as it has always been, to effectively block a country you have to actually block that country.
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agoThat is not the issue, if the OP was using eBay International the German buyer would not see the messages @dbfolks166mt posted. It would show the shipping charge to Germany as calculated by eBay International Shipping. Yes that would be correct.
The issue here is the same as it has always been, to effectively block a country you have to actually block that country. It has not always been this way. EBay has changed the algorithm to now show that the seller "may not ship" to xx and instructs the buyer to contact the seller. Probably an attempt on their part to increase international sales and to get people to potentially enroll in EIS.
marnotom!
·3 years agoTake it from a Canadian eBay user, while it hasn't "always been this way," it's "been this way" for quite some time. I'd conservatively estimate it at fifteen years. I remember making similar posts with screenshots back in the days when the .com boards had an International Trading discussion board.
The "may not ship" message shows up for listings where the seller has neither blocked/excluded a particular country/region nor provided shipping rates for that location.
pjcdn2005
·3 years agoI agree, it has been like for years. If a seller simply stated that they shipped to the US without any blocks buyers could still bid on or use buy it now on an item. But they could not pay unless the seller sent an invoice.
However, individual countries did not need to be blocked IF the seller checked off ‘block buyers with a primary address in country that I don’t ship to.’ That block is in seller preferences but I noticed for the last couple of years that it doesnt always work. When it did work,not all sellers were aware of it or used it.
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agoHowever, individual countries did not need to be blocked IF the seller checked off ‘block buyers with a primary address in country that I don’t ship to.’ That block is in seller preferences but I noticed for the last couple of years that it doesnt always work. When it did work,not all sellers were aware of it or used it.
This must be the scenario that I am thinking of.
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agoThis may very well be part of the EIS transition quagmire that is currently taking place. While your listing specifies that you only ship to the US when I change my location to Germany and look at one of your items this is what I see.
Actually if you go to:
https://www.ebay.com/ship/prf
You will be presented with a page of preferences. At the top is EIS. Click edit, opt out and in my case I used as the reason that I already have an international program in place. I didn't tell them (because they didn't ask) but I prefer Pirateship Asendia. It is cheaper, less restrictive on what I can ship and Proof of Delivery is kept forever, not just 90 days like eBay. I have seen comments from some posters that eBay is intercepting what otherwise would be perfectly legal products.
When I look at the details this is what is shown.
You may need to go into your seller preferences under the shipping area and exclude every country in the world but the US.
ckimodog
·3 years ago@dbfolks166mt
Thank you...I was looking for you as it was discussed earlier today. Many sellers may have overlooked this message from ebay in their messages.
dbfolks166mt
·3 years ago@dbfolks166mt
Thank you...I was looking for you as it was discussed earlier today. Many sellers may have overlooked this message from ebay in their messages.
I was doing yard work most of the day except for the short fishing break, Crappie are starting to bite in my area. No question some sellers may have missed the message but I am wondering how many were never actually notified. VERY poor customer relations, and sellers are eBay's customers, to implement this program unilaterally and still continue to head down the road given the number of problems that are being reported.
chris13
·3 years agoNice to see that view from Canada.
So...
'Ships to' = WILL
'Excludes' = WONT
Everything not specified is presented to the buyer as maybe and buying/bidding isnt blocked.
I will keep my thoughts on how intuitive this will be for buyers/sellers to myself.
Using basic logic, usually when only ONE thing IS allowed, the rest are not. Sigh.
inhawaii
·3 years agoYou can't just "say" you don't ship to Germany in your listing.
You have to exclude Germany from the places you don't ship to.
marnotom!
·3 years agoI'm in Canada and this is what I see for your listing for the brooch:
Your bidder from Germany likely saw a similar message. They probably should have got your approval to bid first, but it is what it is. They're now likely waiting for an invoice because they know that they're going to get charged shipping, and may not be surprised if the shipping charge is higher than the item price. First Class Mail International is your least expensive option and should have delivery confirmation to Germany provided you purchase the postage online.
monica-sells
·3 years ago@marnotom!
Quickie question for you..
IF that item was not already 'closed' would you have been able to bid on it?
marnotom!
·3 years agoSorry for the delayed response to your quickie question, @monica-sells. Yes, I would have been able to bid on that item if the auction were still running. (Of course, I'd clear it with the seller first.)
chethor32
OP3 years agoThank you for your help! Appreciated
chris13
·3 years agoLooking at your recent listings sold I only see one with free shipping so I am assuming this is the one you are reffering to...it indicates in the drop down (where the code is executed) only United States even though I dont see Germany in the exclusion list explicitly.
soh.maryl
·3 years agoLooking at listing for one of your jewelry items, it only lists about 7 countries you do not ship to. For instance, if I were from the UK, I would expect that you would ship to my location. Ditto Germany.
Also, are you sure this buyer isn't using a freight forwarder in the US?
albertabrightalberta
·3 years agoBut looking at that same listing, the only shipping options are US and local pickup.
I believe the OP's settings are correct.
chris13
·3 years ago@albertabrightalberta I thought so too!
This thread suggests to me that ONLY the exclusion list matters. What is in the drop down as 'Ships To' is meaningless.
Anything not excluded is implicitly included via the 'May not support' buyer UI and allows buyer purchases without any shipping support configured. In my book, what is NOT excluded is included. What is NOT included is Excluded. eBay thought otherwise.
'Maybe supported' = allowed... just buy me and figure it out afterward with the seller!
albertabrightalberta
·3 years ago@chris13
I'm not sure that's correct. Although my listings show only a handful of countries I don't ship to and only US shipping prices are shown, this is what I have in my preferences. I assume "227" is the total number of countries to which one can choose to ship.
And this is from my listings:
chris13
·3 years ago@albertabrightalberta
I have every box checked under Shipping Exclusions > International and get the number 218 in the place you show 227. No idea why those vary...none are expanded with checks removed
I may have mistakenly missed seeing 'Germany' in the exclusion lists since it hides under 'Europe'.
My big takeaway from this is that my confidence in managing expected results keeps getting lower not higher and so when my turn came today I 'opted out' with the reason 'EIS didnt work well for me'. I can write code in Javascript, I can read rudimentary Tibetan, but I cant tell where my buyers will be when they see the BIN button. I'm ok if thats just a miss on my part and will keep excluding all. Thanks for your patient engagement with me today!
Have you considered?
Your buyer maybe using a US based freight forwarder that you would be shipping to and not to Germany.
I get international buyers quite often..they buy put the freight forwarders address as the place I would be shipping to. Then the freight forwarder ships to the buyer in whatever country they are in.
If this isn’t the case, I would cancel the transaction citing problem with the buyers address.
I would also double check my shipping requirements to be sure I only ship to the United States.
chethor32
OP3 years agoThank you!
titipeo
·3 years agoI will communicate with buyer and relate your message, perhaps say something alone the lines " you do realize that listing clearly indicated that I'm only shipping domestically in the US" who knows, maybe they will use a forwarder that will take care of sending to them, or perhaps they have a local family member or are visiting the US. If this doesn't get you anywhere, you can always cancel with "problem with address" and perhaps offer it to your runnerup.
At the very least, just look at your settings to see if they are indicating that is only US shipping, you may have switched it to internaitonal.
monica-sells
·3 years agoWhat does the sales (awaiting payment) page say?
Why would the buyer request an invoice?
How do you know they are from Germany?
Something in the stars is not aligning here.....
dentalsales4u
·3 years agoI would just cancel the sale with option problem with buyers address (since you don't ship there).
Double check your settings to make sure all other countries are marked that you don't ship there.