I am in Europe, I need a buyers email address to ship internationally, most buyers ignore messages
Hi,
I hope you can help, I am pulling my hair out in frustration, this not only effects me but all sellers based outside of the USA.
To ship internationally we now need a buyers email address, this is mandatory, we can not ship without it.
For 15 years eBay supplied a buyers email address, there was never an issue, it was simply added to the shipping label & off it went.
Then eBay stopped supplying it, for a while we were able to be "creative" when adding the email address, but now, when shipping outside of Europe we have to have the correct address, or the parcel will be shipped back to us, for the buyer will have not replied to any customs request.
The parcel will be shipped back, we will then lose the outgoing shipping fee, (a minimum of $28 going up to $50), have to pay the return shipping fee which is always at least 50% more, a brokerage fee, for UPS use an agent to collect the return payment, & we also have to pay incoming customs fees, this can amount to at least $125, the parcel will not be returned to us until we pay the costs, if we do not pay it is destroyed.
As I write I have three items bought by one Mexican & two American buyers who have ignored all messages, these purchases amount to almost $900.
I received a defect for shipping late to another American buyer in December, she took two weeks to get back to be with her email address. I tried to get the defect removed, but was denied, they stated that it did not fall into their remit for defect removal !!!!
Can someone please tell me if there is a work around, it is hard enough selling on eBay at the moment, but something has to be done to help us actually ship internationally.
Pleeeeeeeese, I don't want to hear about privacy & protecting buyers from scam callers, I had bought over 10,000 items on eBay when our email was shown & NEVER had a single nuisance call.
Feeling utterly defeated in Spain "(
kibble-net
·8 months agoIf the buyer is unresponsive, and they have not provided an email address, can you not cancel the order with the reason "problem with buyer's address"? That will not give a defect, and it's 100% true since you literally don't have their email address.
aristocratsandgypsies
OP8 months agoHi,
Yes, I can cancel with no defect, but we are talking thousands of euros/$s over the year, & I a registered business.
You would never believe the hoops I have jumped through to keep this eBay account afloat, but it sometimes seems that eBay quite deliberately put hurdles in our way
aristocratsandgypsies
OP8 months agoHi,
Yes, this is a lie, for the message still goes through eBay messages which (in my not so humble opinion) rarely gets a reply from USA based buyers,
lacemaker3
·8 months ago@aristocratsandgypsies
It sounds like the email address is only needed so that UPS can bill the buyer for the customs fee. That means that you must have shipped the package DDU (delivered duty unpaid) ... but USA customs now requires (since Aug 28, 2025) that the carrier pay the duty for all packages into the USA up-front. When UPS (or any other carrier) accepts something DDU it means that they are paying the duty up-front themselves, as a courtesy to the sender.
As long as the carrier doesn't need to bill the buyer for duty, you can use your email address on the label and it should be fine. They can contact the buyer through you, if necessary.
The solution here is: only send packages to the USA with DDP (delivered duty paid). UPS and other carriers offer this service as well. If you use the post office for shipping (if your country has resumed shipping mail packages to the USA) that will be fine because all postal shipments into the USA have to be DDP now, for items valued below US$800.
You already need to provide the Harmonized Tariff Schedule code for the package for the customs form. You can use that code, with the country of origin for the item, to figure out what the duty cost will be to the USA. UPS has online forms that do that when you purchase the DDP shipping label, because it includes the duty amount and service fee. You would just have to check the DDP shipping cost before you list the item. then you can increase the shipping cost by that amount to cover the cost of DDP shipping including the duty.
I know this is added work for you, but this is the only way that eBay provides that allows you, as an international seller, to collect the duty cost amount from the buyer at checkout. The Global Shipping Programme to the USA is only available for items in the UK, and eBay International Shipping to the USA is only available for items in Canada.
The only other option I know of, would be to cancel the transaction for "Problem with buyer's address", and explain in the notes that the buyer's email address was required, and was not provided. Then you could explain to the buyer what is needed and let them repurchase the item, if you think they will comply.
FYI, for packages into the USA, even having the email address on the label is no guarantee for the seller that the buyer will pay when they are billed. There have been a lot of reports of USA buyers refusing to pay the duty when UPS sends them the bill. A few months ago, there were news reports that UPS had backlogs of hundreds of thousands of packages that had to be destroyed because the buyers would not pay the duty, and the sellers couldn't afford to have them returned.
fullers_uk
·8 months agobut USA customs now requires (since Aug 28, 2025) that the carrier pay the duty for all packages into the USA up-front
Only problem is they never told Ebay!
lacemaker3
·8 months agoHi @fullers_uk, since you are in the UK, I'm hoping you can answer a question for me.
Royal Mail now requires that senders fill out the customs form and pay the duty for USA shipments when they purchase the RM shipping label, as I understand it. They were able to get this up and running online from Aug 29, 2025, from what I read on the RM website.
Does eBay allow UK sellers to purchase RM shipping labels to the USA through eBay again? I believe that used to be possible, until RM stopped accepting USA packages late in August. So I wondered if eBay has started selling Royal Mail shipping labels to the USA again?
fullers_uk
·8 months agoHi, yes I am in the UK but in 23 years I have never bought a label through ebay, I always use the RM website, the reason I dont use ebay labels is becasue the one time I tried it was with a comany called paclink and I didnt like there terms because I had to allow them direct access to my paypal account, I have never had accounts because they get mystery charges and surcharges added to them and can take days to sort out if in fact they ever get sorted, after checking my paypal account after my enquiry paclink had set up a direct debit which I cancelled within paypal but a week later paclink had set it up again, this went on for about 6 months even though I had never used there service.
lacemaker3
·8 months agoHi, thanks for getting back to me.
I tried searching on the eBay UK community, and according to this thread, eBay has not implemented Royal Mail DDP (they call it PDDP, apparently) into their label services.
These sellers are able to purchase the Royal Mail PDDP service from Royal Mail, but eBay ignores that and continues to show the wrong information (saying that import fees will be charged on delivery) on the listings which are being shipped to the USA with Royal Mail.
https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Business-Seller-Board/Royal-Mail-PDDP-service-for-USA/td-p/7941193
fullers_uk
·8 months agoYes thats correct, Ebay put UK sellers at a disadvantage and my sales to the USA have dropped but if you are based in China its very different when it comes to Ebay and tariffs.
Seller: wingwongnumber
Member in China since 2021
Item $3.99
Shipping FREE
Item location Oregon USA
Shipping Time 3 weeks
No tariffs to pay
No ebay warnings on this listing about tariffs !
Problem #1 the item is not in the USA its in China, the seller has lied about where there inventory is, it doesnt take 21 days to ship a $3.99 item with free shipping from Oregon to anywhere in the USA.
Problem #2 the seller will probably get all the money they paid for the tariffs refunded by the Chinese government.
Ebay consider these actions perfectly acceptable.
If we were to lie about the location of our inventory we would have big problems, but as its China they are exempt.
fullers_uk
·8 months agoOn the right hand side of the order details page you will see show contact info and an arrow pointing down, click that and you will get the buyers phone number (again) and there ebay anonamalised email address.
One problem is the email address ebay allocate is sometimes toooooooo loooooonng to be able to input into a carriers order page.
Mostly I have given up using the anon email addresses and set up a special email address to use for all sent parcels, that way I know where the item is when I get shipping updates or a scammer tries to redirect the item it and has to use the email address used when buying the shipping label!
aristocratsandgypsies
OP8 months agoI usually ship between 15-25 parcels internationally per month, can I get away with using the same email address? And won't giving an incorrect email address scupper me when (say), a scam or rotten buyer tries to cause problems?
I actually had the same scam buyer based in the USA buy the same item off me twice over a few months, she even gave me her email address. The moment she saw the item was shipped and due to leave Spain she opened a payment dispute with her bank citing unrecognized transaction, (this was a 0 feedback buyer who would have had to contact eBay to open her new accounts). Thank the gods I was able to get the first parcel redirected back to me, this for a $350 item, I couldn't believe my eyes when she reappeared 4 month later with a new 0 feedback account. eBay had the grace to issue me back my first seller fees, (for eBay don't return seller fees for a payment dispute, even if they claim you are protected), and not charge me the $20 fee, but was horrified by the utter lack of accountability eBay showed.
eBay's protection regards scam buyers is so many light years away to that offered by PayPal (do you remember those days ?)that they might as well be living on a different planet "(
Sorry for the digression rant LOL
fullers_uk
·8 months agoI usually ship between 15-25 parcels internationally per month, can I get away with using the same email address? And won't giving an incorrect email address scupper me when (say), a scam or rotten buyer tries to cause problems?
Up until today my allocated email addres for this has 3028 emails in it, its never caused a problem, I even do the same for orders I get direct from my own websites.
Before the recent revamp of the RM website it even told you that of you havnt got an email address for the recipient use your own,
aristocratsandgypsies
OP8 months agoHi
Thanks but I am in Spain, & I am registered with UPS, this lunacy has wiped out a friends business, & don't want to go the same way,
kensgiftshop
·8 months agoWhen I had to provide a buyers email, I just gave them mine.
aristocratsandgypsies
OP8 months agoHI,
Hahahahah I had never thought of that, & I like to think I am ingenious LOL
I will try that, watch this space LOL
lacemaker3
·8 months ago@aristocratsandgypsies,
If you do that, and still send the package DDU, then you will be billed for the buyer's duty payment, instead of the buyer. The buyer won't have any way to be able to pay it. So it's probably not going to work if you are shipping DDU to the USA.
It should work fine as long as you ship the package DDP, at least to the USA. A lot of USA-based sellers do this when shipping DDU to other countries, and it usually works fine for them.
fullers_uk
·8 months agoFrom my online chats with ebay, they told me to send a paypal invoice for the tariffs and fees to the buyer using the buyers anon ebay email address.
Its a lie and a trap, its trading outside ebay and ebay wont get there % fees cut of the money.
kensgiftshop
·8 months agoIf the carrier sends the buyer an email, couldn't the OP just forward the email to the buyer?
lacemaker3
·8 months agoYes, I suppose the seller could do that.
I would expect that a lot of buyers would complain about that, because the seller was asking them to pay more after they had already paid on eBay. A lot of buyers have complained when the carrier asked them to pay more (i.e. the duty) after they had already paid on eBay.
fullers_uk
·8 months agoYou could do but you would get negative feedback saying the seller DEMANDED extra postage on my item, the seller underpaid postage and then ebay will increase your fees and restrict your account and hold your funds.
You are dealing with a machine.
aristocratsandgypsies
OP8 months agoI have tried something similar to this in the past, but the majority of buyers based in the USA who buy rare expensive items simply never bother to respond, or respond months down the line, in a fury for they don't have their item, ALL I repeat all claim never to have seen my messages.
aristocratsandgypsies
OP8 months agoHi,
Thanks for the advice, I tried to book a label & pay any charges ahead but was unable to do so.
I find it utterly inconceivable that eBay have not done, are doing nothing to help us.
Someone made the point last year that being that eBay now make as good as no profit from sales, that the majority of their profits come from their multitude of Promoted listings, that they simply can't be bothered to sort this out.
Could they not have a system whereby the buyer agrees to send the seller their email on request? That the buyer can "opt out" if they don't want to?
It's already bad enough that we European Union based sellers have the majority of our listings hidden by eBay, but to successfully sell a rare beautiful item to the USA & to then not be able to ship is lunacy
I must stop these rantings LOL