EIS not offering shipping to UK

[bigskysell]

I had a customer contact me who wants to purchase from me, but EIS is not providing an option to the United Kingdom. And they are a previous customer of mine. Who previously purchased product through the same listing. Using EIS.

The business policy used by the listing was modified in the past to define shipping to only the US and Canada. Other countries, those not specified, were supposed to be shipped via EIS, but while most display, none of them now work (it says to contact me). And in the case of United Kingdom it doesn't show at all.

In an attempt to get EIS working, I changed the business policy so that it says I only ship to the US, no international, so EIS would kick in. It may have. I'm not sure. However, the United Kingdom is still completely missing.

And, also, the link that Ebay sometimes shows to the customer to "Contact the seller" for shipping costs does not work either. It goes to an error page. "Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later."

In any case, this is what my listing currently shows for shipping information:

Ships to: 

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan Republic, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon Republic, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Croatia, Republic of the Congo, Romania, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City State, Vietnam, Wallis and Futuna, Western Samoa, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Excludes: 

Barbados, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Guadeloupe, Libya, Martinique, New Caledonia, Reunion, Russian Federation, Ukraine, Venezuela

Notice that the United Kingdom is completely missing. Not sure what I'm supposed to do here.

[electrostation]

USPS website has a complete list of Individual country listings of prohibited and/or restricted items. UK does not have any of the item types that I sell on that list and that is why USPS allows you to ship it via them.

[vinyltap_11]

Thank you for this. I can finally see what all this **bleep** is about. I don't even understand what in this pertains to items being shipped to individuals from other countries. How much money is eBay losing on this? 

[kiwi_vintage_toys]

Nice to see this topic to know I'm not alone. I once had a thriving business selling vintage toy cars on ebay.com, with a lot of customers in the UK. In around July/August 2023 I listed a huge collection, over 600 low-start auctions. The only problem, none of my regular UK customers could find the listings so I had no option but to remove all my auctions, as it would have dramatically affected my sale prices.

I ship items myself, not using EIS, and obviously have the UK available. So the issue was a 'visibility' issue. The items were being blocked from appearing to UK buyers.

Interestingly, they used to charge $0.10 for items to be visible on ebay.co.uk - now even when you select that option, you are not charged. I think they have removed this charge given that we aren't always getting the service that we paid for.

I now don't want to list any items when buyers in certain countries can't find my items. The whole point of selling second hand / vintage / collectible items on ebay is that you can reach a worldwide audience. These weird and illogical rules have brought my once thriving business to its knees. The most frustrating thing is there doesn't seem to be any answers from ebay. Has anyone found any further information on this?

[atlasesattic]

Every time I list something they want .50 to post on U.K. website I thought all that was part of EIS...now we have to pay extra.

[robbob36]

Looks like nobody's found a solution yet.  The only thing I have to add is that not only can buyers in the UK not purchase certain (all?) products on the US ebay.com website using EIS, the automatic cross-posting to the UK website ebay.co.uk doesn't happen either.  I did notice that France and Germany are on the list for EIS and the item does cross-post to ebay.fr and ebay.de.  So it seems specific to the UK.  I sell auto parts, by the way.

[electrostation]

Will listing directly to "ebay.co.uk" work ?

[compassinfo]

We were told by ebay that this is due to UK customs restrictions. It simply is no longer allowed. I recommended to someone else that they'd have to do what a lot of Eastern Europeans do and go through a 3rd party reshipper. Not sure if it would work, though.

[bennotbill]

I think the problem is eBay using too big a brush, sweeping away entire groups/categories.

[dhbookds]

here's a post I made on selling board with some new info (to me)......addresses the "used" question....

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/UK-CE-requirements-Toys-etc/td-p/34290118

[stephenmorgan]

Heck I would be happy if eBay would allow me to use EIS to some countries.  Ever since this program has come out I am told I am opted in and it says in  my listing details that it is active.  I have not been able to use it.  It just cost me an additional $43 in fees because I can not use the EIS.

[theartofserver]

are other sellers starting to experience similar issues for Germany? today, I had a customer contact me asking me why I don't ship to Germany anymore. I have not made any such restrictions, but looks like eIS is not blocking me from selling to Germany too... seems EIS is starting to hurt my international sales... 😞

[stephenmorgan]

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@theartofserver wrote:

are other sellers starting to experience similar issues for Germany? today, I had a customer contact me asking me why I don't ship to Germany anymore. I have not made any such restrictions, but looks like eIS is not blocking me from selling to Germany too... seems EIS is starting to hurt my international sales... 😞

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Germany had a change in their import laws a while back dealing with packing materials.  Most individuals would not be able to fulfill the licensing requirements.  But I understood that the EIS would be the one with the license.  But since I have not been able to use the EIS, I do no know if this is true or not.

[newton.parts.accessories]

Yes just got the same thing for germany today, had one for the UK a while back too

[highdesertpowersports]

So that's it? 4 months later and still nobody has any answers and eBay still hasn't corrected this? We're all losing money, which means eBay is losing money too, so I'm not sure why this continues to be an issue. 

[theartofserver]

my guess is that eBay attorneys have sent out inquiries to the authorities in the UK for clarification and guidance on how to comply with the new import laws. as with any bureaucracies,  it may take a while to get a response or perhaps never. i don't have any inside knowledge, but imagine something like that is at play. i do wish there was just more transparency on what is actually going on. i can't imagine being transparent about such issues would cause harm. 

in the meantime, has anyone found a US based freight forwarding company that has figured this out and allowing qualified shipments to the UK? if I can't ship via EIS, at least I could direct my customers to use a freight forwarding company that is able to ship to the UK.