Setting Buyer Exclusions by Country

[sin-n-dex]

So I came home to a sale in Belgium, but Belgium is on my exclusion list. I went to the listing (it's the Belgium stamps BTW) and I saw that there were lots of EU countries I shipped to in this listing, but all those countries are blocked. For Europe, I just ship to Switzerland and the United Kingdom because I have too many problems with EU customs.

I went to make sure my buyer exclusions were correct because I thought maybe some became unblocked. I made a few unrelated changes and noticed the "update running listings" box doesn't appear anymore.

Does this mean it automatically updates all running listings now and I don't have to tell it to do that anymore? Or is this a situation of the listing goes with whatever exclusions were in place when the listing was made? I use auction software, and it the option I set for exclusions (since I can set them up in the software too), is to pull whatever list is in place on eBay.

C.

[cardxcraft]

I still have access to the option, "apply selected options to all current and future listings".

Quick question: do you have business policies activated?  If so, you'll need to go to each shipping policy and apply exclusions.  

[sin-n-dex]

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@cardxcraft wrote:

I still have access to the option, "apply selected options to all current and future listings".

Quick question: do you have business policies activated?  If so, you'll need to go to each shipping policy and apply exclusions.  

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No policies activated.

I use SixBit, so I create my "policies" there, but in the listing it gives me a choice to exclude countries for "that listing only", or "exclusion list from eBay" (the latter is what is selected on almost all my listings unless I want to be sure it's USA only).

I went to some of my active listings and the excluded countries are correct. I'm wondering if maybe I went into that option a different way than usual which is why it didn't give me the choice to update all running listings.

C.

[12345jamesstamps]

I listed a number of Chinese stamps last week...and blocked China.

I get too many buyers where eBay lets buyers only list their address in Chinese and connecting these buyers can be hard to reach. Chinese addresses can be complicated sometimes. Sone buyers insist their telephone number with address. It's sometimes a jumbo of the address on eBay platform where a number might appear on the next line near the city and not the street.

Ha ha...I forget China does not include Hong Kong or Taiwan...so got orders.

One letter going "freight forward" to Taiwan...so I kinda give up.

Buyers from China will still have a way.

Imagine trying to do a "registered letter" to China and you only have their address in Chinese and one cannot use that. I would be laughed out of my post office.

[wastingtime101]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

So I came home to a sale in Belgium, but Belgium is on my exclusion list. I went to the listing (it's the Belgium stamps BTW) and I saw that there were lots of EU countries I shipped to in this listing, but all those countries are blocked.

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On item 185255827508 Belgium is clearly on the exclusions list.

Are you seeing Belgium as the ship to address submitted with the buyer's payment, or has the buyer not paid yet?

[sin-n-dex]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

So I came home to a sale in Belgium, but Belgium is on my exclusion list. I went to the listing (it's the Belgium stamps BTW) and I saw that there were lots of EU countries I shipped to in this listing, but all those countries are blocked.

---

On item 185255827508 Belgium is clearly on the exclusions list.

Are you seeing Belgium as the ship to address submitted with the buyer's payment, or has the buyer not paid yet?

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@wastingtime101 

That's so strange. After I received the order, I went to look at the listing, and Belgium (and Finland, and other places in Europe) were showing up as choices for shipping. But now it's not showing shipping to Belgium in the listing. I swear it was there earlier today...

He's purchased and paid and provided an address in Belgium (which I know to be blocked, all of EU is), so I went to check the listing.

I decided to ship. It's not every buyer in the EU I have issues with, it's just happening often enough to be too much of a headache. If the listing showed I shipped to Belgium and he was able to buy and pay, I don't see why I shouldn't honour my end of the agreement and ship him his item. Hopefully it won't get tagged for VAT at the border and become abandoned property.

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I listed a number of Chinese stamps last week...and blocked China.

I get too many buyers where eBay lets buyers only list their address in Chinese and connecting these buyers can be hard to reach. Chinese addresses can be complicated sometimes. Sone buyers insist their telephone number with address. It's sometimes a jumbo of the address on eBay platform where a number might appear on the next line near the city and not the street.

Ha ha...I forget China does not include Hong Kong or Taiwan...so got orders.

One letter going "freight forward" to Taiwan...so I kinda give up.

Buyers from China will still have a way.

Imagine trying to do a "registered letter" to China and you only have their address in Chinese and one cannot use that. I would be laughed out of my post office.

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I ship to Hong Kong. My shipping providers give me a tracked service, so it's no issue, and Hong Kong buyers generally give an address in English.

I have shipped to Taiwan, but I think it's excluded now. I might reconsider that if my shipper can provide a good option to Taiwan.

I don't mind shipping anywhere that's tracked that doesn't give me headaches, but APO boxes tend to have shipments that come back to me for wrong customs form (even though I printed the label on eBay), and EU buyers tend to abandon their property if VAT is charged and then whine for a refund. Since the evidence that the package was refused at customs is not showing on the eBay tracking, eBay says I am forced to refund, or I can earn a defect and fight it.

If there's no tracking available, or a high amount of postal theft (like Brazil or Mexico), I don't ship coins there. I might make an exception if they want a postcard or low priced stamps that go in a regular letter.

C.

[wastingtime101 · Accepted solution]

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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That's so strange. After I received the order, I went to look at the listing, and Belgium (and Finland, and other places in Europe) were showing up as choices for shipping. But now it's not showing shipping to Belgium in the listing. I swear it was there earlier today...

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Very strange, indeed. Right now Belgium is definitely excluded. Perhaps there was some kind of hiccup earlier where your exclusions were not applying properly.

Says you have not revised the listing since Apr 30th, and the listing is ended, so if you were looking at the same listing earlier and saw Belgium was not excluded then it must have been some kind of glitch on eBay's end.

Hope the shipment goes smoothly - good luck!

[12345jamesstamps]

I had to block India and Thailand because of problems...not knowing if the buyers are honest or if there is a problem with addresses....always got a lot of buyers...good buyers from those countries.

[sin-n-dex]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@sin-n-dex wrote:

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That's so strange. After I received the order, I went to look at the listing, and Belgium (and Finland, and other places in Europe) were showing up as choices for shipping. But now it's not showing shipping to Belgium in the listing. I swear it was there earlier today...

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Very strange, indeed. Right now Belgium is definitely excluded. Perhaps there was some kind of hiccup earlier where your exclusions were not applying properly.

Says you have not revised the listing since Apr 30th, and the listing is ended, so if you were looking at the same listing earlier and saw Belgium was not excluded then it must have been some kind of glitch on eBay's end.

Hope the shipment goes smoothly - good luck!

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Thanks for trouble shooting this with me. I can always count on your help in the forum.

You are probably right that it was a hiccup and that allowed the buyer to purchase, and when I went to look at the listing later it was not showing the exclusion list properly. I did have EU allowed when I made the listing (a long time ago I think... most of the pages of stamps are pretty old listings), so it might have reverted back to something before in glitch-mode.

Anyway I decided to ship, Belgium isn't a problem country unless there's customs to be paid on import and the buyer doesn't deal with that appropriately (which I mostly see with new buyers anyway). I'd rather ship and risk it than keep the item and lose the $30 sale right off the bat.

C.

[sin-n-dex]

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@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I had to block India and Thailand because of problems...not knowing if the buyers are honest or if there is a problem with addresses....always got a lot of buyers...good buyers from those countries.

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India has been a big problem for me in the past. I don't think I ever got orders from Thailand.

My big one for blocking is South America. I have shipped to Uruguay without problems, but in other parts of South America it's scammers galore. I was staying in Chile for a while a 15 years ago and the Correos agent in the small town I was visiting (Puerto Chacabuco) stole all my packages and kept the money I paid for postage for himself (even though I had bought registered mail). My Spanish is generally very bad, so I wasn't in a good position to argue with him about the shipping.

We also got warnings from police and locals that robberies were prevalent in the area and to guard valuables. One lady even told me to take out my earrings because of crooks. (they were gold hoops).

C.