"shipping cost cannot be calculated. please enter a valid zip code" Error and Solution

[axclassic]

I've seen this error many times  - normally what happens is, the item gets posted and the customer will see the "shipping cost cannot be calculated. please enter a valid zip code" error, sometimes the buyer will send a message like "Why doesn't it allow to ship and I'm in the US?" or "Can you tell me how much it cost to ship it to my area?".  leaves you wondering why in the world did they ask me that? Also makes you wonder how many people didn't buy and went elsewhere because it had no shipping or told them it could not ship there.

Well, here's why;

You selected a shipping service and Ebay accepted it but the carrier service did not. In our case, it is always FedEX  SmartPost: Fedex Smart Post is the cheapest way to send something, but not always do they accept the package size/weight you put in, and Ebay always accepts it during the posting of the item. Item gets posted and the result is what you see. 

Solution is to change the shipping method to something other than FedEx SmartPost.

Always check your posting after you post it and click "calculate shipping" (as a viewer and not in your seller posting), to ensure it got accepted by the carrier.

This is a BUG that EBAY NEEDS TO FIX

[berserkerplanet]

Are the packages involved when the zip code error occurs non-machinable?

For FedEx Smartpost, a pkg is non-machinable (NM) if L1>34" or L2>17" or Wt>35# or a couple of other shape characteristics apply, and a non-machinable surcharge is incurred.

There was (still is?) a problem with the eBay listing tool accepting certain NM criteria at all in the shipping section, and then a problem with the eBay calculator throwing that zipcode error for Smartpost for other NM criteria after listing.

The only fix was to not list anything non-machinable (or anything with certain NM conditions) since I thought eBay Trinton seemed to indicate that it was not a bug and eBay was NOT going to support NM FedEx Smartpost through eBay labels.

Recent tests of mine seemed to indicate that that may not be the case though, and that the calculators might have been changed to accept NM Smartpost dimensions (on my phone and can't check now, but will look later).

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Shipping-Returns/Listing-will-not-accept-Fedex-Smartpost-shipping-opti...

and search these forums for recent (last 6 months?) posts by me for "Smartpost" and "machinable" for more info.