Did process around international shipping change?

[rulonmillerbooks]

For years when we had an international order the customer would buy the item, we would calculate shipping ourselves after this, send an invoice, and then ship on payment. This worked fine. A while back, maybe more than a year, we would get  intermittent messages saying that ebay was telling the customer that we did not ship to their country. We'd have to basically turn our shipping options on and off again and then we could complete the transaction. 

Today we had a new problem. The customer said ebay was telling them we did not ship internationally. We adjusted the options to "calculated shipping." This let the customer order, but they were automatically charged shipping rather than letting us input the value. As a result they've been overcharged. We'll refund the difference so there should be no problem with this transaction, but I want to avoid this issue in the future and get our settings back to where shipping is calculated manually, after the order, instead of using dimensions automatically. We have 15k items all of different sizes which are boxed after purchase, and a cataloging system that does not let us input dimensions, so going back and making that information useful is not really feasible. 

It's been too long since I set these options up to remember what exactly we used to have, and things have moved around. My primary concern is misleading customers about costs without even knowing we are doing it due to some forgotten setting. Advice on how to properly set up the shipping policy so that shipping is calculated manually after an order is made would be appreciated.

ETA: Of course after I post this silly message I find the customer contact for cost option. The law that to find the answer, be dumb in public continues to hold.

However, we still keep getting people saying that we don't ship internationally when we do have the "Additional ship to locations - buyers contact for costs" options checked for their region, so that remains an open question for me.

[1786davycrockett]

@rulonmillerbooks 

About a year ago, eBay instituted eBay International Shipping (EIS), which removes most of the "guess-work" and related problems generally associated with international sales.  EIS serves as the "middle-man" between the seller and international buyer.

The process is simple:  The international buyer makes a purchase from your site, which you then send off to the EIS shipping hub (generally in Glendale Heights, IL).  (You may choose whatever domestic shipping service you desire:  since you are selling mostly books, the obvious choice would be USPS Media -- but that choice is entirely up to you.)

Once the item has been confirmed received by the EIS shipping hub, your worries are over -- EIS handles all customs paperwork, plus the new international shipping to your buyer.  In addition, any problems with INR cases are absorbed by eBay, with NO deductions from your account.

EIS has taken a lot of the problems out of international shipping, and I urge you to try it out.

And, by the way, your site MUST accept international orders -- so check your seller account to make sure that that is included.

[rulonmillerbooks]

@1786davycrockett 

We tried ebay's international shipping twice. Once under what I believe was and older system, where we sent the package to ebay, ebay informed us it would not complete the delivery, and the rare book we sent was never returned to anyone. We were not on the hook for the refund because it was ebay's "error," but do not like losing stock in this way. 

Because of this we declined to use ebay's international shipping for along while, until recently we were told that the system was updated, and a customer requested it specifically. We turned the option on and got a handful of orders quickly. The all were problematic for the same reason I detail in my first post. The shipping was automatically calculated and we do not have accurate product dimensions to facilitate that. So we again turned it off. If there is a way to use EIS and calculate shipping after an order we will use it, but if not it is not logistically feasible for us at this moment.

[1786davycrockett]

@rulonmillerbooks 

"The shipping was automatically calculated and we do not have accurate product dimensions to facilitate that. "

Perhaps I am not understanding what you have written.  It is standard operating procedure with all eBay orders for the seller to enter the weight of the item, as well as the length, width and height.  Your statement suggests that you don't provide this information when you are printing the shipping label.

Since EIS chooses the method for international shipping, this should not be of any concern to you.

"We were not on the hook for the refund because it was ebay's "error," but do not like losing stock in this way."

But you didn't lose stock -- you made a sale, and eBay did not deduct the funds from your account.

A sale is a sale.

[worldcoinauctions]

Well no, I sell a good number of things through EIS. On my end I have flat shipping fees as I know what my items cost to ship. I do not enter weight/size etc until I'm shipping my items. 

[pjcdn2005]

@rulonmillerbooks 

You currently have 7 listings that are do have an international shipping cost so you must have measurements set up on those listing otherwise there would be no way for the calculator to know how much to charge.  They aren't flat rates as they do vary by country so they are using the calculator.  If you want to see which ones show a price, go into one of your listing like a buyer would, click on the shipping/payments tab, change the country and click on rates.  Then view all sellers listings, refresh the page and the items with a shipping cost already showing will be the first few on the list.

When the buyer contacted you saying the item didn't ship to their country, which country were they in?  Your other listings that I checked do show that you ship to some other locations but they would have to ask for a shipping cost which is what you want to do.....correct?    It appears that might not work in the same way that it did  because ebay often requires immediate payment on listings.  I'm in Canada and when I click buy it now on an item that shows it ships to Canada but does not have a shipping cost, it gives me the message that 'this seller does not ship to Canada' so it doesn't allow me to commit to buy the item.  If I put it in the cart, the same thing happens as it gives me an error and does not allow me to ask for a total.   

The only way to get around this if you don't want to put in the prices when you list is when a buyer contacts you, go into your listing to revise it and choose flat rate shipping. Then under destination click on that buyer's country, add a shipping method and add in a flat rate cost. Then they will be able to buy the item with the correct shipping cost.

If you are using shipping policies, the above probably won't work. I don't know if there is a way to set up a shipping policy to do something similar.

[pjcdn2005]

@worldcoinauctions 

Right now I don't think that it is necessary to have dimensions in your listings when you use EIS and  it really shouldn't matter for your coins since the packaging for individual coins shouldn't change that much. But if a person is selling various items of different weights and dimensions, it is a good idea to enter that information on the listing page so that EIS can give a more accurate shipping cost to the buyer.

[1786davycrockett]

@worldcoinauctions 

"I do not enter weight/size etc until I'm shipping my items."

Isn't that what I stated?   "It is standard operating procedure with all eBay orders for the seller to enter the weight of the item, as well as the length, width and height.  Your statement suggests that you don't provide this information when you are printing the shipping label."

I was referring to eBay orders -- not eBay listings.

[rulonmillerbooks]

@1786davycrockett 

>> "It is standard operating procedure with all eBay orders for the seller to enter the weight of the item, as well as the length, width and height.  Your statement suggests that you don't provide this information when you are printing the shipping label."

We provide the information when we are printing the shipping label. The customer was charged shipping before we went to print the shipping label, aka before we supplied the information. What was the shipping charge based on in that instance? There are default dimensions which are not correct, and automatically applying them could cause trouble. We never had to worry about this before because domestic shipping is a flat 0, and international buyers were not charged shipping at purchase until we calculated it and sent the invoice. My worry is that if we ship using the uniform, default rates, there will be returns and holdups because the shipping cost is not associated with the actual dimensions of the package.

@pjcdn2005 Canada is often the country where we have this problem. Before, we never had an issue, because people would order the book, the sale would go through, and then we would send them an invoice with the shipping cost. That is the thing I want to have happen again, rather than buyers thinking we don't ship to their country, or us needing to have an accurate shipping cost for every item before the sale. 

We do use shipping policies. The 7 books you see with a shipping costs are broken out into unique policies, probably because that has been how we tried to work around this problem before.

The thing is this problem doesn't happen all the time. We just got another order for a book going to Canada and the shipping policy is the one we use for almost all of our other books. But it looks like things went as they were supposed to. The customer could order the book, and we could tell them the shipping cost after by sending an invoice. I'll have to ask our shipper if that was the case.

If the issue were uniform it would make more sense, but it isn't so it doesn't.

Our mailing policy currently looks like: 

International Shipping:
Calculated: cost varies by buyer location >> With 0 ship to locations chosen because using this will make ebay calculate the cost of shipping before we can give it the correct dimensions.

Then all "Additional ship to locations - buyers contact for costs" are checked, including Canada.

We've sold internationally for probably a decade at this point, but only in the last year or so have people messaged us about this "does not ship to your country" stuff. So what I'm trying to figure out is what changed, or if our policy got knocked out of whack at some point and an adjustment will correct the problem.

[pjcdn2005]

@rulonmillerbooks 

As I said earlier, eBay is forcing immediate payment on all or a lot of listings now.   But what is probably affecting you recently is that they apparently have taken away the 'commit to buy' option.  In the past, buyers could commit to buy an item, you would be able to send them an invoice and then they would pay. Now, most or all buyers  cannot commit to buy and since they can't 'buy' unless there is a shipping cost in the listing, the way that you were doing it is no longer possible.

That doesn't really explain why when you 'ship to Canada' I cannot put your item in my cart and ask for an invoice but that option is not available.  A while ago, they were talking about not allowing invoices to be sent unless there was a multiple item purchase, so perhaps that has something to do with it?

All I can suggest is that once a buyer contacts you with the problem, you add a shipping cost and service for their location so that they can buy that item.  Hopefully your regular buyers will know they will need to contact you first.

kyle@ebay 

The op does have shipping to various international location and their listings do say that the 'ship to Canada etc.'  but when I put their item in my cart, the message I get is that the seller does not ship to Canada.  Why would it not allow me to commit to put and ask for an invoice in the cart? An example is item 134691541193

[rulonmillerbooks]

@pjcdn2005 

That sounds like a likely cause for the problem. We've been basically doing as you suggest for the customers that do contact us. I'm concerned that some people run into the error and just walk away. It would help if the language they got was a little different. 

[rulonmillerbooks]

kyle@ebay 

This issue is still not resolved. Today we got yet another message from someone who wanted to buy our books and was told we would not ship to them, when our shipping options are set to allow international shipping. Here is the language in the message.

"Many thanks. I would like to buy this, but it looks like you don’t offer international shipping (at least eBay won’t all ow me to have it shipped to my address in Hong Kong). Would you be willing to send overseas in this case?Many thanks for your consideration "

This is not the first such message we have gotten since I first raised the issue. I've just hit my max annoyance again enough to bring it up. How many people are trying to buy our books, being told we won't ship to them (a lie) and then moving on?

[carlmarxx]

Seller's can opt out  immediate  payments  if they want to  .     

[pjcdn2005]

---

@carlmarxx wrote:

Seller's can opt out  immediate  payments  if they want to  .     

---

They can opt out if the seller is the one that has specified immediate payment. But for some BIN listings, eBay requires immediate payment even if the seller doesn't choose it.  In those cases it can't be opted out of.  

[pjcdn2005]

I could be wrong but I am guessing that eBay isn't set up to allow that type of business model any longer.

Based what on various posts that I've read, it seems that eBay is not allowing   buyers to commit to buy so they can't 'purchase' an item and then ask for an invoice. 

When I put one of your item in my cart that specified that you do ship to Canada, I still get his message: 

Unfortunately, this seller won't ship this item to AB, Canada. You can:

- Update your shipping address and try again.

- Or find similar items from another seller.

If the buyer sends a message about it, you could probably add a shipping cost to their specific location so that they could make the purchase but I don't know if there are any other options.

kyle@ebay 

At one time sellers could list an international location as a 'ship to' location without an actual shipping cost. The buyer could click on buy it now, commit to buy and then request an invoice from the seller.  This doesn't seem to be possible now. Even though listings from this seller specify that they DO ship to Canada, when I put an item in my cart, it says there is a problem When I go to checkout, it gives me the above message in bold.  So it is telling me that the seller doesn't ship to Canada even though the listing page says the seller DOES ship to Canada. This is for item 135254451455.

Is there a way to work around this so that buyers are able to purchase an item that the seller will ship to their location?  And so that the information in the listing doesn't say the opposite of the information on the checkout page? I can understand how it is very frustrating to a seller when something like this changes and it directly affects their sales.