I have to block americans in the pacific from buying because ebay is stupid.

[pewpew123]

i sell some items that i only using USPS ground advantage. i recently had several buyers from guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. the problem is that ebay shows them an ETA of 4-8 business days, but in reality it takes A MONTH. you can verify this by checking travel times on the USPS website, pirateship, or any other shipping website. 

this results in buyers panic messaging me or demanding refunds because the ebay website tells them they should have got the package when it had just loaded onto the boat. ebay customer support doesn't understand this. they see the package is running late according to their own wrong ETA times, they refund the order. 

so now i have to block a bunch of americans, including active duty soldiers, from buying. not really looking for community help. just posted this in hopes that someone from ebay's dev team can take a break from watching netflix while "working from home" and fix this stupid problem.  

[kensgiftshop]

Have you thought about upgrading to Priority Mail to those locations?

[pewpew123]

sure. and pay $50+ to ship instead of $20 ish, and erase nearly all the profit on the sale. i can't believe i didn't think of that

the solution to ebay being stupid is us working for free.

EDIT: i was wrong. it's $16 for ground, $54 for priority. 

also note the **bleep** arrival time for ground. it won't even be on the boat by the 10th. 

[grand-and-glorious-purpose]

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@pewpew123 wrote:

sure. and pay $50+ to ship instead of $20 ish, and erase nearly all the profit on the sale. i can't believe i didn't think of that

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You could think about having the buyer pay shipping.

[nobody*s_perfect]

But that's exactly the problem: The buyers are paying for Ground Advantage, but then they file "Not received" claims because of slow delivery.

[richard1rst]

$54.63 ???????????????

What size and weight are you using? I don't see anything that you sell that would cost that much. I pulled a quote from Pirateship for a 5 pound box to the Mariannas and it was $27.52 Priority Mail.

BUT

It looks like much of what you sell would benefit from cubic pricing.

For example a 12x6x6 is only $19.52 regardless of its weight. Other sizes which ship based on size not weight would be in and around that same price.

[wastingtime101]

@richard1rst 

$16.55 is .70 cubic to zone 8 commercial Ground Adv.

Priority maxes out at .50 cubic.

$54.31 is the commercial Priority rate for 15lb to zone 8.

[12345jamesstamps]

I agree with you.

I blocked China but still get buyers from Hong Kong...Hong Kong is China now.

This should be undated but it's not.

[richard1rst]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

@richard1rst 

$16.55 is .70 cubic to zone 8 commercial Ground Adv.

Priority maxes out at .50 cubic.

$54.31 is the commercial Priority rate for 15lb to zone 8.

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Have you looked at what he is selling?

I'm a retired cabinet maker. I can not picture any of those tools weighing anything close to 15 pounds. And a whole lot of the little stuff is most likely in 1-3 pound ranges.

Even if PM maxes out at .50 CF what about Flat Rate Boxes?

Methinks he is way overstating the complaints.

[buyselljack2016]

How big do you think "flat rate" boxes are?

[richard1rst]

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@buyselljack2016 wrote:

How big do you think "flat rate" boxes are?

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I KNOW that they are Medium (11 ¼" x 8 ¾" x 6" or 14" x 12" x 3 ½"), and Large (12 ¼" x 12 ¼" x 6")

How heavy and how big do you think these tools are?

[pewpew123]

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@grand-and-glorious-purpose wrote:

You could think about having the buyer pay shipping.

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charging shipping removes "Top Rated Plus" benefit, which means 10% higher fee on every item you sell in that listing. 

this is clearly the solution. 11/10 idea. i wish i thought of that. thanks so much

[wastingtime101]

We'd need the original poster to return and provide more context. Package dimensions, weight, was it a multi-item order, etc.

I'm more interested to know why they have so many tools listed in the guitars category.

Is it an error or fee avoidance since that category has lower fees?

[richard1rst]

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@pewpew123 wrote:

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@grand-and-glorious-purpose wrote:

You could think about having the buyer pay shipping.

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charging shipping removes "Top Rated Plus" benefit, which means 10% higher fee on every item you sell in that listing. 

this is clearly the solution. 11/10 idea. i wish i thought of that. thanks so much

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NOPE !  I think you are confused with free RETURN shipping.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@pewpew123 wrote: ... charging shipping removes "Top Rated Plus" benefit, which means 10% higher fee on every item you sell in that listing. ...

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No, the TR-Plus badge requires free returns (i.e., seller pays for return shipping) but not free shipping for the original transaction.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/seller-standards-policy?id=4347