Item not received - What is missing in the international mail process & why sellers become victims

[abrusil]

The issue #1:

* USPS First Class International (even Priority Mail USPS) does not provide with insurance and delivery confirmation to a number of Countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Chile, and more. The tracking progress stopped at the outbound shipping facility of the USA. Either LA or NY.

The issue #2:

* eBay puts the Estimated Delivery Date without seller's consent, making the seller responsible for the late delivery.

These issues are known to eBay to sellers to buyers to anybody for years.

This is politics as far as everybody can see and here is why it will end up badly for eBay:

First: Those who will unleash their strong fillings towards seller who should know better and who should understand the buyer, understand eBay and all that support against common sense, please DO NOT EXERCISE YOUR USELESS EFFORT TO BETRAY THE MEANING OF BUSINESS.

I will not argue, but I will print in red on white the solution and I hope eBay will listen and smell the smoke.

Second: Why all sellers even are vulnerable to that nonsense with "item not delivered" + "case closed against the seller" + "seller got a negative strike" + "seller loses his product & money"  (something else?) all that because of ONLY ONE BLANK SPOT in eBay's system. 

Explanation of that blank spot: eBay is a platform for Sellers and Buyers. Is this it? NO, not even close.

eBay is a MULTIUSER network. eBay contracts with an enormous number of business including Shipping companies & services, Intellectual Rights Protectors, 3d party management and much more. I will focus on the Shipping Services this time and emphasize on how eBay is "not friendly" towards its sellers.

The shipping issue must be fixed ASAP - no joke here.

eBay contracts with USPS (the most annoying service provider in terms of undeliverable item's cases).

So, my questions:

1. Why does eBay NOT treat USPS as an equal partner the same way as the seller or the buyer?
2. Why will eBay NOT negotiate their policy with USPS and bring some essential layer of responsibility by USPS for EVERYBODY affected by that service?
3. Why will eBay NOT allow sellers to enter their ( Estimated Delivery Date ) based on their factual experience? (note: according to USPS it will take from 10 to up to 60 days, but according to eBay it is 10 days to many destinations)
4. Why will eBay NOT allow sellers to warn buyers about USPS First Class International delivery or similar when the buyer picks that option?

When the buyer selects <USPS First Class (or any other option without insurance and delivery confirmation> There must be the message pops up stating =   

**** Message to the buyer --- 

"Attention buyer:

• You are selecting the shipping method that does not guarantee timely delivery to your destination.
• Also, it will not provide with insurance and delivery confirmation, so you will not be able to see the tracking progress after your shipment left the USA.
• Please be aware that the seller has no control over the shipping carrier and advises you to share responsibility for any issues that could happen while en route outside of the USA since you are the one who makes the choice for the shipping method.
• If you don't want to share responsibility for shipping issues by USPS First Class International Mail, then please consider one of the following suggested shipping option available here:
  1. Global shipping method provided by eBay
  2. USPS Priority Mail with insurance and delivery confirmation
  3. Any other shipping method which guarantees the delivery or money back
• Please understand that it is in your own interest to have your order arrived safe and sound, so it is better to spend a little more for shipping and have your item arrived on-time or money back.

I would also like to have eBay customize the shipping destinations so that I can sort out for which country which shipping method is available / not. For example, I have so many negative instances while shipping to Chile, so I want USPS First Class International method NOT BE AVAILABLE to that place, only Priority Mail or better. At this time there is only Global Shipping method option if you exclude this country of destination. Which is not fair.

I am not a professional writer nor an attorney to put my wording exactly and perfectly for everyone, so if you don't understand something from what I wrote, either ask me or use your brains to connect some dots. Do not judge if you are not a judge or asked to judge. 

[flowershops]

Shipping overseas is very high risk as if it isn't seized by Customs, it may still disappear somewhere between the vast distance of thousands or tens of thousands of miles from origin to final destination.

Thus what is missing is ample INSURANCE for shipping overseas. I'm not a regular seller but when I do sell, I see ebay automatically checkmarking 'Global Shipping' when I list and when I go to relist it also automatically checks that box which I of course uncheck because shipping via USPS seems to cost an arm and a leg even for 1 pound via Intl priority mail that i dont even bother looking to see what the insurance cost is per $100 if even available from USPS overseas.

To me it all boils down to why is a person ordering from SO Far away when they could get the item faster and with less fuel pollution, and without the risk of Customs seizing.

Likewise I don't bother buying from overseas because everytime I did, the package would be delivered EMPTY with USDA tape all over it with a note saying the seeds or aquarium product(s) were seized to prevent spread of disease or unwanted species in the US.

[abrusil]

The question here, if it is fair to have a seller being responsible for all routes leading to the "item not received or not delivered" cases. The only one instance I know considered as a sip of air for the seller if the buyer provides with the wrong or incomplete address and later added the missing piece of information to his open case "not received" so eBay can see that the error is on the buyer. But still, how eBay allows buyers entering ANY, literally ANY combination of letters as a valid address. I have a LOT of buyers having some crazy address or even email address instead of street and house number as an accepted address registered under their eBay profile. Why eBay even allows that? Why there is not a single layer of confirmation/verification of the address? At least when a buyer registered with PayPal, there should be some logical address attached to the payment method, thus that address should not be a complete nonsense at least. What really bothers me is when the eBay customer rep (most likely working from Philippines) nails me with the statement that according to the tracking history we cannot see any signs indicating that the address is undeliverable. This is while knowing that the buyer did not put any street name or any house number, just the name, city and country, that's it? All that when everybody must know that USPS First Class international provides with NO insurance and NO delivery confirmation. Kind of funny loophole isn't it? Some business geniuses advise here on eBay that you should accept some losses... NO, I AM NOT OK WITH THAT. I am OK with the item lost or stolen and have a buyer sharing some responsibility for using/paying for the cheapest shipping method while acknowledging the risk involved. If you don't want that risk then pay for an insurance or accept the responsibility, otherwise, buy from somewhere else.