A question for "Conus Only" sellers

peter yetman

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I would be nice to get a few views from you on an idea I've had.
I completely understand that a lot of you guys selling lights in the States can't be arsed with the extra paperwork and hassle of sending them abroad.
How would you feel if a buyer (me) organised their own shipping and all you had to do was to print off a label and drop the parcel off at a local UPS Access Point?
Apparently all the custums stuff would be organised at the Buyer's end, so it sounds like a hassle free solution.

Your thoughts please.
Thanks,
Peter
 

Ozythemandias

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Part of the issue I have with international shipping is that buyers often don't want the full value declared on the docs, thing is if you declare a lower amount then you aren't insured.

And no matter what you write in the post, paypal will hold the seller responsible for the item to get to the buyer. USPS losing it is not an excuse.
 

Modernflame

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It's a thoughtful suggestion and certainly worth considering. In my previous WTS threads, I've always been uncomfortable about excluding our friends in Europe and elsewhere, but my primary concern is less about hassle and more about risk. I'm anxious enough about shipping an expensive item two states over.


Recently, there was a new thread posted by a European member of this forum who said that it took over 50 days to receive his Surefire and that he'd given it up for lost. It's that sort of thing that troubles me.
 

archimedes

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This is not really a "General Flashlight" topic, so was moved to The Cafe.

It has been addressed before on occasion, usually without satisfactory results, but we'll let this run for now....
 

kssmith

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I'm always stressed about the delivery and cost. I've shipped over seas several times; but the cost is so high I'm skeptical of offering it. Also; the worry if it will make it and then the loss on both ends if it doesn't. I'm not against shipping; but I might consider what you are talking about and see how it works.
 

peter yetman

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Part of the issue I have with international shipping is that buyers often don't want the full value declared on the docs, thing is if you declare a lower amount then you aren't insured.

And no matter what you write in the post, paypal will hold the seller responsible for the item to get to the buyer. USPS losing it is not an excuse.

I can see what you mean. Although, I and many others wouldn't ask that.
I guess it's a matter of mutual trust between buyer and seller as much as anything else?
P
 

nfetterly

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A member from Belgium that I have sold to recommends registered mail (his wife works for the Belgium post office). It's tracked, locked up at the post office and needs signature for delivery.

It's definitely more of a pain then dropping off something prepaid at UPS - it needs to be wrapped (brown paper I believe) and the tape needs to be paper because they stamp registered mail on all the tape seams.

Sometimes when I sell an expensive light I open it up to Europe to broaden the sales base. I've been lucky a few times and have had a trip to Europe around the same time and mailed it within the EU.
 

bykfixer

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For me, it's the cost. If somebody across the globe wants something I try to source it locally for them, reaching out to other sellers on their continent. But I have found more times than not the other seller isn't interested in obtaining said product to sell locally because of the costs associated with importing them. Shipping, duty fees etc for a single sale just isn't on their bucket list.

So the buyer has to pay an extra high shipping cost that I pass on (sometimes for less than my cost).

Now the worst case for me was when a buyer paid as much to ship it as the product, then the product failed on them. I was embarrased to say the least and made it right. There was no warranty option in his country. Luckily the buyer was cool about it and purchased more items to help me reduce my costs. I got lucky there.

I use USPS priority for 3 reasons. First it's less expensive to the customer than DHL, second it's faster and 3rd the customer can easily track it.

I recently sent an item USPS to a friend in Malaysia, tracked it to the guys door and saw that it arrived in like 11 days. My cost was $39. But to me it was worth it. It was a gift so he didn't have to declare it. But I won't write a number like "$5" on it. Again, if the buyer wants it, that's on them.

Somebody said "trust". Good word. Another reason for using paypal. Trust but verify. And if it disappears the buyer is protected. Sucks for the seller though. I know sellers who cringe at overseas shipping, but will do it. What I dislike the most is postage to Canada or south of the border is the same as sending it to the north pole.

If I were a volume seller I'd probably opt for keeping it CONUS due to costs to the buyer. My wife sold an item on Etsy and had not checked the international shipping rates. Oops. She listed "free shipping" and was facing more cost (using a flat rate box) to send it to Moscow than the price of the item. I just chuckled and pointed her to the best cost option for her and the buyer. We put it in a regular box and slapped a priority label on it. They charged by weight where a "flat rate" box would have been 3x the cost. The buyer got tracking and she actually paid less to ship it than the price of the item. So there is that option for FYI. Small, non flat rate boxes ship by weight, yet the priority label kicks in $50 insurance and provides a tracking number.

I use flat rate boxes because it likely arouses less suspicion at customs. I learned by watching that most drug/gun runners get busted for speeding or driving stupid. And most boxes busted at customs were in non comforming packages. So a priority flat rate box is more likely to pass through customs without inspection (thereby increasing delivery time greatly). I had a box get raided by customs on its way to me... 2 actually. One was stalled for 3 weeks and the other it turns out were stolen goods sold to me by an unscrupulous seller. I was contacted by customs both times. Both were in crazy looking home made boxes with lots of packing tape holding them together. (I saw a photo of the box of stolen items). The stolen items were confiscated and I had some explaining to do. The other box was full of tactical items that looked like weapons to the customs guy.

So if you do ship overseas or out of the country be sure the box doesn't stand out in a weird way. To me, it's not a hassle to fill out a slip of paper, so long as the buyer provides an easy to understand address. And I don't have a label printer so I'm going by the post office anyway. I find it annoying when I buy something, then get an email saying it shipped because the seller has an email based label thingy but it doesn't actually head my way for a couple of days. I send out an email with the tracking number a postal clerk handed me. Normally when I send the email it's in the evening and the tracking shows it has already left my local post office.

Yeah it's a risk sending a package outside of CONUS, but when I get the mail from a neighbor 3 doors down I understand there's also a risk sending things across my city. And the day I took off work to sign a package delivered by UPS, only to watch it drive past my house and later see the tracking say "no such address" was the last time I used UPS. FedEx is worse. They delivered a box of mine to the wrong street. Luckily my neighbor was honest.
So Pete, that's why I wouldn't trust a package being dropped off at a UPS drop off center. No UPS for me. Nor FedEx. DHL is cool, but expensive.
 
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peter yetman

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Thank you Mike, that's the best explanation I've had so far.
The PayPal liability thing has never occured to me.
As far as I'm concerned the Sellers responsibility stops at the Post Office, but then I'm very Old Fashioned, apparently. I've just started blowing Raspberries at people who are rude to me on the road, so yes.
P
 

terjee

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My issue is the lack of tracking number. Does this service offer one?.

Pretty much all the companies providing relevant shipping services offer a service with tracking, and signed delivery. USPS, UPS, DHL, FedEx etc.

On a more generic note, as an European, I'm vaguely offended by larger American companies having an attitude if "we don't bother with abroad", but I fully understand when private individuals say CONUS only.

Sometimes they just don't know what the issues are, how to mitigate and fix them, and have just as busy lives as I do, and no time to go hunting for information and figure things out. I think that has to be okay.

If you're regularly selling expensive lights here on CPF though, I'd check the options (tracks and/or signed USPS, DHL, FedEx and UPS) just to have something to offer people. If you're worried about fraud, just write that international users can PM you, and you can see if you can do something for them. That gives you the option to also check out their profile (age, number of posts, general attitude) before making a decision.

Bad stuff happens from time to time, but way more often than not, things are just fine.
 

bykfixer

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I'm old fashioned as well P. And agree that once the postal clerk has it my responsilibilty should stop. But being on planet earth 5+ decades I also know that aint how it works sometimes. The only package I ever have get lost had never left the post office I dropped it off at.
My Saturday postman (regular guy works Mon-Fri) is a friendly chap who used to work with my twin brother. I asked him one Saturday how to report a lost package. After telling him tracking never showed it leaving he went back there and found it. Now in this case the buyer was in Australia so the delay didn't seem to be a big deal. USPS over-night'd it (at their cost) to the guy who got it a few days later.
One thing that helps is like when it snows... I clear a path from my next door neighbor on each side so that the mailman don't have to trudge through snow for a few hundred feet. Realizing that has nothing to do with your quest Pete, it led to a customer getting his package that seemed lost a lot quicker. Dude returned the favor for the path(s) in snow.

Actually if the buyer arranges what you propose on their end that would probably benefit both buyer and seller. But how many buyers would be willing to do that? Or even know how to?

I'm always amazed when buying a $10 item from China with $2 air freight... howthehell can they do that?... and it usually arrives in like 2-3 weeks? That's crazy!!

Now when I had a bmx bike shop my Oklahoma distributor hired a truck to deliver stuff to their local depots who then dropped the stuff at the closest UPS facility. I once ordered $3k worth of stuff and had it mailed to another shop up north and neither of us paid any shipping. I suppose that's how folks like SolarForce and LumensFactory do it... it all goes to a giant boat with costs shared by the sellers. Then a $3 envelope with Chinese writing shows up at my house. LumensFactory charged me $5 for my last order... SolarForce $2. That's nuts. lol
 

terjee

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In consumer sales, the buyer usually takes responsibility not when they get it, but when it comes under their control. If they direct you to deliver to an intermediary that they're coordinating, than that's when they assume responsibility of the package getting lost or damaged in transit (seller would obviously still be responsible for it being the correct item though).

I'm pretty sure I must have received at least a thousand packages by now, and honestly, there's very rarely any problems. I'd say significantly less than one in a hundred, if you're slightly careful about whom you buy from. I've bought from the US and Canada, most European countries, and probably all of Asia with the exception of North Korea. Delays happen, but lost or damaged is rare, and I've only had one single case of downright fraud, where I suspected it to be fraud before I ordered, but I wanted to see what would happen. That brings it down to NO fraud cases without prior suspicion, and less than 0.1% lost packages, all of which has always resolved itself nicely. That's on the buyer side, I'd expect it to be slightly worse for sellers in terms of fraud, but I see no obvious reason why it should be higher with regards to lost packages.

As for shipping from Asia, not only can you pay $2 and have it in 2-3 weeks, but you can often pay $7-8 and have it in 2-3 days, weekends included. I've ordered on weekends and collected things at a pickup point the following Monday (or was it Tuesday?)

The reason for the postal service being cheaper, is postal union tariffs. It's basically a way for them to give a hand to a developing nation. This also means the Norwegian postal service (as an example) delivers the packages from China at a loss. They're not too happy though, and want it changes, but that'll probably take a few years.
 

bykfixer

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I'll keep that in mind terjee.

Good info.

Only issue I had with Chinese tracking was when the seller had a 54 where it shoulda been 45 in the tracking number. I watched my package via alerts be delivered to somebody in Montanna :huh:
But mine was in my mailbox when I got home. lol.
I wondered if the other guy was like "wth?!" when 'his' was delivered to my house....

Now I sent one to London to a friend who was not home. He said he'd left a note to deliver his mail 3 doors down. He said upon return a note said his stuff was at the post office. Sounds simple enough.... but when he got to his post office they said "what are you talking about, your mail was delivered 3 doors down". That was in like March. He called in September and said his package had finally been found and delivered. Sheesh.
 
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