I was recently selling a cable on eBay, or rather not selling it, and despite reducing the price it just sat there for weeks. I was then contacted by someone in Hong Kong, asking if I’d send it to him. I thought it would be complicated, with postage and customs and whatnot, but after a search on eBay support I found that I could simply add the Global Shipping Programme to the listing.
You simply send it to the U.K. distribution centre, paying the same postage as you would use to send it to a U.K. buyer. eBay than arrange customs and everything and send it wherever. The buyer pays the extra charges to eBay and as the seller you don’t have to think about anything - it’s just like selling to the U.K.
On Tuesday I posted it at the local post office and it arrived with eBay on Wednesday. On Friday I got a message to say that it had been delivered to the buyer in Hong Kong. In a world where all we hear of is delays, I though that was amazing. So simple.
I’ve also used it a few times, and its a great service, but don’t necessarily check box for everything. I was selling an old phone for about £3 and the bidder that won was in S.Africa and it was going to cost him an extra £30, so he didn’t pay, and I lost the chance of an 80% ebay selling offer, plus lost the interest of someone else that bid against him.
Hi HH, Yes it is as simple as that but it is somehow too expensive… Now that UK left EU it is almost impossible to buy for us old Europeans if using the eBay process.
Regrettable indeed…
One that got me the other day was a delivery to the UK, but Hermes were charging me an extra £4. It turns out that there are a number of places in the UK that delivery is increased, particularly around Scottish islands (e.g. OH). In the end I made about £2 instead of £6
Yes I think it’s great for the seller but can be very expensive for the buyer.
I was selling my MFSL cd collection a couple of years ago and a lot of the buyers were in USA.
A couple of them refused to go through the global shipping program and I had to send them directly to the customer at a greater expense to me.
Of course, I was considering it only from the seller’s perspective, ie mine. It’s entirely up to the buyer to decide whether the price is worth paying and in this case they clearly thought it was. The thing that particularly impressed me was that it arrived at eBay’s GSP HQ on a Wednesday and was with the buyer in HK on the Friday.
When I sold my CDX, it was brought by someone in Dublin, but instead of him going through eBays GSP he gave me another UK shipping address that does the same thing. He sorted out all the details, and I just had to post it. I was a little nervous but it all worked out
The GSP appears OK for smaller ticket goods but, as someone has raised above, what do people think (and do?), with larger ticket items e.g. Naim kit.
Intra-UK parcel cot look very cheap nowadays due to the level of competition (in fact absurdly so) but they seem to have very low levels of insurance - max £1k from what I’ve seen.
