I’ve discovered something
For some reason a while back I bought something from someone in Germany on eBay and I wanted to look at their store after I received it to see if there’s more that I like.
It said that “this seller doesn’t sell things in my area” which made no sense because they obviously do.
Well I messaged them and said I wished they’d open their store to international shipping because I want to see it.
They said they didn’t understand why it isn’t but just in case if I search eBay.de instead of .com I’d be able to see their store.
Well there it is…… whole new eBay opened up!
I’ve found 98% of the time that if I found something I like and they don’t ship to the USA, I message them and then they adjust the post and I’m now receiving Eastern European items significantly cheaper than American eBay.
They also had 2 Pentel pencils that I hadn’t seen markings for and they were selling them for nothing (one seller wasn’t interested in shipping to me though)
Regardless, I’m in line for a Fixpencil with a perpetual calendar and a Pentel P205 m/m with a F lead hardness marking on the center and I’m about to bid on a Faber 9707 in the box as long as the seller can figure out how to change the listing. (They said they’re new and don’t quite know how) so I may not get that guy.
Either way, just in the interest of searching items I’m not privy to . I’m pretty excited about it.
Also, worth noting……
Unless it’s coming out of Serbia or Croatia, almost all of the sellers use DHL to ship which is far superior and quicker than any country’s postal service. Serbia and Croatia though… you’ll get the item but it’ll take minimum two weeks after acceptance just to leave the country
The biggest “lifehack” on ebay, I agree. About the one who didn’t send to you, maybe he sends to me? I can forward it to you. I’m not a MP collector so no worries I won’t steal your item away from you, Just offering help.
I don’t know, I really don’t understand why they’re against a sale. Shipping is shipping once it’s boxed and dropped off at the carrier as far as I’m concerned. Were it goes? I don’t care
There may be two reasons why some sellers on eBay Germany ship internationally and some do not. If an item was only offered for shipping within Germany, international shipping cannot be added later and a buyer from abroad has no possibility to buy the item with his address. The seller would have to delete the offer and re-list it with international shipping. Many people shy away from this effort, and if it is an ongoing auction where bids have already been placed, it would be very annoying for everyone. In addition, sellers on eBay Germany have to pay a pro rata (albeit small) fee for selling outside Germany, which some do not want to do.
Another possible explanation is that if they don’t ship internationally on a regular basis, they may not have software to automate customs declarations. In this case filling the additional paperwork for export isn’t worth their time for such a cheap item. Also, solving shipping problems and product support become complicated and costly once a border is involved.
The effort involved when shipping with DHL Germany is minimal: you enter a brief description of the item (e. g. “mechanical pencil”), its value, the item weight and the total weight, and then this information is printed out together with the shipping label; all you have to do is sign it and stick it on the package. There’s no need to add any documents like an invoice etc. I’ve done this many times, even for cheaper items like a single woodcased pencil, because it’s easy. And I’m also happy when someone does this for an item I’m interested in
I would just add that along with discovering .de and .es branches of eBay I soon signed up for local proxy shipping accounts as well to take advantage of free local shipping offers. That was how I purchased my Manufactum pencils so many years ago.
I’m guessing shipping abroad (or outside the eurozone) or not might depend if you are registered as a business owner or an occasional seller. Ebay probably charges VAT from the seller at their national rate (in Germany is 19%) but my gut tells me they don’t give it back to national authorities in Germany so that the sellers can claim it back. In fact Ebay charges both the buyer and the seller with VAT which is pretty crazy.
Ebay are also registered in Luxembourg (9%) and not in Germany (19%), so I’m guessing it’s complicated for registered sellers to get their VAT back. I’m an occasional seller and they charge me VAT, which they shouldn’t because I’m well below the yearly threshold in sales, but what do they care, they’re Ebay, you can’t even talk to a person any more, you just get robots and stupid pre-fab answers that do not answer at all.
In fact, the reality is that as a result of many years of damaging policies for sellers, and like many people here have long wished for, ebay sellers can’t make a profit anymore. It’s just losing money or inventory. Most of it it’s because people are buying directly from the source but also sites like Knockology and Reddit have hugely contributed to explore all the possibilities there are to move goods across at minimum cost and bust all niches there are left in any country. It’s sort of a reverse capitalist anti-capitalism.
Proxy shipping accounts? In Europe? Which are there? In what sense do local free shipping offer help you? Isn’t it still [Proxy Warehouse → You], just with [seller → Proxy warehouse] being free? Or are you talking about consolidation in the warehouse saving you money? In my experience sadly (US → Europe), it was even more expensive since the package size upgraded shipping cost by too much with service fees added.
I simply googled and chose one I felt comfortable with. You use them like Zenmarket / Buyee / FromJapan except it’s for online sales in European countries. I don’t feel comfortable recommending the one I used — the site navigation and usability was not very good.
eBay.de and eBay.fr often have nice items that would close at prices lower than on eBay.com…
But in my experience as a USA buyer, most of the time sellers won’t ship to the USA… and I think it has gotten even worse given the state of the current government regime. And if they do ship, the shipping costs can be extraordinarily high.
There’s a 3rd party shipping service but they use only DHL or FedEx and the rates are also painfully high.
If this can be of any help, some EU sellers won’t ship to Italy as well — which is, last time I checked, well within the EU borders…
They are probably set back by the notoriously bad Italian postal service, but since they mostly ship via DHL, there is really no need to worry. The only issue I’ve had so far with a shipment from Germany was due to a third-party courier based in France (Hermes, I think), and yet I was still able to get the parcel at my doorstep, albeit after many phone calls and implorations.
Apart from those already allowing for international shipping, many German sellers I interacted with were kind enough to re-list their items and allow me to buy them and get them via DHL (which is good compared to the ones shipping abroad directly, as I can be reasonably sure that their specimens won’t fly away as quickly). Some others, unfortunately, were adamant in not opening their borders, or could not modify an already ongoing auction I had caught too late; I missed some opportunities, but not too many.
Italy’s postal serivce is notorious. When I was still actively collecting vintage toys, I knew of collectors who had items valued at 600-800 USD ‘disappear’ in the system. In both directions.
I’ve shipped more than 1000 items worldwide and the few times a shipment went wrong was to Germany! A package was returned to me as “undeliverable” but the contents were gone. Then I got some kid in the US who sent me an e-mail crying saying the package arrived with nothing inside (hmmm…) and then his mother sent me another e-mail saying I was a monster and probably all portuguese people were monsters because her baby was crying and I ended up sending a replacement just trying to be a good ambassador for our country. I’m pretty sure that was a scam though. So it’s 0,02% or 2 in 1000
I’ve had a package that took 3 months to get to an address in Brazil, but it got there; I’ve had a package that took almost a year (!!) to get to the Maldives after going through Angola and South Africa and Madagascar but it got there. Basically 99,9% of stuff gets to its destination anywhere in the world, maybe just not always on time.
It’s true that Italian post are notoriously slow (but so are UK’s, German or Spanish, considering they are just next door). Sometimes it has to do with how all the shipments are arranged and the amount of alternative carriers there are in the country. We have good shipment speeds here because they work with our flagship air company that travels everywhere, but it’s not the same when receiving. Packages from other countries can take weeks depending on the services.
The most deceiving services are companies like MRW, Fedex which have “drop” points in stores you don’t know about and you never know where they are, the maps on their websites are never up to date and you really have to shout and talk gross to customer help to get them to tell you where their drop points are. But you actually paid for the carrier to leave it at your address not somewhere else. I’ve filed dozens of complaints about it but nothing ever changes. The internet is crawling with complaints about those companies, and yet they’re sort of immune to it and are allowed to continue to do their messy work without any kind of set back to themselves.
In any case, in my experience the time bad things occurred was when multiple items were shipped in the same package. I find that the risk is too high for both sides when you ship multiple items. Nothing unusual will happen 99,9% of the time. But if it does it’s a disgrace.
And it’s kinda sort of funny (others would say suspicious) that it’s always multiple package deals giving you troubles, delays or bad dreams.
