International selling has been killed.
This is costing ebay a fortune. Worse, it can be fixed.
There are two zones of dysfunction. Both involve the economics of compliance with ebay/paypal seller protection.
The minimum cost to comply with international delivery confirmation is about $20.
The minimum cost to comply with international signature confirmation is about $40.
Both are not available to many destinations.
Shipping small items without DC, on the other hand, is very reasonable. A 3oz package ships around $2, by First Class International (FCI).
Sellers of lower cost items are often quite willing to accept the risk of loss/damage, and ship FCI.
What ebay has done which has killed this business is be subjecting international shippers to intense penalties, even when the seller has fully refunded when something went wrong.
Solution:
If both:
1. seller has purchased a shipping label, through ebay, to buyer's address
2. seller has subsequently refunded in full
Seller should be protected from any negative consequences. ANY negative consequences (neg fb, neg stars, or dispute). This allows seller to assess the risk, even as buyer is fully protected.
The address purchase is required to minimize NPS issues.
The additional step required: today, ebay shipping does not offer FCI labels. Please, ebay, add FCI labels to ebay shipping.
The SC story is tougher, because buyers do need to be protected.
The best that can be done is to stop tricking naive sellers into thinking they can fulfill seller protection requirements by ordinary shipping methods. Make the danger more clear, it is not to ebay's advantage to get sellers all skittish about listing internationally. Once burned, twice shy.
Summary: let sellers manage the financial risk. Help them be informed. Don't add to that risk with draconian threats when stuff goes wrong, but seller refunds in full.
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Have you sent this suggestion to eBay? If not, please do. Just FYI, Canada has no First Class to the U.S. other than thin envelopes or thin bubble mailers. The best we can do is small packets air for even the smallest packages, and that is considerably more expensive than $2.00. For example, I just sent out a package of .290 kg. (about 9 ounces) in a small box - shipping cost small packet air was $9.90.) The U.S. is our market, and thus eBay is much more punitive to Canadian sellers than most.
ReplyDeletesg knows better than to waste his and eBay's time with all these useless rants. That's why he has a blog ;)
ReplyDeleteHave you sent this suggestion to eBay?
ReplyDeleteEbay is notoriously resistant to incoming suggestions, which doesn't mean that they don't digest ideas over time.
If, and it's a big if, if sellers could organize behind sensible requests for change, they would have some actual clout. The problem is that most changes demanded by sellers would benefit individual sellers at the expense of everyone else.