Ebay shipping options and requirements.

People should refrain from using (or alluding through sarcasm) stereotypes, especially on demographics that include people who read or participate here. It can be deemed offensive.
It would be the same if you had someone from India came on here and claimed that we were all hostile towards Indians (following the recent violence against them in Melbourne) - you would take offence at the generalisation.
I know a lot of nice Americans, as well as arrogant ones - but if a generalisation has the chance of being interpretted as a criticism of the entire demographic it is best to avoid using them in public situations here. Leave it for comedians and media criticts.

Absolutely correct.

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Originally Posted by jaydisc

1. Did you look beyond the $44 to see the $22 shipping option?
2. PayPal Seller Protection requires the sender to use a service the can provider verified delivery.
3. It is currently ambiguous as to whether USPS Priority is an acceptable means as opposed to USPS Express in the eyes of PayPal.

Therefore, when you see shipping rates of under $20, the seller has exposed himself to the risk of a PayPal chargeback to the "scum that lives outside their borders."

But you already knew all of this before shoveling around your dirt, didn't you?

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Just some info for anyone interested. We have been talking about a small missile that would fit in a standard envelope.

From the USPS site:
Express Mail International® Flat Rate Envelope - $26.95 for Canada and Mexico, $28.95 for all other countries

One price regardless of weight
Size: 12-1/2" x 9-1/2"

Or if you look by weight for pacakges:
Weight Not Over (lbs) 0.5: $28.95 to Australia.
Individual dimensions may not exceed 36 inches in length, 79 inches in length plus girth combined

So $44 is still more then what the actual postage is.
Quite frankly though they should use USPS Priority, I'm certain it is an acceptable form of transport in Paypals eyes as it has tracking.
There's no difference between Priority and Express apart from the time it takes to arrive and that Priority has free basic insurance.

http://www.usps.com/prices/express-m...nal-prices.htm

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Originally Posted by DarkHyren

Just some info for anyone interested. We have been talking about a small missile that would fit in a standard envelope.

From the USPS site:
Express Mail International® Flat Rate Envelope - $26.95 for Canada and Mexico, $28.95 for all other countries

One price regardless of weight
Size: 12-1/2" x 9-1/2"

Or if you look by weight for pacakges:
Weight Not Over (lbs) 0.5: $28.95 to Australia.
Individual dimensions may not exceed 36 inches in length, 79 inches in length plus girth combined

So $44 is still more then what the actual postage is.
Quite frankly though they should use USPS Priority, I'm certain it is an acceptable form of transport in Paypals eyes as it has tracking.
There's no difference between Priority and Express apart from the time it takes to arrive and that Priority has free basic insurance.

http://www.usps.com/prices/express-m...nal-prices.htm

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I have dealt with good and experienced US sellers who should be more than aware of Paypal fees who don't charge no where near that for a small missile. The times that I have trusted a seller with such inflated shipping costs almost always ends up in sloppy 'recycled' packaging and only $12-$15 in actual postage costs with the rest in the seller's pocket.

For me this was the drop that spilled the glass as its not an isolated incident. It doesn't mean that its all sellers from that region that are like that but there is a bunch of them who do seem to hold the attitude that I was referring to before.

So excuse me if I am skeptical of the honesty from US sellers who charges $25-$45 for a small missile in S/H costs to international buyers.

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Originally Posted by DarkHyren

Quite frankly though they should use USPS Priority, I'm certain it is an acceptable form of transport in Paypals eyes as it has tracking.
There's no difference between Priority and Express apart from the time it takes to arrive and that Priority has free basic insurance.

http://www.usps.com/prices/express-m...nal-prices.htm

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Thanks for taking a moment to check out the facts. I wish everyone did that, especially before considering making a baseless claim or serving out a derogatory comment.

Motivated by your response, I decided to try and get to the bottom of the whole Priority vs. Express ambiguity, and I'm afraid that the belief that Priority is acceptable because it provides online tracking is not completely accurate.

Let's start with the PayPal User Agreement. In this case, the USA version seems appropriate, but I'm relatively certain this aspect is universal:

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Section 11.3

Item Not Received Requirements:

• The payment must be marked "eligible" or "partially eligible" for seller protection on the Transaction Details Page.
• You must have a Proof of Delivery.
• You must ship the item within 7 days of receipt of payment. Or, if the payment is for pre-ordered or made-to-order goods, shipment is required within the timeframe specified in your item listing.

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You will notice Proof of Delivery is capitalised to reflect that it is an proper term, defined a couple paragraphs later:

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11.5 What is "Proof of Delivery"?
Online documentation from a shipping company that includes all of the following:

• The date the item is delivered.
• The recipient’s address, showing at least the city/state or zip code (or international equivalent).
• Signature Confirmation for payments of $250 USD or more (see Foreign Currency Equivalents below).

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Unfortunately, I don't have any valid tracking numbers handy (Does anyone?), but it seems that the difference is that a Priority tracking number only offers the first of the three requirements.

USPS.com has a popup glossary for various terms. Here's their definition for Proof of Delivery:

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Proof of Delivery is a letter that includes the recipient's name and a copy of their signature. You can request Proof of Delivery to be emailed, faxed, or mailed to you for no additional fee for Express Mail(r) and Signature Confirmation(tm) services.

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Here are two threads at eBay's Answer Center which still provide no definitive answer:

http://answercenter.ebay.com/thread....=1264196957135

and

http://answercenter.ebay.com/thread....=1264196957136

I thought I'd ask a prominent eBay seller (whom I've noticed insists on Express) if he's sure he can't accept Priority. Here's his reply:

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Dear jaydisc,

I've called, emailed, shown up at the window, and had everything but a knock-down drag-out fight with them over this. Their 'tracking number' is just the number on the customs form that stops being scanned when it leaves the USA border. Once the package gets into another country's carrier's hands it no longer works. Only International Express has a tracking number that's handled all the way by my post office.

If I was to ship Priority Int, all the buyer would have to do is say, "I didn't get my item." and Paypal would demand the tracking number, refunding the buyer their money out of my bank account when I couldn't produce one that worked all the way to the destination. I use to complain about the $30 EMS shipping from Japan/China when I ordered my import figures. Now I know why they're forced to charge that much, it's to cover their rear just in case. Again I apologise about the high international shipping, right now that's the only safe option for both parties, and unfortunately the most expensive.

- jin-saotome

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While I certainly wouldn't consider his response authoritative, it's important to realise that this is the perception that many USA eBay sellers have, regardless of its accuracy. It's also nice to see that as a result of his own research he's become more accepting of the reality of higher shipping rates when importing goods.

Now, for Australia, I'm pretty sure he's wrong, as I've experienced a Priority Mail number track to my post office, but by the same token, I don't recall it ever showing my address, postcode or suburb as PayPal requires, and I remember that after being carded by the post office, my package's status was updated to delivered. This greatly differs from EMS (say, from Japan), where the online tracking is updated with Attempted Delivery and doesn't hit delivered until it's in my hands.

One of the only consistent bits of documentation surrounding this is the absolute inconsistency of results per country. While we might get Priority tracking to our local post office, and a dispute regarding such might an event might still leave a seller protected, what about Italy or China? Should sellers take the time to know per-country policies and manually craft shipping rates for each item to each country?

An update from Jin:

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Heya,

Write them! I've sent them multiple emails, talked to them on the phone, but none of them will change anything. In fact they've made it so bad for sellers that we MUST include insurance on a package now or eat the cost if it's lost/damaged in the mail. According to paypal the seller is now 100% responsible for the item until it arrives in the buyer's hands and can be verified through an official tracking number that traces the day of mailing, path of deliver, and time it was accepted. Insurance is a minimum of $3 and goes up higher for anything expensive. For a $500 figure I'm paying $12 just in post office insurance fees. But since I have no idea what my custom is going to end at I can't charge the buyer for insurance, I'm stuck eating it every time, there's no longer an 'add insurance' option now. Crazy.

Jin

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Originally Posted by jaydisc

Now, for Australia, I'm pretty sure he's wrong, as I've experienced a Priority Mail number track to my post office, but by the same token, I don't recall it ever showing my address, postcode or suburb as PayPal requires, and I remember that after being carded by the post office, my package's status was updated to delivered.

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I think he is wrong, it should track to the destination country.
I have a package currently in the mail from the states via Priority, I'll keep checking and tell you what the end result is.
Mind you, my packages are a little more secure as they go to my post box so it won't list tracking past the Post Office as it stops there.

Oh, I forgot, on the last one I got Priority it did indeed show my state and suburb on the USPS tracking site when I put in the number.
That's how I keep track of if there's something waiting for me rather then check every day.
Forget that, I checked on the box and the guy upgraded that package to EMS for free.
But I'll check again anyway. And I'll let you know if I need to sign for it.

Hmm this is a very interesting topic (It should be a thread of its own :p). I think what's happened with the Jin fellow is that in the past, he's only shipped unregistered priority.

Whilst ems is the fastest with the most informative and reliable tracking info, you can achieve almost the same level of service if you go with registered priority.

I'm pretty sure Priority as a stand alone service only provides the acceptance date and delivery date "tracking ID" - and about 70% of my packages that have been shipped this way have never generated a delivery date on the USPS website, despite being delivered. I even tried checking again 3 months later on one of my packages and it still didn't update the status to delivered.

I've had medium sized transformerland orders shipped via both First Class and Priority but decided to pay the additional $9.99US (each) to register them. Both of these provided step by step tracking almost as good as ems.

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Originally Posted by canofwhoopass_87

Whilst ems is the fastest with the most informative and reliable tracking info, you can achieve almost the same level of service if you go with registered priority.

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I checked this and can confirm it, it looks like you can also get Return Receipt as a Proof of Delivery method from USPS.
That sounds like it would satisfy any delivery confirmation issues Paypal might have.
Or you can just get Priority Mail International Insurance for a small fee which would recoup the cost anyway.

Source: http://www.usps.com/international/in...alservices.htm

Looks like Return Receipt is only available for the following destinations:

Argentina
Australia
Bahrain
Guinea–Bissau
Hong Kong
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)
Kuwait
Pakistan
Qatar
Singapore
South Africa
Taiwan
Tunisia

Bizarre list if you ask me. Can't believe there aren't any European destinations.