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Quote:
Originally Posted by slowdive21
You can exclude foreign bidders. I mainly ship the the US and Canada. There is no way to set specific countries yet only a few are separated, but I am hoping they add a Europe or UK option. I don't mind shipping to England, but I get nervous when someone wants something shipped to a 3rd world hellhole.  I would say half of my customers have 50 feedback or less. |
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You most certainly can exclude specific countries. In the auction listing you can pick and choose whatever countries you want to exclude. My exclusion list: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, and Malaysia. Why those countries? Those are the only ones where stuff I have sent has ever gotten "lost". And in only 2 of those cases did I end up with a dispute and have to refund. The other 3 were actually cool about it and let it go but I figured if stuff was getting lost going there I probably shouldn't bother in the future.
But I certainly don't want to exclude all foreign buyers. I would like the option of requiring them (but not U.S. buyers) to have 10+ feedback, for example - so that I only get people with a little history buying stuff.
If you exclude foreign buyers in general you really cut out a
huge potential source of customers. I can't understate that. I am currently selling off a lot of stuff I've had sitting around (backlog games I'll never play, clerarance stuff I just couldn't pass up, extras from B2G1 deals and the BBV Buy 5 deal, etc) and probably 1/4 -1/3 goes to foreign buyers. They will pay more than U.S. buyers will and will buy things U.S. buyers never would (e.g., games that aren't sold anywhere but here). Plus, I can offer free shipping within the U.S. and charge $10-$30 or more shipping Internationally (depending on first-class, Priority, etc) and then not get hit with eBay fees on the shipping (since I have a free option listed). So I actually make more when foreign buyers purchase things as I cover the cost of shipping + a little extra with my International shipping rate while with cheap-ass U.S. buyers I eat the shipping cost myself.
In particular, do not exclude Brazil which is unfairly, I think, a target of being blocked. I sell stuff there
all the time. From what I understand, games are just very expensive for them so they like to buy them from U.S. sellers via eBay. I have had maybe 1 problem with a Brazilian shipment out of 50-60 or more things sent there over the years. I have 3 things to ship there tomorrow in fact!
There's always the potential for problems no matter where you ship. My last refund came from a U.S. buyer who said a brand new sealed game I sent was broken clean in half
. They said the case was perfectly fine and the game was sealed but the package looked "roughed up" and the game was broken. I have no idea if they were telling the truth but with eBay there's nothing you can do except give them a refund.