Best way to avoid custom fees?

[Cosmic Dare]

Just wanted some advice before I start selling on ebay. It seems that when buying things through ebay the buyer is sometimes hit with ridiculous customs fees when the product actually arrives. For example a friend of mine bought a shirt for $11 and when it arrived he got hit with a $8 charge. That's almost as much as what he paid for the shirt.

I've heard people suggest marking the package as 'gift' or writing down a low value for the package. So what do most of you ebay sellers do when you ship internationally?

 

[Thongsy]

Usually when I order from people overseas, or send something to another country I just mark Gift. If you're not going to, and put the full price and everything, you better tell them before hand, otherwise any possible deal they may have gotten will be cancel out by the tariff, and you'll have one angry customer.

 

[Veritas1204]

[quote name='Cosmic Dare']Just wanted some advice before I start selling on ebay. It seems that when buying things through ebay the buyer is sometimes hit with ridiculous customs fees when the product actually arrives. For example a friend of mine bought a shirt for $11 and when it arrived he got hit with a $8 charge. That's almost as much as what he paid for the shirt.

I've heard people suggest marking the package as 'gift' or writing down a low value for the package. So what do most of you ebay sellers do when you ship internationally?[/quote]

You can mark it as a gift, (or family heirloom, etc), but remember if you have any problems during shipping, your "gift" is only insured for the maximum of what the post office gives you. (i.e. you mark a 360 as a "gift", it gets lost, you only receive I believe 200 max for your loss).

That is why I don't buy overseas; normally the headache you recieve is bigger than the money you save.

That all being said, I hope it works out for you.

-V