Must Giveaways Ship Worldwide?

edited July 2022 in Questions 1 LikesVote Down
I have considered using the Giveaways feature from time to time but have never taken the plunge out of fear that the winner might live outside the USA. Are entries restricted to only the countries I serve, or are they open to all members regardless of location? I only ship to US addresses because international rates for a 2-ounce package can reach close to $20.00. Although $25.00 plus domestic postage is a reasonable investment to make to dive traffic to my store, I’m not willing to spend $45.00 to advertise to customers I don’t want.
It would be helpful if this aspect of seller participation was clarified on the Create Giveaway page.

Comments

  • 6 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • I checked a short time ago with management about this issue. I only ship within the United States and asked if my Giveaway could be restricted to only United States residents. I was told that there can be no restrictions on Giveaways, that they must be open to worldwide participants.

    As a result, I will never use this feature.
  • Thanks Richard. I agree - This is not for Me.
    Too bad. It does not sound like a complicated software fix.
  • I doubt it's a programming issue. It's a management decision not to exclude certain people from the giveaways.
  • It may even be a legal issue.
  • It's not a legal issue. It is both a programming and policy one. The Giveaway could be spectacular, and loads more people would do it if they just enabled some parameters.
    We stopped not due to where it ships (specifically) but we do have issue with countries on terrorist watch lists, when we're offering a $1,500 stamp and the "winner" has both no intention of supporting Hipstamp nor the Philatelic community, they are just trying to get a stamp that can be sold to support their causes This is a bigger legal issue than exclusion by location (in fact, there is an obligation to exclude some countries especially as a US country, as they cannot sell or give away to Cuba, North Korea, Iran and a few others that don't just come to mind at the moment).

    In any case the "Giveaway" is essentially a "Hipstamp" (and by that I mean Rosenberg Philatelic) domain. So we have stopped.
  • Well stated Scott
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