Not TakenShow country of buyer when they make offers to prevent disappointment

edited January 2021 in Feature Requests 0 LikesVote Down
Hi everyone,

I strongly recommend that Hipstamp should show display the country of the buyer when they make an offer to the seller. If the seller do not ship to the buyers country, then the seller will have the opportunity to reject the offer without causing disappointment.

The above can always be debated by encouraging the buyer to read the shipping details prior to making an offer to the seller. However we know that the majority of the buyers do not read any instructions added by the seller.

What do you think?

Regards

Comments

  • 20 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • I could be wrong, but I have always understood that if a seller chooses not to ship to a particular country, no buyers from that country would be able to even see the seller's listing.

    In that case no one would be able to make an offer on an item you are selling if they live in a country to which you do not ship.

    Did you actually receive an offer from a country that is not on your list of countries to which you ship . . . or are you asking this question rhetorically?
  • I thought buyers could only attempt to purchase items that are available to ship to their country/location? I have had several buyers ask me to open up shipment to their country because that are not able to purchase
  • Yea, I have a dear friend that lives in Australia and she can't see anything in my store as I don't ship International anymore.
    Wish there was a way for them to view our store.
  • In general, buyers will not see items that do not ship to them when browsing and searching. Additionally, buyers can not make offers or place bids on items that can not be shipped to them - so such a feature would not be needed.
  • Mark, Maybe you should require Hipstamp Users to list their country of origin (in their Profile). I had a couple of people these past two weeks have "n/a" or some obscure town in India as a location. I may be able to figure out where they are but others may not.
    Example below.
    --------------(0)
    Feedback
    n/a
    Member Since
    01/14/2021 20:29:36
  • Hi Mark,
    I received an offer from Australia although it is not on my current list of countries that I ship to. This is what triggered the above suggestion.
    You may check the order in my profile if you want.

    Regards
  • That shouldn't be the case, although I believe we check the buyer's primary address, and buyers can have multiple addresses on file (although they wouldn't be able to checkout/pay with an address you do not ship to). However, we'll take a look at this further regardless.
  • Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate the effort.

    regards
  • Follow up on this. I just received and accepted an offer from a buyer in The Netherlands not knowing their shipping location. I do not ship internationally at this time. Put me in a bit of a pickle. In addition, when I looked at the invoice for the order, no shipping charges were applied to the order. So I have an order for a single item for $0.55 with no shipping charges that I may have to ship to The Netherlands at my cost and eat it all. Nothing against international customers, it's just getting to very expensive to do so right now. I wish I could but it's just not worth it for me at least.
  • Greg I would cancel this order and contact both HipStamp and the buyer. The buyer should understand your reason for canceling is that you don't ship outside the US because it is expensive. HipStamp should allow cancelation because the fault rests with them. According to Mark, the buyer should not have been allowed to pay for it using HipStamp checkout. It's not reasonable for you to "eat" the cost as it's not cheap to ship legally.

    To ship using USPS guidelines will cost you $16.25 via USPS as you are not allowed to place anything of value in a first class letter. I'm sure many sellers conveniently "overlook" this fact as they don't charge enough postage on international sales. Personally I don't know why HipStamp permits them to do this. I'm constantly advising potential buyers who complain I charge $10.25 while others only charge $2 to $3. I use Shipping Easy which now charges $7.90, but both HipStamp and PayPal collect their fees on this amount, so I need to include that in my rate to allow for shipping materials and minimal charge for my time. Last year nearly 5% of my sales came from international buyers who paid $9.25 for shipping. Some paying that to buy a 10 cent stamp. Shipping Easy increased their rates this month by $0.80.
  • John, I did send a PM to the buyer with the situation and to the effect that it is so expensive. Have not heard back yet but it is early yet. It doesn't seem I can cancel the order yet because the buyer hasn't paid for it yet. I'm just not sure why the buyer should have been able to even make the offer if the item is not available to ship to them per my shipping terms. I'll figure it out and I really wish I could open back up to international customers but it is expensive and time consuming with the paperwork and whatnot. I really don't understand why it is so difficult to just mail a few stamps to our international friends without all the issues and cost if I can send a letter to a friend almost anywhere in the world for the $1.20 First Class International Mail. Seems odd but what do I know? Thanks John!
  • john, what is the track record regarding international buyers not receiving their mailed items?
    does your experience show some international countries better than others in terms of problems in deliverying mailed stamps?

    does hip stamp keep a record of percentage of us/individual countries & gthe % rate of stamps not being received?
  • Mark said that HipStamp doesn't allow for payment, so you really don't have a sale and would have nothing to cancel.

    Maybe this will help with shipping cost: Try calculating a price using the USPS site. It asks for the value of item being mailed. Unless you say it has $0.00 value , you can't include it in First Class International Letter. This is what you get from the USPS Site:

    What's the destination country?
    Netherlands
    What's the value of the item being mailed?
    $1 (The site doesn't allow you to put anything less than $1)

    For letter-shaped mail, value must be $0.00

    What is the weight of your mail piece?

    1 Ounce

    Please select from the following options:

    Large Envelope
    Package

    These are the only two options available. A Large Envelop is much more expensive than a package. Customs forms are also required which Shipping Easy provides at no additional cost.


  • John, I'll look into that. I have looked at the USPS site regarding international mail. A bit confusing but still indicates expense and time to process it properly. Upon your earlier advice, I did look at ShippingEasy and if I remember, they require a paid subscription to varying degrees depending on volume. I will look at it again tomorrow though. Thanks! I really would like to find a way for this to make sense for what is for the time being a relatively low volume of international orders.
  • Greg,

    The reason that the rules are set up the way they are is because most of the other countries charge customs, duties and VAT. (It's how the other countries get some of their taxes collected) With out a customs form it's viewed as smuggling goods in and out of the country.

    You do need to understand a bit more before you do choose to ship internationally. If your shipping are higher than most of the other sellers you will be spending time answering messages about your shipping costs. Second if you get a large enough order and the buyer has a problem with paying the customs, duties and VAT. You may end up with dealing with a very upset buyer, even though it's not the sellers issue. (I just got through with a buyer putting in a Paypal claim for non receipt BECAUSE he didn't like having to pay the VAT tax. Although he wasn't too bright because in his reason he stated he got the package and paid the customs and VAT. I did have the tracking which also showed that it was delivered. It took Paypal almost 6 weeks to find in my favor on the claim. And I also had the USPS tracking which showed it was delivered. Unless customs is paid the shipment will NOT be delivered.) If that buyer refuses the package it should be returned to you BUT you WILL be out the postage. (Over the years I have had a number of them returned because they were refused.) These are the reasons why I finally gave up on shipping internationally. (And I have have shipped out hundreds of international orders.)

    If I remember correctly shipping easy's tracking does NOT qualify for PAYPAL tracking. Paypal will only count door to
    door tracking. Because shipping is a discounted rate it is NOT tracked door to door. (They may have changed it but it was there awhile ago.)
  • Michael you are correct that Shipping Easy does not provide tracking. I no longer ship to UK because they now want the seller to collect this 20% fee and remit it to UK. Currently there is a $5 minimum fee to use Shipping Easy. I signed up when they had no fee and they haven't charged me yet. I have only had a couple of situations where the buyer refused to pay customs and stamps were returned.
  • Thank you both John and Michael.
  • John,

    I had stopped selling to the UK a while ago once I found out that they charged the buyers VAT on any shipments over 15 LBS and that my sales to the UK were far below the average international order. (I just wasn't making anything on them.)
  • Guess I shouldn't have said Shipping Easy wasn't charging me yet. They did today. For both January and February. Didn't know they read these posts.....
  • All this is why I stopped shipping overseas 2 1/2 years ago. I refuse to fill their coffers their ridiculous rates. They won't make a dime on my sales.
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