Any Regular ebay sellers ? (About maiing items to US)

Hey good people.

Any Ebayers up in here ?

I plan on getting rid of a few things and was searching for the best rates to mail items to US.


Royal Mail will only allaw you 2kg for international first class Airmail and i have items that weigh more...I know about parcelpost which will cost an arm and a leg ( i recently mailed an item weighing 3.7kg and it cost £53 to mail ) and mailing by boat...any other tried and tested means of mailing items over 2kg via first class international ?

I am ofcourse looking for bettr rates than  ParcelPost.

Cheers
Zufan

I'm a regular seller on eBay, but i only sell to people in the UK.
Once, someone in the Canary Islands wrote to me and asked if i would ship there... she was the only person bidding, so i said ok.

Since I've been in the UK, if I buy something in the states I just get it posted to my mom or one of my friends. Then they post it on to me. It's really saved a lot on shipping cost!

Yea i do that as well...get items shipped to my husbands folks place and they ship it to me or bring it with them when they visit us here .

My quetion though was from a sellers perspective..i want to sell on US ebay but the shipping cost is astronomical for anything that weighs over 2kg...i guess the only option would be to sell on UK ebay, the shipping cost to items over 2kg will really scare away potential US ebayers i reckon.

Zu

I more usually get stuff from the States, but I have sent from time to time.

The problem you'll find with ParcelForce is that not every post office clerk seems to be aware of all the different services.

The £53 sounds as though it might have been International Datapost service, which is very expensive.    Try asking about "International Economy" parcel service instead.  I don't have the current edition of the pricing booklet, but in mine the ParcelForce rates for the weight you quoted are:

Datapost  £52.05
Standard  £35.30
Economy  £25.35

Thanks Paul 1966-

Yea you can say that again...

Royal Mail managed to loose an item i sold for $455 and had to end up refunding the buyer because the package " just disappeared "..no i did not have it insured..you might call that growing pains, it was the first item i mailed from UK, i now use the recorded delivery or international signed for, when mailing items

I have a package to mail today so i will make sure and ask about the "international economy " , i am assuming that its airmail right ?

thanks heaps
Zu

Hmm.   You've got me thinking now.    The economy rate might be surface, but I can't recall off-hand -- Sorry.

There used to be some tariff information available on the ParcelForce website, but their site is so ridiculously convoluted that I gave up trying to use it a long time ago.  It's easier to just get the new booklets from my local post office when needed.

Yea i gave up trying to navigate the parcelpost site too..

But i did manage to get down to my local RM and they did give me a booklet about the rates..yea the economy rate is by boat..but their standard international is a bit cheaper than the Datapost delivery which was way too much.

As you suggested, the clerk had to go down to the basement of the post office to find the correct booklet...apparently no one ever asked her about this service as she looked very confused at first, it took her atleast 15 minutes to produce the correct booklet..unreal really.

Anyway it looks like International Standard is the only option for mailing items over 2kg and not be charged an arm and a leg for it .

thanks again for the heads up.
Zu.

You can call up Royal Mail's postage prices easily by clicking here.