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Import charges to International destinations. Oh my!

Awhile back there was a discussion about eBay's Global Shipping program for International shipments. Although it does protect the buyer as well as the seller I never really looked into their fees closely.

I just prepared a shipment today going to Berlin. 1 pound 4 ounces and the selling price was $250 before shipping. I printed out a packing slip which displayed the eBay shipping fees. It seems the shipping and handling fee was reasonable at $14.24.

But, the import charge was $60.55! Which brought the total shipping costs to $74.79. Good grief.

I can understand why it's hard to do business with International collectors. Unfortunately, it appears that it is the destination country charging those crazy fees.

Thank goodness I live in The United States of America! No import fees....YET!

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Permalink Reply by a pug called eva on December 6, 2016 at 9:25pm

As a buyer from outside the US and UK I cannot stand the eBay shipping program.

I buy quite a lot of low cost items (autographs rarely fall into this category unfortunately) and I find the program shipping charges horrendous. I'm amazed that your shipping charge for a $250 item was only $14. I think I have paid at least that much for small photos with a value of under $50 and I thought the fee is calculated on the basis of value (I'm sure I have paid well over $100 for the shipping of a $2000 autographed postcard).

What is even worse is that the program charges shipping and import duties for each single item. For "foreign" buyers there is no way of combining shipping, even though there is only one invoice at the checkout which cannot be separated into individual items. How logical is that?

The crowning glory for me is that my country does not bother to charge import fees on packages valued at less than $70. The program doesn't take account of this of course so I end up paying hefty import duties unnecessarily.

I now think very hard before bidding on "program items" and in a few cases I have asked the seller to cancel the sale so that we could just do things the old fashioned way.

I can imagine many other buyers feel the way I do and many of the sellers I have dealt with have had to spend a lot of time trying to help me out when the shipping figures have become crazy.

I would add that I am quite happy to pay reasonable shipping fees and import duty if this is really payable in my country. In Germany sales tax is 20% so your $60 is about right.

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Permalink Reply by alan david munns on December 7, 2016 at 12:22am

And to add insult to injury here in the uk royal mail charge a £8 handling fee on top of import charges bar humbug! !

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Permalink Reply by Nate on December 7, 2016 at 1:45am

Yes agree its a killer. One of the other points not yet mentioned that really hacks me off is that we pay for 'priority' shipping when we buy through the global shipping programme and it is not cheap (forgetting the import charges), yet the packages take an absolute age to get here! Much slower than standard snail-mail. I believe this is mainly due to the increased hand-off points, but if its going to be that slow (and it always is) then don't charge us the 'priority' rate, arghgg!

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Permalink Reply by Joe W. on December 7, 2016 at 5:48am

I do understand how those extra taxes/fees really make it difficult although the alternative does present a problem from a seller's perspective. Most international buyers want me to declare a low value to decrease the cost but how can I insure the package in case it gets lost or damaged?

That puts the seller at a disadvantage if the delivery service messes up. And, if the buyer is using Paypal or a credit card, if a dispute arises the payment processing agent virtually always decides in favor of the buyer.

That's quite a risk to take.