Ebay Announced USPS Will Not Ship to Australia or New Zealand!*

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by Mirrorblade.1, Oct 12, 2021.

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  1. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Ship to Australia and New Zealand ..
    So anybody wanting ship something to those will have to forego it
     
  2. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    Not true. Use Pirate Ship and their "Simple Export Rate" (note: you have to request that that service be applied to your account.) Pirate Ship uses Asendia for their international courier brokerage. Asendia uses any number of transport services, depending on the country of destination, etc.

    Asendia (through Pirate Ship, which is my online labeling service - no monthly subscriptions, you just pay as you go; much like Discogs only charging for items sold) is still getting parcels to Australia and New Zealand. What's more, Pirate Ship's "Simple Export Rates" costs are vastly less expensive than using the USPS direct. It's almost too good to be true, but it is that good (I have shipped out exactly 1,049 parcels through Pirate Ship since I started using them this February of 2021, so this service is no joke.)
     
  3. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
  4. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    USPS will allegedly take "Express Mail" tier/service parcels for service to currently restricted Australia and New Zealand but why would anyone want to spend an absolute fortune using that service to send items to Australia and New Zealand when they could essentially pay the lowest amount that is possible to ship items to those countries (and others) with Pirate Ship?
     
  5. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Please put up some links few chriss sakes. You've been going on and on about Pirate Ship (the name sounds frightening), but that one must take advantage of their "Simple Export Rate" service - or else? Tell us about the online tracking (required by PayPal), and what else we need to know. LINKS please!
     
  6. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    Free USPS and UPS shipping software | Pirate Ship

    1) Set up/open an account.

    2) After setting up/opening an account, go to the "live chat" section (during daytime support hours), tell them that you are a new customer and that you would specifically like for them to apply the "Simple Export Rate" option to your account.

    3) Once they have instantly applied that option to your account, you are good to go to take advantage of what are the lowest international shipping rates that are available to any typical small-time business person outside of businesses that perhaps have seriously major-league volume export activity.

    4) That's basically it.

    5) Thank me later.

    PS: Some other worthwhile information:

    6) Pirate Ship does not require any subscription fees (monthly or otherwise) like many other online shipping/mailing/labeling service do. You pay only for the labels/shipping services that you purchase, à la carte (my card is charged by Pirate Ship each and every day for the labels that I have purchased.) It's kind of like the Discogs of mailing label/shipping services, if that makes sense.

    7) Your international (or domestic, for that matter) mailings are first dropped off at your local post office. Your international label will have the international address and customs information encoded into the label but the parcel label itself will be addressed to one of the several "Pirate Ship Export Center" aggregator facilities in the US (it will ship via 2 or 3 Day Priority Mail to that facility - the location of which will depend on your own physical address location - I'm located in Colorado and my shipments are forwarded to the Pirate Ship facility in Elk Grove, Illinois.) At that point, Pirate Ship then hands off the parcels to Asendia, which is courier br0ker that utilizes numerous well known and well established international courier services (they often use/incorporate the USPS itself for international transport.) Note: the exception is parcels addressed to Canada, which will be handled and delivered direct by the USPS - and the shipping rates that you get to Canada will still be immensely less expensive using Pirate Ship, rather than purchasing postage directly from the USPS, or anyone else for that matter.

    8) (This is important) When you ship a parcel via Pirate Ship "Simple Export Rate" to the aggregator, you will first be given a tracking number that tracks the shipment to the aggregator facility itself. Once the parcel is received at the aggregator facility and relabeled for international shipment, you will then have access to the actual relevant international tracking number for the parcel (be it a USPS, Royal Mail, DAI Post, DHL, etc. tracking number.) It is at that point that I upload the tracking information for my customer on my eBay sales, for instance (when I ship an item out on eBay, I first just mark the item as "shipped," which is enough to satisfy eBay that you have actually shipped the item to the customer on time - you can then upload the international tracking number when you get it several days later - not a big deal.) I also use Pirate Ship for my domestic eBay sales and upload the USPS media mail tracking number instantly to my eBay sales (with Discogs, I just hand write addresses, which saves me time packaging up items - though for some Discogs sales I'll also use the Pirate Ship labels, too. It just depends on various factors that I deem relevant.)

    9) I have been using Pirate Ship ever since I became truly wise to it at the beginning of this year and as I have said elsewhere before, I am absolutely 100% ecstatic about this service. The massive savings to be had using this service for international shipments renders it absolute utter madness to use any other shipping service (most certainly that of the USPS own rates themselves.)

    10) Any other questions? I'll be here all week, folks.
     
    quicksrt likes this.
  7. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Did you have to buy a scale to weight your packages and then enter the weight into a field before printing out your label? I have a order for 5 LPs to Norway to send. And maybe that is the first one I should try to use PS since it's heavier than normal.
     
  8. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    eBay Global Shipping is the answer.

    A) Trivially easy to use: Already integrated into eBay. Just click a box when creating your listing. Any issues with shipping to various countries are their deal, not yours
    B) You ship to a US address. Once your item arrives there, you are indemnified for shipping/theft issues. If the package does not arrive in acceptable condition at the destination, eBay Global shipping deals with it.
    C) No duties issues. Buyer pays them up front (to eBay Global Shipping). You never get a return because of unpaid duties.

    The cost for this is that the buyer pays somewhat more for shipping. But I'll live with that for the additional peace of mind.
     
  9. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    "Somewhat" more????????
     
    E.Baba likes this.
  10. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Examples...?
     
  11. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    I have had a Brecknell Model PS7 digital scale (capacity up to 7 pounds... I have another analogue dial postage scale for packages weighing up to something like 50 pounds or so) that I bought at Office Depot many years ago. I send out about 10 parcels a day on average, so this implement is a critical device in my business arsenal. They're cheap as chips and I recommend having one on hand if you're selling records AND buying labels online (yes, you have to add the parcels total weight and dimensions into "fields" before being able to print out a label.)

    Use Pirate Ship (and have the aforementioned "Simple Export Rate" applied to your account) and you will never look back.
     
  12. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    The only answer "eBay Global Shipping" would be an answer to would be to the question "what shipping service can I use that will ultimately be a colossal ripoff to me and, especially, the customer that is ordering items from me?"

    Seriously, eBay Global Shipping can **** right the **** off to the horrid bowels of the depths of Hell.

    YMMV.
     
  13. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Welp, that's possibly the buyer's perspective. As a seller, eBay Global Shipping has shut down more than one scammer for me ("Item arrived damaged, what kind of discount can you give me?")

    Shipping prices suck all over, and Global Shipping doesn't make things better. But if I lose some sales because of it, I'm willing to live with that.

    And it would be nice if someone who is asserting how great the alternatives are would post comparison buyer prices.
     
  14. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues


    Additionally, using Pirate Ship/S.E.Rate, you will be able to give accurate and obviously much better shipping rates to your customer's. THAT will make your customer's happy (at least in regard to the relative price of international shipping) and help encourage more sales (my international sales curved back upward, sharply, as soon as I got my general shipping rate chart up on my seller terms section on Discogs and displayed said rates on my eBay pages as well after adjusting said rates in relation to the prices I was, an still am, getting from Pirate Ship.)
     
  15. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I don't like having to print out labels at home, and I like my items' tracking scanned right in front of me at P.O. So I walk in and wait in line if it is not too long. I am only doing 8 - 10 packages per week with 12 - 15 items sold per week. Dropping off packages at PO can mean tracking is not scanned in nearly as fast.
     
  16. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    Why? What's the big deal? You tap in the weight, dimensions, address and customs information, print out the label, tape it to the box and bingo bongo bango it's done (aside from also dropping the parcel off at your local post office - or just handing it off to your local postman who delivers mail to your house.) It takes me a couple minutes max (all done while I'm listening to music or podcasts of some stripe) and, more importantly, I AM SAVING MY CUSTOMERS A BOATLOAD OF BREAD ON SHIPPING COSTS. Is that mere fact alone not worth it to you?
     
  17. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    This is an irrelevant point. There's no fiscally or morally sound reason to not offer the lowest reasonable possible shipping prices (with factoring in your shipping materials and other minor related costs as well) to overseas customers. The quality of international transport service is not one iota of a degree less than that you are already achieving dealing direct with your local post office (which costs A LOT MORE in doing such.)
     
  18. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    You get a Pirate Ship tracking number instantly for your parcel being shipped to the Pirate Ship Export Center (whichever center is relevant to your own physical location) and then you will get a new international tracking number for when it is handed off to whichever courier service is going to handle your parcel's international delivery. Again, this comes at the price of saving your customers A LOT of money (the difference) in the cost of shipping. Again, I don't see how anyone can reasonably argue that that is not worth it.

    I also use Pirate Ship for a lot of domestic Media Mail shipments, too. Package is labelled, tracking number is instantly provided, and I just drop the packages off at the post office counter (I have them scan them all in and take a receipt as well) and out the door I go.

    Again, big savings for international customers. Give it to them!
     
  19. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    It's not a moral issue. Ever. You're not lying or cheating here. Using a different shipping service doesn't secretly put more money in your pocket, or in the pockets of crony friends.

    It does affect customer experience if shipping is high. So it might affect sales. But that's it.
     
  20. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Domestically, I guarantee Pirate Ship is not cheaper than using the discounted rates you get through Paypal/eBay. And it's not easier to use. You want to be a Pirate Ship fanboy? Fine. But it offers no value domestically that you can't get through another route.

    Same goes for items sold on Discogs, as long as you go to PayPal and print the label from the payment receipt page--not from the Discogs page.
     
  21. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    What is the cost of a domestic LP sent at Media Rate? Oh, and what is one CD sent at Media Rate through Pirate Ship?

    I'll say my costs at the PO counter are:

    CD - $3.19
    LP - $3.82
    (single LP, 2 LPs or double LP)
     
  22. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Again. how much are you paying for domestic Madia Mail on an LP and CD?
     
  23. quicksrt

    quicksrt Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I'm doing very few International packages actually. I am charging $4.95 per LP or CD shipped Media Rate. Costs are all covered for mailers, Jiffy bags, and inserts.
     
  24. giantleech

    giantleech Lord of all fevers and plagues

    If you know/are aware of an equal quality shipping service that provides your customer the ability for them to save a significant amount money on the cost of shipping that is no less difficult (or if at all more difficult, only microscopically so) for the seller to use than standard over the counter USPS rates yet you refuse to use it, I would say that you are committing a basic moral crime against your customer. It's not that you would be pocketing the difference (you aren't), it's that you would be denying your customer the opportunity to keep/save more of their own money due to your own obstinance, indifference or lack of concern for the best interests of your customer.
     
  25. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Given that eBay Global Shipping indemnifies me from corrupt/incompetent international delivery services and from corrupt buyers, I'd say that it's not just a matter of finding what's cheapest for the customer. There is actual value in eBay Global Shipping TO ME.
     
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