I recently posted a bunch of leftover 70's Honda motorcycle parts one-Bay. I have had at 3 or 4 e-mails from people asking if I'd ship to Australia or South Australia (?).
My question:
Is there an unusually strong interest in 77 Honda CB400F and CB550F parts Down Under, or is Australia the new Nigeria?
Australia is very expensive to ship to and so therefore many e-bayers will not ship there. Do thorough research to figure out just how much it will be (and then pad that number a little to be safe) before you quote a shipping price.
My guess is that you have parts they want and you did not specifically say you would not ship there so you are fielding a lot of these buyer's interest on your parts. I would also answer these questions privately through e-mail rather than post the questions to your ad.
I do a lot of export shipping, but only the Caribbean. I would suggest looking in the Yellow Pages under freight forwarders. A lot of them have connections to go virtually anywhere, are reliable, and the rates will be a small fraction of DHL , FedEx or UPS. Check who is going to handle customs on the other end, you don't want to mess with that.
Provide the buyer with your zip code and make them responsible to research their shipping choices.
Any other way and I smell scam.
Be helpful but do not choose the way they get their purchase home?
Clearly state that payment must clear before items will be sent.
If they are smaller items, USPS is the best method, ask me I know
EastCoastMojo wrote:
My guess is that you have parts they want and you did not specifically say you would not ship there so you are fielding a lot of these buyer's interest on your parts.
Ads specifically state "US and Canada Only".
I shipped Datsun Roadster Parts to Australia 3 times. The last was for a worn out set of Datsun floor mats that were crappy. He won them for $15 and I think it was $25-$30 to ship via US Postal.
All the Australian customers were happy. I even apologized for the high freight cost on the mats and he told me; "pete, we live on an island, we are used to high shipping costs."
Yeah, the Australian guys always seem to be happy just to find someone who is willing to consider shipping there, regardless of the rather large sum it costs to do so. When I was a seller on Ebay I never had a problem with shipping to Australia, I just made sure to research the costs before quoting anything.
Smart words mojo, always double check shipping before you quote
I ship there all the time, and never had a problem. US post might work well if the parts are not big.
Yep, I got a regular ebay customer in Australia. They seem to like my MG parts ;) Always used USPS, even a crankshaft was no problem.
Kendall
USPS flat rate boxes are surprisingly easy if your parts fit. I think I paid something like $35 to Australia.
Woody wrote:Is there an unusually strong interest in 77 Honda CB400F and CB550F parts Down Under, or is Australia the new Nigeria?
There's a lot of interest in those bikes down there. Australia is not the new Nigeria, not by any means.
I'll bet you'll find someone posted your auctions to a local forum, thus all the interest from Oz. I wouldn't be afraid to sell parts there. Heck, my wife's old Miata supercharger is on an MX-5 down under now.
FYI, South Australia is a state.
Same here - I sold a bunch of SA RX-7 parts down under a little while back with no problems at all.
@Woody, if you're selling 400 Four parts it might be worth offering shipping to the UK as well, these things are pretty sought after here and there is a steady demand for parts, provided these are in good condition.
BoxheadTim wrote:@Woody, if you're selling 400 Four parts it might be worth offering shipping to the UK as well, these things are pretty sought after here and there is a steady demand for parts, provided these are in good condition.
Good idea, I never thought of that.
And the suggestion that the auctions were posted to a local forum makes sense. It seemed odd that the only place that out of country shipping requests were coming from was Australia.
