Selling Abroad

[Lenny B]

Hi there - a bit of advice needed.

Someone in France wants to buy a bass from me - i'd be grateful for any tips on;

- collecting money from abroad (never used paypal - is that the easiest?)

- packing and shipping a bass; - any recommended companies and how to price it?

Thanks.

[warwickhunt]

PayPal is easy but you will be charged 3.5% for its use and you need to set up and verify your account with them which can take time. (I've used it for 4 years with no issues and they refunded me money when a guy I was buying off didn't deliver the goods.

Can't offer advice re. who to use for delivery of a bass (especially if it's a thru-neck) but what I would say is that I've sold multi-tools all over Europe and without exception France has the worst delivery failure rate of ANY country I've ever sent to! Making claims is also a pain in the backside even if you use RM 'International Signed For', as the French system simply blame the UK and vice-versa.

I repeat this is purely my experience sending smallish items via Royal Mail.

[Lenny B]

Cheers WH - any other tips anyone?

[Hamster]

[quote name='Lenny B' post='23126' date='Jun 25 2007, 05:54 PM']Cheers WH - any other tips anyone?[/quote]

How about asking the buyer which carrier he would prefer, or better still get him to arrange collection by his carrier from your H/A? That way if it goes missing, he can make all the enquiries etc.

Hamster

[Sugden]

Payments always abit of a pain when dealing internationaly. Both times I've done it I took paypal and they took on the charges.

But I have paid someone else through international bank transfer, and also a bankers draft so theres quite afew ways to do it, but both of those require you going to a bank to sort it all out.

Sending things is the pain of all evil unfortunatly we dont seem to have a postage company anywhere near as efficent as other contries. Dont get me wrong royal mail are getting better but not the best. But as warwickhut said france is ment to quite easily turn into a nightmare for things going missing.

I suggest using a company which doesnt change service such as royal mail will porn it off onto a french company etc. Pay a little more and use someone like UPS, DHL or FedEx (Ortho I find UPS to be the cheapest to send almost anything insured these days)

The biggest thing constant contact reply to emails asap, if you get a tracking number or way of tracking something what ever it is give the details to the buyer, means they feel safer. Also just try and be genraly helpful answer questions in full, and with detail. Means things should go nice and smooth.

O and dont send the bass till payments cleared dont take any rubbish, thats the way things are done.

[Lenny B]

O and dont send the bass till payments cleared dont take any rubbish, thats the way things are done.
[/quote]

That's the only bit I knew!
Thanks to all

[paul, the]

I don't think Paypal is a great idea if the first item is an expensive international transaction. Verification can be a PainI'TheA' and having to explain to the buyer that you can't send it yet will only induce worry. The language barrier doesn't help either when sincerely stalling.

Paypal does have the monopoly though, so you might not have much of an option. My best advice, and I'm sorry to be of so little help, is to read up as much as you can on Paypal and verification and wait for a few more posts on this thread. There are a lot of experienced Paypal users on here, inevitably, at least one would have gone through hell and high water trying to fix a pp problem.

You'll be fine though. I just hope the buyer speaks good English and is experienced with Paypal - that will hope with the sympathy jk.