Odd, isn't it...

[ffutures]

...that when I sell a fairly heavy camera lens on eBay I can get it to the USA in a week, with insurance and tracking, for £17.....

...but if I want to buy a fairly light bit of software from a US vendor on eBay (a disk plus manual in a plastic bag) they quote me up to $50 depending on delivery speed, with delivery at that price still taking up to a week.

Are the US postal options really that crap, or do US vendors just not want to do business with British buyers?

Comments

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Just for grins I calculated 2 lbs from the US to the UK on www.usps.gov.
The only way you should be getting charged that much (unless the manual is really enormous) is if they are sending it via "Global Express Mail".

When I send things overseas with eBay, I charge my postage costs plus ~$2.50 for packing materials. This guy is charging way too much, IMHO.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

I'll guess at one of two possibilities:

1) The vendor is just gouging.

2) The vendor is using a courier company, which charges more than the post office for not much (or no) better service.

[elementalv.livejournal.com]

It's price gouging, and Americans suffer from it as well. Vendors can charge what they like for shipping and handling. They aren't required to charge actual shipping costs (hence the catchall, "handling").

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I posted an answer to this a while ago, but it looks like LJ ate it.
Checking on www.usps.gov, I plugged in 2 lbs for shipping to the UK. 3-5 day Global Express Mail is $30.30. 4-10 day Airmail Parcel Post is $21.30. 4-6 day Global Priority Mail is $15.75.
Unless he or she is wrapping it in gold leaf or the manual is one of those honking huge ones, you are being overcharged for postage, speaking as someone who rarely charges a couple of dollars above the actual cost for packing materials if a lot are needed.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Everybody's numbers don't count the time they'll need to spend in line at the PO because it is an international shipment. Because it is light, they could drop it in the mail for domestic mail, but to send it to you they'd actually have to show up at the PO, fill out forms, and stand in line to ship your package. They're probably charging you for their time (ie the handling).

I've never really understood your fondness for "bargains" and eBay, personally. Is it even a legal license for the software?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's the full version of Acrobat that comes bundled with some scanners. It's technically a breach of the license to sell it on its own, so they also include some unspecified piece of hardware - probably a case screw or something - but they seem to have sold a lot of them without problems.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say that you're probably at least partially right about the post office thing. In the UK it's different; I can send most of my international stuff (apart from the occasional insured package) without going to the post office, provided it'll fit in the letter box slot, I just have to put the right stamps and a customs label on. I'd have to go to the post office even for an inland insured package.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

"but they seem to have sold a lot of them without problems."

Which makes it OK? Apply that logic to someone selling your FF CD on eBay.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Interesting point. Presumably, though, these are copies which Adobe has already sold on to scanner manufacturers or whatever - does it hurt them if I get the software instead of someone who buys a scanner?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Belated answer - Considerably less than if I buy one of the hundreds of completely illegal copies that are on offer at a fraction of the price.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Please consider the phrase "completely illegal." You know what you're doing is wrong, but you're doing it anyway.

[dsample.livejournal.com]

"Illegal" and "wrong" are not synonyms.

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

You're making exactly the same argument as people who scan in games and post them on the Internet: they can't see the harm in it either.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I disagree, but since it seems unlikely that I'm going to buy one of these packages anyway it's going to have to remain theoretical.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Sorry, forgot to address your original point. If that happened (and I do have a search running on ebay) I would check the list of registered users, see if it was one of them, and if they were selling one copy or lots. If it was a registered user selling lots they'd be blacklisted, e.g. I wouldn't let them have future copies. I would also put a few copies on sale at a "buy it now" price below the price the vendor was listing it at, point out that unlike the bootleg copies you'd get an update eventually, and wait for the shit to hit the fan.

[robertprior.livejournal.com]

Everybody's numbers don't count the time they'll need to spend in line at the PO because it is an international shipment

Line? I occasionally have to wait a couple of minutes at my post office, but rarely longer. And if I had a scale at home, I could just put on the correct stamps and drop it in the post box at the end of my street.

Of course, American postal law is just strange. For example, it is apparently illegal to label a parcel going to a school, the contents of which will be used in a classroom, as "for educational use" unless the contents are textbooks. At least, the warehouse/shipping manager of a major American games company told me that.

(She also told me that missing parcels had to be traced from the recipient's end, not the shipper's, which Canada Post and Canada Customs found very strange.)

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

The USPS is picky. If you have a package over 16 ounces, you -must- drop it with an employee of the USPS: they have to see you. They have questions they -always- ask you, the answers to which are "No, No, No, No, No, and No."

At the very fastest PO in my area, any transaction involving forms (like sending something over 16 oz, or sending something internationally) takes about five minutes, not including line time. I've found a place that usually doesn't have long lines, but the last time I went (to ship a book to Canada) I had to wait five minutes for someone to emerge from the back to handle my transaction.

My record (for sending something to Marcus, FWIW, years ago) was 25 minutes in line and 15 minutes at the counter. There were only five people in front of me.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Weird - when I was selling my camera gear and some other stuff a couple of weeks ago I sent two international insured packages and four recorded delivery inland in about five minutes, and I thought that was taking longer than usual. The stuff I send internationally on a day-to-day basis, like the Forgotten Futures CD-ROM, just goes in a jiffy bag with a label showing its value and weight and my address, rubber stamps to show that it's "Airmail" and "Small Packet", and a few stamps, I drop it in any post box. As far as I know you can post anything that way provided it'll fit through the post box slot and you don't want insurance etc., I don't think weight comes into it.

[angusabranson.livejournal.com]

I know Amerian prices aren't the cheapest and many people don't use the regular postal service because of the time it takes over there.

I know we can send things to customers in the States quicker than they can mail order them internally if they're not in a major city - or are mailing from a company on the other side of their country.

We also now handle the mail order of a couple of US firms for everything 'outsid the US' as it's cheaper for us to send (and again usually quicker) globally than it is them - and that includes to Canada!!!

New eBay technique

[autopope.livejournal.com]

What's going on is this:

eBay search lets you rank items in terms of price, "highest first" or "lowest first".

Obviously, if you're looking for a bargain, you select "lowest first".

Something I've noticed when searching for memory recently is ridiculously cheap items from Hong Kong or Singapore (and the USA) where the postage price considerably exceeds the "Buy it Now" price on the item ... and, taken as a gross sum, makes them roughly as expensive as the realistically-priced items (which invariably have cheaper postage).

The reason is, "lowest first" and "highest first" sorting on eBay doesn't take postage into account, so you can artificially ramp an auction item up the search if you put a chunk of the real price into the postage.

The solution is for eBay to fix their price-sorting algorithm to include all costs.

Re: New eBay technique

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No - this is me going through every copy on offer on ebay.com and finding that nobody is offering postage to the UK. After that I sent messages to the people who were offering the best deals for US buyers. The one who bothered to reply gave me the prices I quoted.

Re: New eBay technique

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

What I really need to do is spend a Saturday going to every computer market I can find and see if I can turn up a copy of Acrobat V5 or V6 at a reasonable price. Unfortunately I'm probably going to someone's (slightly early) 4th of July party this Saturday, so it won't happen this week.

Re: New eBay technique

[armb.livejournal.com]

And eBay's fees are based on the "Buy it now" price, not the price with shipping included, as far as I can see, giving another incentive to artificially inflate shipping costs to subsidise the item cost.
(I assume there comes a point where eBay object to being ripped off, but maybe if they make enough money from a shop subscription they worry less.)

Re: New eBay technique

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I think eBay would rather have the fees from a few thousand £1 transactions than a few hundred £5 transactions. I don't personally charge more than the cost of postage plus a jiffy bag, or whatever packaging I use, but I can see the attraction for people selling small items.