posted on October 24, 2004 06:53:43 PM new
Why doesnt eBay block non U.S. bidders on auctions marked will ship to U.S. only? I certainly respect everyone ability to run their own eBay business as they think best. I am sure I miss out on some higher bids because I restrict my sales to U.S. bidders only. I have carefully analyzed my sales over the past five years and came to the conclusion that added aggrevation of dealing with international bidders simply was not worth any potential additional revenue. The constant requests to lie on customs forms, problems with long delayed shipments even when sent Global Priority and air mail, problems with lost and damaged shipments, "discussions" over cost of shippping, etc long ago led me to exclude non U.S. based bidders. I marked the ebay box correctly. The first line of each and every one of my listings states that I only ship and sell to U.S. based bidders yet I constantly get emails asking for exceptions and folks bidding who are not in the U.S. I do not grant exceptions, I do not ship outside of the U.S. I still have a lot of my time wasted. Seems to me the easiest solution is a technological one, since every bidder needs to register their address with eBay, if someone doesn't register a U.S. address and the seller checks the box for "ships to the U.S. only" seems ebay should automatically block the bid and save everyone a lot of wasted time and aggrevation. I realize that eBay is an extremely arrogant company and demonstrates it's contempt for ebay sellers over and over again but this seems so simple that I cannot understand why they don't implement the change.
posted on October 24, 2004 07:23:12 PM new
They did implement the change about a month ago. You can choose to block bidders on continents you don't ship to, or you can block all countries except the U.S. You'll find the option in the blocked bidders list section. You can also block bidders with negative feedback or bidders with recent NPB's filed against them.
A $75.00 solid state device will always blow first to protect a 25 cent fuse ~ Murphy's Law
