eBay[c] The Missing Manual

7.4. Selling Internationally

eBay is a worldwide marketplacewith eBayers in more than 150 countriesand you can expand your sales reach dramatically if you're willing to sell beyond the borders of the U. S. And theoretically, the more bidders you attract to your auctions, wherever they happen to live, the higher your selling price. That said, if you're thinking of selling internationally, you need to consider the hassles and extra expenses involved, including how you'll communicate with buyers , how you'll get paid, and how you'll deal with shipping and customs issues. Knowing both the advantages and the difficulties of international selling lets you make an informed decision about whether to expand your business overseas.

7.4.1. Parlez-Vous eBay?

One of the first difficulties in selling internationally is communicating with your potential buyer. Their English might be hard to understand, and your ability to speak French or Portuguese or German or Italian or Spanish or Dutchto name just a few possibilitiesmight be nonexistent in a transaction already made more complex by customs, tariffs, and other restrictions. The result? More misunderstandings and, possibly, negative feedback for you.

If you've received an email in a language you don't understand, visit AltaVista 's free translator, Babel Fish (the name's an homage to Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ), at http:// babelfish .altavista.com. You can copy and paste in the text of the email and get a rough translation. (You can only paste in up to 150 wordsabout half a page of textat a time. If your email is longer, just break it up into a couple of segments.) The translator is far from perfect, but Babel Fish should give you the gist of what your buyer wants to tell you. Similarly, if you want to communicate in the buyer's language, you can type your message in English into the "Translate a block of text" text box, and then have Babel Fish translate it into the language you want. Currently, Babel Fish can translate between English and the following languages: Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

You can also get translation help without leaving eBay, thanks to multilingual eBayers willing to share their expertise. On the navigation bar, click Community Discussion Boards International Trading. Post the text of the non-English email and give the post a title that indicates youre looking for help with a translation.

7.4.2. Money Makes the World Go 'Round

Whatever the language, getting paid is sweet. But before you list international auctions, give some thought to how you'll get your money. Different currencies can make things complicated. How much is a euro or a Canadian dollar worth today in U. S. dollars? How much will it be worth two weeks from now? Even if you know how much your selling price is in the buyer's local currency, you've got to receive payment in a form you can use. There are several ways to do this.

• Let the buyer worry about currency conversion . In the "Shipping, payment details, and return policy" section of your auction page, spell out that you accept payment only in your local currency. Buyers will have to pay any conversion fee; you just wait for the money to arrive . This is the easiest option. Be aware, though, that if the buyer sends you a check drawn on a foreign bank, it might take a whole month for that check to clear, no matter what currency it's in.

  Tip: To get up-to-the-minute currency values, use an online currency converter, like the one at www.xe.com/ucc.

• Accept PayPal . A more flexible strategy is to accept international payments through PayPal. More than 45 countries have access to PayPal (Figure 7-12). Buyers can pay using yen, euros, British pounds , or Canadian, Australian, or U. S. dollars. You receive payment in the currency of your choice. Better yet, there's no currency charge for currency exchange when you withdraw funds to your local bank account. Be aware, though, that PayPal's Seller Protection (Section 5.4.7) does not cover most international sales.

  Note: To see which currencies work with PayPal, visit PayPal's Multiple Currencies Center. On Paypal.com, go to Merchant Tools View Directory of Tools. Scroll down the list to Currency Manager and then click Learn More.

  Figure 7-12. To see the current list of countries whose residents can use PayPal, go to www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_displayapproved-signupcountries-outside. Countries at the top of the page have local PayPal sites; residents of countries in the bottom part of the page can open an account on www.paypal.com.

• Use BidPay . Another option is BidPay, Western Union's money-order service designed for online auction payments (Section 2.3.1.2). For sellers, the cool thing about BidPay is that the buyer pays the fee (just like when you purchase a money order at the post office, a store, or a bank). For U. S. sellers, BidPay will send you a money order or deposit funds directly into your U. S. checking accountyour choice. Go to www.bidpay.com and click "Sign in/Register" to set up a BidPay account.

• Consider bank wire transfers . Bank wire transfers are a popular payment method in Europe. A bank wire transfer is different from an instant wire transfer (the kind Chapter 4 warns you about), because the money is wired directly into your checking account, rather than picked up at a Western Union office. It's a safe, secure way to receive money; just make sure that the buyer sends payment in your local currency so you don't have to pay exchange fees. Some sellers don't like to give out their checking account information (even though that's exactly what you do every time you write a check); if you're uncomfortable making that information known, be sure that potential buyers understand that you don't accept bank wire transfers.

7.4.3. Worldwide Shipping

International shipping is about more than just calculating rates. You need to know what you can't ship out of your country (or into a particular country), how to fill out a customs declaration, how to get your item to its destination in a reasonable amount of time, and how to prove you've shipped.

Even if you've memorized eBay's list of prohibited items, you should be aware that some items are illegal to send to other countries. For example, did you know that U. S. -based sellers can't send certain kinds of knives to New Zealand, beef jerky to the U. K. , playing cards to the Philippines, or a baby walker to Canada? The UPS Web site has a list of international shipping regulations at www.ups.com/ga/CountryRegs?loc=en_US (Figure 7-13). Use it to check whether you can ship a particular item before you complete an international sale.

After you've made an international sale, you have to fill out a customs form before you can ship the item, listing the package's contents and declaring the value of those contents. You can get customs forms at the post office or go to www.usps.com and choose All Products & Services Customs Forms Online. If you use a shipper like UPS, you need to include three copies of your invoice (that is, your bill to the buyer) and the shippers shipping document with your customs form.

When your package gets to its destination country, customs officers will review the form, check your package's contents, andwith lucksend the package on its way. Sometimes, however, the Customs Office will hold on to the package for a while. If a customs duty is due, the buyer may have to make a trip to the customs office to pay the duty and pick up the package.

Some international buyers will ask you to declare that the item is a gift or write in a value that's less than the item's cost so that the buyer can save on customs duties .

This is a bad idea. Not only is lying on a customs form against the law, you can't claim insurance on the full amount if the package is lost or damaged. To avoid being put in a sticky situation by an insistent buyer, state clearly in your terms of sale that international buyers are responsible for all taxes and duties associated with the purchase. Then fill out the customs form to reflect the actual price of the item. Don't include shipping and handling in the price you specify; the buyer shouldn't have to pay tax on those.

What's the cheapest way to ship internationally? "Cheap" may not be the best word to use here. It's expensive to send items overseas. The U. S. Postal Service is probably the least expensive way to go; to get an idea of how much shipping will be to a particular country or region, use the calculator at http://ircalc.usps.gov (Figure 7-14).

For some countries, such as Canada, the U. S. Postal Service is the only shipper that does not charge the buyer hefty "brokerage" (in addition to the customs duties the buyer must pay). Before you select a private shipper, like UPS or FedEx, be sure to check out brokerage fees that shipper charges. If your buyer refuses to pay the brokerage fee, you could get stuck with the bill.

Private shippers like UPS and FedEx offer tracking (so you can prove an item arrived at its destination) and fast delivery, but these shippers tend to be pricey. To compare prices, go to the Web site of your favorite shipper (www.ups.com, www.fedex.com, www.dhl-usa.com, and so on) and use their shipping calculator to get an estimate.