Add international shipping option for Republic of Ireland

[shovio]

Hi,

I'm a private Northern Ireland seller of books (hobby).  I haven't been getting any buyers from the Republic of Ireland which I suspect is because Ebay has been offering them extortionate postage rates via the Global Shipping Programme (GSP).

I don't think it would cost much more for me to post to ROI as it does for me to post to the rest of the UK.  And if push comes to shove I could hop over the border and post via An Post!

According to the GSP Preferences page I should be able to customise international shipping for some locations.  But when I follow the instructions, I find my Ebay looks nothing like the screenshots/videos.  Is that because the option is only open to business sellers?

Regards,

Shovio

[fargvs]

Visit your nearest Post Office and use Royal Mail postage for your ROI Buyers (set Europe rate postage) ... less hastle, more convenient and less expensive than GSP.   (or Magilligan ferry for a day out !).

[plpmr]

adding to the advice already given -

GSP is exorbitant, for example -  Visions of Ancient Leicester BIN £6.80 plus Global charges of £14.79 to Eire.

[shovio]

Thanks both.  It's useful to have an example of how much GSP is charging too.

The question is - how do I turn off GSP for Ireland?

[ile136yz]

 Remember that eBay charge the UK Seller International Fees at higher rates (can be seen in the eBay's Guidelines for International Sales)

[shovio]

Thanks ile136yz - presumably there's nothing I can do about that?

I still don't know how I can go about posting to the ROI...?  Currently Ebay is only offering the GSP option.

[ile136yz]

I tried out GSP for a short period of time when I posted Internationally & remember that there was a choice of using my own International postage at the same time.  The details were on the GSP settings (but this was a year ago).

I went back to arranging my own International postage as before. The items I advertised Internationally were of low value, so there would only be a small loss if an eBay case was opened.

At the moment I'm selling to UK only. I noticed recently one of my Buyers Registered in ROI purchased an item & had it sent to a Post Office in Northern Ireland (I was charged the normal rate of eBay fees with it being sent to N. Ireland & arrived quickly).

[shovio]

I’m quite happy for Ebay to apply GSP for everywhere outside of the UK and ROI.  I’m just a hobby seller so I don’t want to have to worry about sorting out international postage.  ile136yz that’s one savvy ROI buyer using an NI Post Office.  One of the perks of living near the border!

I’m still trying to find out how to exclude ROI from the GSP, so that I can post there myself.  I found this video which seems to suggest I could:

1. Select countries and regions I don’t want to manually post to.  So that would be everywhere except ROI and UK.
2. Tick the box to override my postage exclusions with GSP.  So then GSP would be offered to everyone outside of ROI and UK?

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=ebay+turn+off+gsp+for+some+destinations#fpstate=i...

However, when I click the button to edit “exclude postage locations” it does not list any countries.  See attached screenshot.

 

[shovio]

Here’s another way of doing it, but it took me a while to re-find it.  This says I can customise international shipping and offer alternative shipping services for some locations.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/prf/GspPreference

When I tried to create a listing at the weekend, it didn’t show any eligible locations to choose from.

I’ve checked again now and I see they’ve implemented a new listing form which now has a postage policy, so I guess I now need to figure out if I can create a postage policy which will do what I need.

 

[shovio]

Ok, how does this look as a postage policy?  Is this the right way to go about doing it?

[ile136yz]

Looks good.

[shovio]

Cool, thanks.

[ile136yz]

I checked your adverts after a few hours & it is only showing UK postage.

I entered the settings on my adverts to see what differs.  The photo IAdd Post Worldwidehave added shows you need to add Will post Worldwide, so your International postage setting for ROI and GSP for the rest of the world will be applied.

[shovio]

Yea, I’ll probably not get around to changing anything till the weekend.  And I don’t think I’ll apply the change to existing listings because some of the books weigh more than 2kg, so I can’t apply a blanket postage policy.  I do want to implement the new policies for a bunch of Irish-interest books which I have yet to list.

I just had a play around with those “Will post to the United Kingdom and the following” and “Will post worldwide” options and I think it only makes a difference when I don’t have the GSP option ticked. 

I guess if I have GSP turned on with “Will post worldwide” then the buyer may have the opportunity to contact me alternative postage arrangements?