Items to the USA

[gameantiques]

I visited my friendly local Post Office today to post a small board backed envelope to USA today - a normal size letter under 100gms with customs label for the contents as per the updated instructions from 10 days ago only to be told that the guidance changed again last Friday when it was disclosed that with immediate effect from last Friday items containing gifts or goods can only be sent by 'tracked' or 'tracked and signed' all standard & economy airmail services have temporarily been suspended. Most of my sales to US are below £30 so this makes sending anything to the USA under £30 totally impractical. Prior to Trumps tariffs posting to US was safe and efficient but now a nightmare.

[style_wise]

In my opinion, eBay made it clear about a year ago that their systems were changing to favour Sellers using Tracked services. So after many years of sending small untracked items overseas (like you do) I made the difficult decision to join the 21st Century. Now everything goes RM Tracked and/or Signed (country availability depending).

People actually seem happier. Modern buyers expect tracking, even when they don't pay for it! Yes, it pains me to charge double of untracked, but now I never have 'where's my item' queries and INR cases. Plus T&S are given priority so arrive much faster. Especially now that CBP in the States seems completely disorganized - try searching for tariff info on their website 🤣 - and additional Customs delays are to be expected, I highly recommend switching to T&S.

[pillarboxred]

Yes, don't martyr yourself for eBay's sake. Stop selling to the US. UK prices are very low but, even before the TTariffs (geddit?) US postage attracted a 10% charge from eBay which could easily push low profit items into loss.