Buyer from US charged cheaper shipping option that is only available to EU

[lollopaloozer]

So I got a strange one. I have a postage policy for heavier items, flat rate price for European Union/Europe and flat rate price for the rest of the world.

Buyer from United States managed to place an order with the cheaper option that is only available for Europe.

I had multiple orders to United States with the correct shipping price in the past days, only difference with this one was its going to Oregon so they didn´t get charged with sales tax etc.

Its not a massive price difference so not really gonna bother risking getting a negative from cancelling the order, but still quite confused how they got charged cheaper shipping price when its not even offered to buyers with United States addresses.

[marco@ebay]

Hi lollopaloozer, thanks for your post.

If you confirm the item number, I'd be happy to look into that for you to see what happened.

Thank you,

Marco

[lollopaloozer]

Hello Marco.

Item number is 286132741560. I had two more sales to the United States for the same item and now they were also charged the cheaper shipping option. I don´t understand how that is possible when I´ve only ticked European Union and European countries for the cheaper shipping option in my shipping policy.

[marco@ebay]

Thanks for your reply, lollopaloozer.

I will get that reported for you now, and as soon as I get further updates on this, I will post back here to let you know.

Thank you,

Marco

[marco@ebay]

Hi lollopaloozer, just a quick follow up on this.

Could you please confirm the item numbers for the other 2 transactions where you experienced this as well?

Thank you,

Marco

[lollopaloozer]

It was a multi-quantity listing so the item number should be the same that I listed above.

[marco@ebay]

Hi lollopaloozer, thanks for the reply above.

Due to your account being originally registered in the US, we are unable to bring your request any further. We are only able to action and provide advise on UK accounts only over here. We have a community page for the US as well, if you click here, you will be redirected to our US page and the community team over there might be able to assist you further.

Alternatively, you can contact our customer support team, and they will be able to look into it for you no problem.

Thank you,

Marco

[pillarboxred]

You can cancel the order with the reason that the buyer asked for something you don't do or was not in the listing. Why should you lose out from fear of  getting a negative? You can reply to a negative and make the buyer look like a greedy chancer.
You can open a UK account and sell on it. Heavier items are not worth selling to the USA unless they are very expensive because the 10%+ eBay takes on postage can eclipse the profit you have made. I now think that most items will have a buyer in the UK and the US is only useful when an item is in high demand and there is extra money to be made from strong US demand which is very, very seldom. You get a large "turnover" from US selling with high fees from the high postage and little profit.
Worked example: item cost £10 Final Value price £20 postage to USA £40 = eBay fee of £6+ yielding profit £3+ but  less when packing materials and other incidentals are taken into account.