We advertised an item and stated UK postage. But now someone has purchased the item in Sweden.

[gerbo.ge.nr6utby0]

We advertised an item and stated UK postage. But now someone has purchased the item in Sweden. Can we honour this purchase? What do we have to do?

[m25jet]

Given that you have not yet reached the minimum requirement of ten positive UK buyer feedbacks since you first started selling you will not be eligible to sell to buyers from outside the UK, although in order to stop overseas buyers from being able to bid on your auctions or commit to buying anything you've listed as Buy It Now you will need to update your Selling Preferences.  You may not have included an overseas postage option on your listings, but that alone is not enough to stop overseas buyers from purchasing anything from you.  In order to do that you will need to update your Selling Preferences as explained below:

First of all go back to your My eBay page and clic on the Account tab.  When the next page loads up look at the options under the Account Preferences headijng at the top of the page on the right hand side of the screen.  Click on the second line beneath the Account Preferences title - this is the link that reads "Site Preferences."

Once you have clicked the Site Preferences link a new page will load up.  Scroll down the page until you see the Postage & Packaging Preferences heading in the Selling Preferences section.  Click on the link in that section that says "Postage Preferences" and a new page will appear on the screen entitled "Manage Postal Settings."  Scroll right down to the bottom of the page and on the left hand side of the screen you will see a linie that reads "Exclude Postage Locations" with the options "Domestic" and "International" in the centre.  Click on the "Edit" link to the right of that line and you'll get to a new page where you can change the settings with regards to which countries you do and do not post to.

Given that you do not yet qualify to sell to international buyers look at the lower half of the page, which is entitled "International."  You will see a list of all of the different regions of the world - look at each option in turn.  Tick every box in the International category until you've put a tick in every single box on that page.  By doing that you will be putting a block on every country outside of the British Isles.

Once you've blocked all of the overseas destinations on the International page scroll right down to the bottom of the page and tick the box in the bottom left hand corner next to the sentence that reads "Also Apply To Current Listings" and then click on the blue "Save" button.  As soon as you have done this anybody who lives in any country outside of the British Isles will be unable to purchase anything from you.  Simply listing an item without an international postage option is not enough - you have to actively block all of the overseas destinations that you don't want bids from so as to stop them from getting through in the first place.

In the event that at some point in the future you get to the milestone of having received ten positive feedbacks from satisfied UK buyers then eBay will increase your monthly selling allowance, both in terms of the amount of adverts you can place on the site each month, as well as raising the total amount that you can earn from sales in each calendar month.  In addition to that eBay will also give you the option of selling internationally, although this is by no means compulsory.  If you don't want to sell to international buyers then just leave the blocks in place; however, if after being told by eBay that you can sell to international buyers as well as UK buyers you change your mind then just go back to your Selling Preferences page, untick the boxes next to the blocked areas and that will enable people from that continent to purchase items from you.  However, if you decide to start selling internationally at some point but there are some overseas countries that you do not want to sell to then click on the "Show All Countries" box next to the continent in question and a new list will appear.  Tick the countries that you want to block and leave the boxes blank next to any countries that you don't mind posting items to should an overseas customer from one or more of those destinations choose to buy something from you.  

Finally, if at any time in the future you do decide to venture into overseas selling on eBay - which you will only be allowed to do after you've received ten positive feedbacks from UK buyers - then make sure that you include an overseas postage option on your listings, otherwise if an overseas buyer purchases something from you then they won't be able to pay and you'll have the frustrating situation of having to try and put right what's gone wrong.