These days international buyers on ebay are witnessing a strange thing take place !!
Nearly all domestic shipping to USA is FREE of charge while international buyers are having to pay an arm and a leg for it.
I just want to shed some light on this matter for everyone; NO ONE likes to pay ANY shipping, that includes us sellers as well, I know for sure that we want our cuotmers to be happy, they are our bloodline, no doubt about that, but the reality of the matter is that shipping IS expensive and compaining about it on your favorit sellers feedbacks or some blog somewhere simply does not bring it down, the only thing it will accomplish is to have less and less sellers wanting to even deal with these transactions since there seems to be no way of making everyone happy.
The top two caririers in USA are VERY expensive and raising rates all the time, so it really leaves one more option, the great USPS ! If a seller walks into a USPS office to ship an item from the USA to UK for example and is faced with charges in the mid 40's for shipping a camera, would it be fair to charge the cusotmer 30-35 for shipping that same item? I would hope so ! The 42.35 charge to be exact does not even include labor etc...
So here is my point :-)
Let's not blame each other for what the "monopoly" of shipping between 2-3 large companies has brough us to. let's blame THEM, by lowering the ratings you give your sellers you are only knipping at the leaves instead of killing hte root
Of course in my naiive mind I have assumed that most people consider the charges to be EXPENSIVE because they believe the seller is pocketing half of it, and that by shedding some light on the realities of shipping there might be a bit more understanding on the matter. This is in no way directly related to my company, just a general occurance that I have been witnessing around the internet, where fewer and fewer sellers are willing to jump through hoops to ship something internatinoally and yet be blamed for the main part of it which by the way is usually stated in advance so in case someone does not agree with the cost they can simply refrain from making the purchase rather than compain about it later.
Let's remember everything has a price, if the price is not right we must let the people making the price know rather than those cahrging it, the voice of a dozen shippers will not be nearly as powerful as the voice of hundreds of thousands of consumers