eBay want you to sell to Russia and Brazil as they’re two of the fastest growing emerging markets in the world. Despite recent unrest, Brazil is going to get a double boost to their economy over the next few years hosting both the 2014 Football World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
eBay say that consumers in these countries are already looking to eBay and that Russian shoppers bought more than $400 million in goods from eBay sellers in 2012. eBay now also makes it easy for Russian and Brazilian consumers, showing only items that ship to their country and for Russia, translating to Russian language and currency.
Feedback Protection for Russia and Brazil
As an added incentive to offer your items and great service to buyers in Russia and Brazil, eBay now offers from any customs delays. If one of your Russian or Brazilian buyers files an eBay Buyer Protection case and leaves leaves a seller negative or neutral feedback, or a low detailed seller rating related to postage time or not receiving an item, eBay will remove all feedback for the transaction if you resolved the issue promptly with the buyer.
Resolving the transaction means the seller has refunded the buyer, or the buyer has voluntarily closed the Buyer Protection case. That does of course mean that you need to communicate with your buyer and successfully resolve the complaint (do you speak Russian or Portuguese?).
If you want to sell to Russia and Brazil simply make sure that these countries are included in the postage details section of your listings and specify postage costs and they’ll show up for buyers in these countries automatically.
15 Responses
It still means a great deal of extra work and the likelihood of being out of pocket and STILL having negative feedback (if the case cannot be resolved) for issues entirely outside your control.
All my orders go out by ordinary post and I check the Royal Mail Service Updates to see how many places have serious delivery issues.
I still take a chance and ship to Brazil and Russia on a case by case basis if I am persuaded that I am dealing with an experienced eBayer who understands English and who understands the issues. Of course, that is no shield from negative feedback but so far, it has worked.
At the very least, eBay should read those service updates (above) and radically extend the expected delivery times (for Russia especially).
I would prefer a ‘Confirmation of Posting is Enough’ list of countries where buyers take on all responsibility once the item is handed over to Royal Mail (with proof of posting). Better that than sellers refusing orders.
I would prefer a ‘Confirmation of Posting is Enough’ list of countries where buyers take on all responsibility….
….or for eBay to expand the Global Shipping Program to Russia and Brazil and make it available to all sellers and then eBay take on the responsibility once the item gets to them…
Unless paypal are involved this is completely useless.
You will long since have lost a paypal INR case,by the time ebay remove any Negs.
NEVER ship to Russia…. unless you have a very understanding buyer.
In my experience Russian and Brazilian customers are very patient and understanding.
I have had no problems with Brazil only with Russia. Most buyers are understanding but a few are not and take up a lot of time but I think it is still worth sending. It would be helpful if eBay would mention to buyers in Russia of these problems.
How very kind of eBay to protect the seller. At zero cost to eBay themselves, obviously.
Now then, who foots the bill for the items that were never received by 2 of the most plagued-with-liars countries? The seller of course!
My advice is block both countries as I did a couple of years ago. Then you won’t need some cheap feedback incentive at all.
Nice try eBay.
I would consider selling here when feedback, in it’s current outmoded incarnation, is abandoned. As it surely will be one day.
Frankly, the “protection ” on offer is laughable. It’s bad enough on our own shores.
I don’t see how this will make a difference unless you can prove a customs delay, which is unlikely.
In the main my experience with these 2 countries has been good from a customer perspective, even if the delivery performance sucks.
You get the odd inexperienced buyer who doesn’t understand, and causes problems, but overall customers are patient.
It isn’t even as easy as tracked. Not all of Brazil is covered by their post tracking so items looked undelivered when they are actually in the customer’s hands, and ebay treat them as undelivered. It isn’t much use when you have paid the ISF fee to Royal Mail.
Overall I’ve taken the view that the sales far outweigh the losses. I don’t support the idea stated above that these countries are populated by liars. I’ve had both Russians and Brazilians come back to me after many months telling me they finally received an item I had already refunded, and how can they pay for it again.
The biggest issue really is that ebay’s delivery expectations and dispute system is totally out of synch with the reality of shipping to these 2 countries.
What if they don’t open a buyer protection case?. I’ve had case where I wake up one morning, no item not received message, but one or more negatives. More and more customers, when they do contact, contact me through general questions.
Interesting. I have just had to process another refund for an INR to Italy. I am fed up.. over the years it must be well into 3 digits loss. Small beer in the long run, but not really worth it. I don’t have any big buyers in Italy so I wont miss them.
Oh, Brazil and Russia have been on my exclusion list for years. They are NEVER coming off…. consider not even UPS or any of the other big name couriers can ensure delivery of your parcel.
Good luck all.
Unfortunately I’ve excluded Russia, all of South America & Italy for the last 6 months due to the amount of ‘lost’ post. I have stated on my listings that I will send to these countries as long as they are prepared to pay for International Tracking but with the Royal Mail recent price increases that’s an extra £5.30 which is quite high.
The last parcel I sent to Russia took 3 months to get there – I had to refund £40 to the customer as Paypal got involved and I had no option. On the plus side my customer was very honest and on receipt of the parcel actually sent me my money back!!!
ebay we sell for money we dont sell for feedback, if our moneys not guaranteed or at least protected ,
why would fedback matter?
before we blocked russia ,paypal held £ 1200 of russian sales for a month because of item not received claims , ebay would need to limit conditions for holding our money ,if we were ever going to sell to russia again
No chance, We tried one sample to Russia with Fed Ex once and it really did not work out, Fed Ex Charged us for every day it was held up.
Brazil well we sell electronics and I believe there is issues sending items there as they want people to buy in there own country.
Now I would not mind living in Brazil and eBay encouraging me to ship back to the UK 😉