Recently I had some dresses I no longer wanted and decided to sell them on ebay. However, they were by an Australian designer who had very little following here in the UK so the chances of getting a good price for them on the UK site was minimal. I decided to sell them on Ebay's Australia site. Selling internationally turned out to be so easy! If you have items that are worth more in their own country than they are here (and you don't mind sending them internationally) then it's worth a go. Here's what you do....
For sake of argument I will assume you already have a seller's account here on ebay and are registered with Pay Pal.
Go to the Site Map (the link is on the very bottom of most pages)
Look down the middle column 'Sell' and click on the 'Sell Internationally' option.
Up will pop a world map. Click on the country you want. I clicked on Australia for my items.
You should now find yourself on the international site you clicked.
Now, just go ahead and list the stuff you want to sell as you would normally.
Make sure you know what the latest currency conversion rate (just google 'currency conversion' and a table will come up) and you may need to schedule the start of your auction so it doesn't start or finish at some inappropriate hour.
When that's all done, the listing will come up in your My Ebay listings along with anything else you are selling.
When your item sells, you will need to go back into the international site using the steps above to send an invoice to your customer...you can't do it from the UK site.
When the person pays you with Pay Pal, you will need to claim or accept the money. (I didn't realise this at first and wondered why their payment appeared to be pending for a long time!) To claim the money you will need to go into your Pay Pal account to the overview page, find their pay pal payment and click on the box that asks if you want to accept the payment. It will give you a choice of collecting it in dollars or whatever, but just go ahead and click on the conversion to pounds option so it goes straight into your account and you can post the item off to the buyer.
Don't forget to keep that proof of posting really safe. Sending stuff to far away places can take weeks, and some countries have rather dodgy postal arrangements but as long as you can prove that you posted the item you should not be liable for any refunds for items that never arrived. With proof of posting you can lodge a claim against the Post Office for lost items but without it you can't.
Leaving and receiving feedback is done in the usual way. It will all show up on your UK profile.
So that's it. It is well worth looking into the possibility of selling abroad especially since the UK is a hard environment in which to sell just at present. Selling on an international website is a piece of cake and as long as you remember to claim your Pay Pal money, there should be no problems.
Just one more thing. Do make sure your refund policy includes provisions for refunding and accepting returns from abroad. You could be well out of pocket if your buyer expects you to pay for the return of a coat that didn't fit, for example.
Enjoy your international sales!
)
