Buy local?

Dear Norman,

A quick Google gave this link

http://www.expressmodels.co.uk/acatalog/Kadee_Couplers.html

and for the 20pr pack, it's only £2.50 shipping within the UK...

If you're only looking for standard 2pr packs, the scale-head 14x whisker-spring options are £4.55

GaugeMaster are also Kadee stockists, and any purchase over £15 can be sent with free shipping.

http://www.gaugemaster.com/search_results.asp?searchstring=%20brand~~721~~brand

As for other "New Old Stock" and other not-current-production "eBay bargains", 
I'm not sure what can be done, eBay has no control over the UK post system,
and those sellers who use the "eBay shipping program" are kinda locked-in...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Local

I was about to say the same thing. Why use Ebay when there are shops in your country that can help?

I don't get it

I've done a lot of selling/buying on eBay with foreign customers. I've sold inexpensive items to buyers in England and mailed them international first class letter rate for only a few dollars. I'd have to dig through my old records but I know nobody who's ever bought anything from me has ever paid anything remotely close to those outrageous sums. Somebody is pocketing a little something extra. The eBay mailing system allows the seller to conceal his actual postage price so maybe the seller in question is just taking advantage.

Barry P.

Global Shipping Program

Sounds like the dreaded GSP eBay has running.  Most American sellers don't realize the costs, they just set their shipping to GSP as that is what eBay wants, then they ship it to eBay's distributors and they, in turn, forward it to the international seller at a significant markup.  It makes it easier for domestic sellers to ship to foreign countries, but almost always makes it not worth the cost to the foreign buyer (or the foreign buyer feels ripped off).  

I rarely buy anything from the US on eBay anymore unless it is an incredible deal, which is very rare these days.  Most things I see on eBay (new items) are more expensive than many online hobby shops.

...

The sellers are not ripping you off.  It's the postal services who are ripping you off.  Get it straight...

My last First Class box to Canada cost $9.50 to ship from Washington State to British Columbia here roughly a week ago.  Thank god it wasn't International Priority...And no, that wasn't a machine that did the freight, it was a good old fashioned over the counter clerk.  But the machine tells him the same thing it tells me if I used the Automated Postal Clerk.  And No, this was not an Ebay transaction, either!!

The postal services REALLY upped their rates here in the last five years, those who haven't shipped in a while will be in for a surprise.

And no, there are no cheaper routes these days.  I stopped accepting international bids about ten years ago for just this matter [it was already slipping back then].  It's just not worth it to ship it to a buyer when the freight is more than what it's worth!

What about eBay UK or Amazon UK?

Benny

$9.50 is CHEAP compared to many rates you see as a Canadian, even within our own country.  If I could get stuff shipped to me for $10-15 from the US, I'd be OK with that.  You've also proven that eBay's GSP fees are significantly higher than they should be if you got a box across the border for $9.50.

The last thing I bought out of the US ended up costing me $40US for shipping, plus the cross-border fees.  It was a $700 item, though, and even with the exorbitant shipping cost and cross-border fees, I still got it about $200Cdn cheaper than getting it here.  But that is rare.  Almost all my purchases are within Canada now.

There are also many, many sellers who mark down their items and then have shipping costs in the $40-$60 range when I know it doesn't cost nearly that to send a small package.  Have shipping costs gone up?  Sure, but I don't have a problem with that - the shipping companies have to make money, too and the two national postal outfits don't.

Free shipping's not free

Following Joe's advice, I've looked at Ebay UK.

The bulk pack at £23.69 may say free shipping, but the small print says postage £42!!!

Caveat Emptor

David

...

Dave, that item was a small box under 8 ounces in weight.  First class box. 

[Found the receipt.  2.8 ounces, to be exact!!]

In the US, it would have shipped for $2-$3.

So I believe you when you say the rest!!

Transport Cost.

Why not by local for instance at Model Junction in UK 

KADEES IN THE UK

I buy mine from http://www.modeljunction.info/estore/ here in the UK, great service, good prices.

John Levesley

https://bearwoodamrg.wordpress.com/

I buy mine from

I buy mine from http://www.modeljunction.info/estore/ in the UK, great service, good prices.

John Levesley

Huh?

Following Joe's advice, I've looked at Ebay UK.

The bulk pack at £23.69 may say free shipping, but the small print says postage £42!!!

Caveat Emptor

David

Are you in the UK or outside? I find it rather questionable that a UK buyer would be charged that from a UK source.

In any case, an order from Gaugemaster to a UK wouldn't be expensive, at least not to a UK address.

Gaugemaster's shipping policy: http://www.gaugemaster.com/terms.html

Economy shipping rules:

Mainland UK orders above a value of £15.00 can be sent carriage free using our economy service, with the exception of orders containing one or more items above a length of 600mm and below £25.00 total order value.  Orders conforming to this exception will be charged carriage at cost, (not to exceed £4.95). Orders using promotions to reduce the amount payable to zero will be charged carriage of £2.50.   Mainland UK orders below a value of £15.00 will incur a small orders handling charge of £2.50.  Mainland UK orders solely for catalogues are exempt from the small orders handling charge, orders consisting of solely free of charge catalogues will be charged carriage at £2.50.  Overseas customers are charged carriage at cost.  VAT will not be charged on orders sent outside the European Union.  We will not be liable for any duty or import taxes that may occur.  Please note that carriage is calculated primarily by weight, the heavier the items ordered, the higher the carriage charge will be.  Carriage for all non mainland UK ordes will be calculated upon checkout of the order, the cheapest available option will be shown.

Andre

A deal is only a deal at the bottom line

I sell a lot of HO stuff through eBay overseas.  The only sensible way to ship is USPS for me.  Because they are and have been going broke for many years, they are raising their rates every year, and also changing the cost structure.  A few years ago it was cheaper to send a package to Windsor than Detroit.  They changed that.  Now the smallest package runs about $8.  Where the smallest package anywhere in the US is $2.  

This years changes have once again increased the prices, still by far the lowest rate.  The also reduced the number of price change increments. They are now, 8 oz, 33 oz, 49 oz & 64 oz for international first class.  64 oz and above has to be priority.  The significance of this is four cars can ship for the same cost as one.  I also find that  two 35 oz boxes will often cost less than one 66 oz box.  

The point to this is cost and structure of shipping is changing at least yearly.  As a buyer, you need to be aware of this.  USPS has an international shipping calculator on their web site.  You can get an estimate of what to expect from that.  Then you can compare what the seller wants to charge.  The shipping cost is not just the price to the transporter, but that is the major amount.  Additional cost should not be more than a few dollars more.  

At the end of the day, the best deal is the one that quality service for the lowest overall cost.  Ebay's global shipping service is not a good deal for the buyer.  For the seller, he does not have to worry about items getting lost.  Certain regions of the world, this can be a real issue.  If your in Australia, Canada or the UK, this should not be a concern.

MRH Store and shipping

International shipping rates have almost doubled in the last few years, and the MRH Store is feeling the bite, too. However, we have a strategy we will be moving to in 2017 that should result in faster shipments at far lower prices.

Amazon offers a service to small businesses they call Amazon Fulfillment. Basically, you send boxes of your product to various Amazon warehouses (at Amazon's super cheap rates because they have bulk postage deals set up).

Then the store owner (MRH in this case) can use a special Amazon Fufillment order screen to ask them to ship a given product to a specific customer. Amazon then pulls and packs the product order for you right along with everything else they're shipping and throws the order in with the planeload that's already going there. 

(In our case, our ecommerce site has an automated interface to Amazon Fufillment, so it's completely hands off. We just need to keep our product in stock at the Amazon warehouse.)

The result is Amazon's fast and cheap shipping for little guys like the MRH Store. Just one example ...

If we ship a paperback (weight about one pound) to the UK ourselves, it's $21 USPS International and it's a couple weeks. If we ship using Amazon Fulfillment, it's under $10 and it should get there in less than a week. Even with the fee Amazon charges per order to do this for us, we pay less overall to ship and the customer gets their order with the usual speed Amazon is known for - and pays a lot less as well.

Big win-win ... I'm betting most mom-and-pop model railroading businesses are not even aware this is possible. If the number of different products you list is rather small (under 50 say), this is a great option. But if you have a lot of fiddly products or you're making your products as they're ordered, then this isn't going work as well.

USPS

When I ship overseas I use the USPS. Can send a 4 pound box first class, anything over that is Priority. For Ebay don't ever use their system  but  use the USPS and added tracking. Most orders to Europe have been taking about ten days .  But then to Canada do to their using dog sleds any order even  just across the boarder in Vancouver BC takes 2 weeks. On my web site orders I set the rate high and then refund any overage and that has been working out OK so far.  You just need to do some checking around for the best seller as I know some that say free shipping  but have added the postage plus all the ebay- paypal fees to their buy it now price.

rich