Ebay - No Shipping Outside USA

For me, as a seller, it's because tracking and insurance are almost impossible when a coin leaves the USA's borders. Lower-value stuff is fine, but I'm hesitant to sell a $US500 coin to someone with no way of proving they ever got it.

In UK we have got international signed for postal service.I can not see any problem with shipping coins around the world.All insured and trackable.Cost around 10$.

I can think of a few more reasons why US sellers only ship to the US.

Language difficulties: allowing people from other countries to bid increases the likelihood that the winning bidder will have a limited grasp of English. Mistranslation or miscommunication can easily cause a transaction to go south in a hurry. That's a hassle some people would rather not have to deal with.

Shipping costs: the seller would have to research how much they should charge to send stuff overseas, and include all that info in their listing.

International Laws: some countries forbid the sale of certain items which are legal on US ebay. ebay France, for instance, forbids the selling of anything with a swastika on it, including genuine Nazi-era German coins and artifacts. ebay Canada forbids the listing of repro Canadian coins, whether they're marked "COPY" or not. If someone in France or Canada can see your auction of such items, they can report it to their local ebay and get your auction pulled. Far safer to make it hard for them to find your items in the first place.

Laziness or unawareness: Some people simply don't know that changing the "ships to" country can make a difference, or even that people in other countries might want to bid on their coins. I understand that "ships to USA Only" is the default setting on US ebay. Some people are happy to ship overseas but haven't figured out how to adjust the settings for the listing to change it. If you manage to find one of their listings anyway and actually asked them, they'd say "Yes, we'll certainly ship overseas". But you can't easily tell the difference between such people and people who are genuinely hostile to the idea, because their listings look the same, and they're equally invisible if you run a "show only available to my country" search.

Lack of Paypal protection: Paypal offers very little seller protection to stuff sent outside a very restricted list of countries, and acceptance of Paypal is now mandatory on ebay; sellers aren't allowed to say "No ebay accepted from countries X, Y, Z" anymore. For example Bobby, the owner of this forum, has a very long list of "excluded countries" he won't ship to, most of which I believe are excluded for this very reason. Other sellers, on discovering this flaw with Paypal, feel it's easier and safer to simply stick with USA sellers only.

I just sent 2 Russian Mint Sets overseas and the postage was higher than the coins.There is NO receipt authorization available and had to mark them as 'Books' or they would have been stolen.That's why.

Hi everyone,
Thanks for your thoughts and experiences so far.
I have so far bought many coins from several countries, including USA with only very few low price coins never reaching me and no bad surprise from the States so far.
I understand it is not easy to figure out the postage for all countries, but if asked by someone, why refuse?
It's not even sure he will win the auction, but he will very probably do his contribution to a higher price.
I have bought from ebay and from professional dealers outside ebay - all of them have found a solution for international shipping.
That's just my thought.

Sure.There is not a problem with sending stuff to Canada(even though they talk funny) but other countries are a problem. Not saying that it isn't possible,just the hoops that BIG sellers have to jump through they feel that 300,000,000 people are enough I guess.I say, I would send anything under 50 bucks..
By the way Vald. Interesting coin.Cheers

Exactly! To me it's not worth the risk when I can find a buyer in the US. I've had some HORRIBLE experiences shipping outside the USA in the past, I've been absolutely burned in a few different ways. The scars will never heal....but my lesson has been learned. LOL

I know this thread is about the reluctance of some sellers to ship outside the U.S.
But, I've also noticed the same for buyers from the U.S. I've bought coins from foreign(?) countries that would have done way better price wise had they been sold in the U.S. This limiting of competition on international items is fine with me, and I'm often surprised at the speedy delivery(often with signature required), at such an inexpensive shipping rate. eg: items from Thailand & Phillipines with delivery confirmation for approx $4.50us.

... and on a side note... there are items for sale on this forum that U.S. ship only. I can think of one instance where I thought 'tis a pity... well, something like that anyway. But, I ain't gonna bother with trying to change the seller's mind, they've got their reasons and I have personally experienced making an international postal claim... It took 18 months and many documents and lotsa time and research, but I finally got my 60 bucks!