I looked into shipping just a frameset outside the USA a couple months ago. Because of the overall size of the box, the surcharges caused the shipping price to be an astounding $600-700 via FedEx or USPS. I checked it on-line and in-person and that's what I was quoted both times with both carriers.
Thus I don't blame him for not wanting to take the risk of sending his entire bike overseas, even if the buyer is willing to pay the postage. The way eBay & PayPal have it set up, you're at the mercy of someone on the other end being reasonable with their evaluation of your used bike worth thousands of dollars, and you are also on the hook for the postage if they decide they don't like it for any given reason. No thanks. You don't know whether you are going to get someone with 3 feedback or 300 feedback placing the winning bid. There's NO way to screen for that. But since buyers can no longer receive negative feedback on eBay, their feedback system for buyers is essentially meaningless anyway.
So, I too would stick with USA-only buyers in that circumstance. Though as we discussed a while back, overall I have had very good luck selling individual parts to overseas buyers and I encourage others to try it, so long as the buyer is willing to pay for traceable shipping costs.
Going back to the shipping price for large boxes containing a frameset or bike, have any of you found a reasonable (under $200), reliable & SAFE method of shipping framesets overseas? I prefer staying with familiar carriers like FedEx or USPS but perhaps there's a different cost-effective carrier?
Mark Winkelman
Dallas, Texas USA
> The Colnago that was being parted out is now on Ebay as a complete bike.
> The seller has put a $999 starting bid on it with a ballsy no reserve.
> Since we seem to be responsible for this development I hope he gets a good
> price. At 51cm someone may want to tell him to ship to Asia.
>
> URL:
> http://ebay.com/
> Ebay Item #: 220608108429
>
> George Allen
> Lexington, Ky
> USA
>
>
>
>
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