Tips for Americans doing European Ebay transactions?

[josekortez]

I want to start bidding on PAL game releases on Ebay, but I don't even know how to go about getting money orders and things of that nature, so does anybody here have any tips? I appreciate any suggestions from either side of the pond...

[Mayhem]

Use Paypal? You'll find quite a lot of European sellers more willing to ship international and take electronic payments, and hence the necessary evil here will expedite matters considerably. Failing that, cash through the mail is also possible, despite what they say about not doing it. Before most of my payments starting going through Paypal, I used to send cash a lot and none of them ever went missing.

Expect postage costs to be more, but not horrendously expensive unless you're wanting to ships tons of stuff. Expect smaller items to be roughly the same cost to send as from the US to abroad, with larger stuff exponentially increasing.

[davidleeroth]

UK is known for it's higher postage costs and generally items tend to be a bit more expensive than on the mainland.

Germany is a good place to start, many of the sellers accept wire transfer and cash only so be sure to check your bank's rate on the international transfer before you go about it.

Then again, if you're not after the most recent releases, you'll be better off mailing me your want list and let me get my hustle on

"Pal from the other side"

[hydr0x]

paypal or cash, only very few accept money orders as this method is not used to often in europe

expect quite high shipping costs from germany though, it's nearly impossible to ship anything to the US of A for under 10 Euro

but you should ask yourself if it's a good time to buy things from europe as the euro/dollar exchange rate is very bad for importing to the us, those 10 euro shipping costs would already be about 12.50 usd...

[Vroomfunkel]

As for me, I happily ship items to the USA. Paypal is the easiest method, practically perfect in every way, as Mary Poppins would say. After that, my next preferred method of payment is cash in the post. I have received numerous payments like this - from the US, Sweden, Portugal ... and sent many, many more cash payments myself - and none of them has ever gone missing. I always place notes only (even if I have to round up a bit), in between two pieces of thin card. I then write on the envelope "Do Not Bend - Photos!". It's reverse psychology .. the envelope is almost guaranteed to arrive bent every which way, but no shifty postie is going to risk his job opening up a letter which promises no more than a few dull holiday snaps

Money orders ... simply not worth the hassle - they cost a lotta money, and a lot of UK banks will not even accept them. Bidpay is next best - except there is a $5 charge - but you can pay with them, and they will send a UK Sterling cheque. Expect the seller to ask you to pay the $5 fee though.

Or, if the seller will not accept Paypal, Bidpay etc and you don't want to send cash ... find a nice UK freind, Paypal the money to them (with a little extra to cover the fees) and let them pay the seller

Oh, and postage needn't be prohibitive .. I can ship most games to the US from the UK for $5 - $6. Which, I have noticed, is less than some US sellers charge for domestic postage!!!

Vroomfunkel

[garethamiga]

I back up what Vroomfunkel said; he didn't say it just to get you blokes to buy his stuff then charge you US$50 shipping. :-)

By the way, Vroomfunkel, I noticed you used 'none' as a singular word.
It's too easy to make the mistake of using it as though it were plural. Thank you!